KUALA LUMPUR: Top 300 Malaysian companies have been invited to commit to gender equality and economic empowerment of women.
LeadWomen Sdn Bhd and UN Women have extended the invitation, targeting 300 leading companies in Malaysia by September 2021.
The commitment includes a growing movement in Asia to realise women's full and equal participation in the economy and the unmet business potential, guided by the Women's Empowerment Principles (WEPs).
LeadWomen chief executive officer Dr Marcella Lucas said the WEPs Principles fell directly in line with the work that LeadWomen had been involved in over the past nine years.
"Previous progress has been a critical step in the right direction, but the momentum must be maintained.
"This partnership will permit and accelerate the overarching objective of increasing women's representation at the leadership level and across entire organisations and the marketplace," she said in a statement.
Established by the UN Women and United Nations Global Compact, the WEPs promote business practices that empower women.
Signing the WEPs demonstrates a commitment by CEOs for Malaysia's companies to collaborate with multi-stakeholder networks on issues such as increased representation of women in key decision-making roles, equal pay for work of equal value, gender-responsive supply chain practices and zero tolerance against sexual harassment in the workplace.
To achieve this, the WeEmpowerAsia programme, a UN Women initiative funded by the European Union (EU), will be leveraged for its technical support with help from LeadWomen.
UN Women's WeEmpowerAsia Regional Programme manager Katja Freiwald highlighted that the LeadWomen's efforts in the field of women's economic empowerment had supported and encouraged many aspiring women leaders across sectors.
"Together, we will get one big step closer to advancing our shared goals. To date, we have more than 3,650 WEPs signatories worldwide, and joining the WEPs community means being part of this global initiative".
The LeadWomen-UN Women collaboration will involve two workstreams which includes raising awareness about the WEPs among 300 selected companies in Malaysia through a series of dedicated webinars, the first of which will be held on Nov 5, 2020.
LeadWomen has been one of the key stakeholders involved in driving for increased women representation on boards of Malaysian public listed companies (PLCs) since 2012.
Their effort has contributed towards achieving 26.3 per cent women directors on the top 100 PLC boards to date.