January 2020

WEPs Bulletin:

Equality Means BusinessWe are officially into 2020, the year that wecelebrate 10 Years since the establishment of the
Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs+10)!
As we move into this new decade we are happy to be bringing you more tools, moreguidance, and deeper engagement to really move the needle for gender-responsive
business conduct.
If you haven’t done so already, please visit our new home www.wep.org.
*WEPs “In Support of” logo policy has changed. To use the “In Support of” logo,
signatories must agree to the Terms and Conditions and complete and sign theAgreement Form. Once the agreement is completed, a high-resolution PNG and AI files
will be provided.

Read on for more updates!

Global WEPs Signatories

Around the world, companies are advancing
gender equality in the workplace,marketplace and community.
Now 2,771 companies have joined our WEPs community
with the largest interest coming from the support
services, financial services, software and computer
services, personal goods, food producers sectors.
The top 5 countries with the most WEPs signatories areTurkey, Brazil, Japan, Spain, USA.

Opinion: To mark the 20th anniversary

Interview: Danone Italy created anof the adoption of the ILO Maternity
Protection Convention, 2000 (No. 183)
in 2020, Laura Addati, Maternity
Protection and Work Family Specialist

inclusive and customized childcare
support programme for its employees.
Sonia Malaspina, Human Resources
Director Specialized Nutrition South

of ILO makes a call to all organizations
to commit to guarantee paid leave to allparents in every workplace andcompany.

Europe, Danone explains how they
achieved it and created a real impact
on its employees through improved
jobs and skills-related outcomes.

Read On

Read On

EVENTS AND OPPORTUNITIESUN Women, UN Global Compact and the UN Office for Partnerships are coorganizing the annual WEPs Forum, to be held on 12 March 2020. The year
2020 is a pivotal year for advancing gender equality worldwide, as theglobal community celebrates twenty-five years since the adoption of theBeijing Declaration and Platform for Action (Beijing+25). It will also markseveral other galvanizing moments in the gender equality movement: the10th anniversary of the WEPs (WEPs+10); the 10th anniversary of UN
Women’s establishment; a five-year milestone towards achieving theSustainable Development Goals; and the 20th anniversary of UN Security
Council resolution 1325 on women, peace and security.

Call for Case Studies
TheWE
EMPOWER
programme of UN Women,
European Union and ILO is in
the process of gathering insightsfrom companies who have
implemented promising andinnovative measures for genderequalityandwomen’sempowerment. We aim todocument
theseconcretemeasures into case studies.

Learn more

Business Leaders Drive
Change in Georgia
The 2019 WEPs Conference“BusinessLeaders
DriveforChange” gathered representativesof the private sector to discusspromising practices in promoting
gender equality in Tbilisi, Georgia.
READ ON

Conference on "Women’s
Empowerment Principles" inMoldova
On December 4, the "Women’s
Empowerment
Principles
Equalitymeans
Business"
conference
washeldin
Moldova. The first results of theWEPs piloting initiative withintheprivate
sectorwerepresented.

More here
GENERATION EQUALITYFORUM
UN Women is proud to announce
the launch of the momentous
Generation Equality Forum, a global
gathering for gender equality, cohosted by the Governments ofFrance and Mexico. Kicking off in
Mexico City, Mexico on 7-8 May
2020, the Forum will culminate inParis, France on 7-10 July 2020.

Learn more

RESOURCESWomen's Empowerment
Principles in Georgia
Thisbooklet
presents
selectedexamples of how WEPs companies inGeorgia confronted opportunities andchallenges as they strode further
towards empowering women in 2019.
As shown in this booklet, a new trend
observed during the year is that anincreasing number of companies
expanded their WEPs work beyond theworkplace into the marketplace andcommunities and took steps toempower women entrepreneurs andlocal women.

Read onTowards Equality inBusinessThis publication presents a snapshotof the situation for women globallyand in Georgia, and it provides
information on how companies canuse, with UN Women’s support, theWEPs to advance gender equality. It
also contains examples of company
action to inspire new WEPs
signatories and engage companies
in the global WEPs movement.

Read on

Women's Empowerment
Principles in Indonesia
In order to promote the WEPs, theIndonesia Business Coalition for
Women Empowerment, Indonesia
Global Compact Network, and UN
Women initiated a study which will
form the baseline to identifyawareness and implementation ofthePrinciplesinIndonesiancompanies.

Read onThe Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) guide businesses on how to promote gender equality and women's empowerment in theworkplace, marketplace and community. Jointly established by the UN Global Compact and UN Women , the WEPs are underpinned byinternational labour standards and human rights and by the recognition that businesses have an important role in promoting gender equality andwomen’s empowerment. Adopting the seven principles is the best way that businesses can deliver on the ambitions for gender equality andwomen’s empowerment as outlined in the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development and in the 17 SDGs.

Questions? E-mail us at weps@unwomen.org | www.weps.org​