Charting New Horizons: Gender Equality in Supply Chains – Challenges and Opportunities

UN forum highlights need for gender equality in global supply chains

During the United Nations Trade and Development Global Supply Chain Forum in 2024, a panel discussion was held to address the role of women in supply chains, with a focus on the challenges they face in typically male-dominated sectors, such as maritime transport and ports. The session was moderated by Shamika N. Sirimanne, who emphasized the importance of gender equality for industry growth and international trade.

Belle Holder, the host, welcomed participants, highlighting the diverse representation from 120 countries, including government leaders, UN representatives, and private sector heads. She encouraged attendees to advocate for positive change, particularly in terms of gender equality in supply chains.

Rebeca Grynspan, Secretary General of UNCTAD, delivered a powerful message about the need to view women as agents of transformation rather than a vulnerable group. She discussed her personal journey as the first female head of UNCTAD and called for women to be at the center of policy-making. Grynspan stressed the importance of addressing both the demand for women’s education in STEM fields and the supply of diversified economic opportunities.

Natalie O. Sandiford, President of the WIMAC Barbados Chapter, spoke about the biases that prevent women’s advancement in the maritime sector and suggested the creation of a gender-specific international treaty to address these challenges. She also mentioned initiatives such as the Girls in Blue program, which aims to introduce maritime education to young girls.

Anne Marie Van den Berg, Assistant Secretary General for Supply Chain Management at the UN, shared insights into initiatives to create a more inclusive environment for women in peacekeeping compounds, which could serve as a model for other sectors. She also discussed the challenges of promoting women-owned businesses within the UN’s procurement processes and the efforts to increase their participation through vendor outreach.

Naa Densua Aryeetey, Global Advisor for Women in Logistics and Transport, highlighted the importance of mentorship and leadership programs in encouraging women to enter and thrive in the logistics and transport industry. She shared success stories of women breaking barriers and assuming leadership roles.

Milaika Capella Ras, General Manager of the Caribbean Shipping Association, discussed the association’s efforts to increase women’s representation in the maritime industry through leadership programs, policy development, and conference sessions that feature professional women in prominent roles.

The session also touched upon the concept of a new social contract, as mentioned by Gilbert F. Houngbo, Director General of the International Labour Organization. Houngbo called for a redefinition of our collective existence on Earth to address global disparities, including those related to gender equality in the workforce. He highlighted the structural imbalances revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for a renewed social contract that ensures fair and equitable opportunities for all.

In conclusion, the panel recognized the progress made towards gender equality but acknowledged the need for continued efforts to ensure women’s full participation and advancement in supply chains. The discussions underscored the importance of education, mentorship, policy changes, and international support in creating opportunities for women. The need for a new global social contract that supports inclusivity, sustainability, and prosperity was also emphasized, along with the importance of better metrics to measure development and progress beyond GDP. The session concluded with a call to action for stakeholders and policymakers to forge private-public partnerships to ensure that women are equally engaged in supply chain management and international trade, contributing to a more lucrative and equitable global economy.

Belle Holder:
Good morning, everybody. Good morning. Yeah. You in beautiful Barbados. Have you been enjoying your stay here? Some people have been. So the people who are clapping are the people who got a chance to get into the water. And the people who haven’t clapped yet, you haven’t experienced Barbados’ beautiful salt water yet. I think that’s what’s going on. All right. Good morning, once again, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Belle Holder. Welcome to Day 4 of the United Nations Trade and Development Global Supply Chain Forum, the inaugural forum, the first ever for 2024. Over the last three days, this is Day 4, we’ve had government leaders, the UN, UNCTAD, 120 countries represented. We’ve had ministers, heads of key private sector organizations, influencers, movers, shakers, disruptors, policy makers, and that is you. Each and every one of you in this room whose responsibility it is to do the work to advocate for positive change. And on that note, give yourselves an energetic round of applause. It’s going to get us through Day 4. Not just Day 4, but the work that comes after. We know that once the curtain comes down on the Global Supply Chain Forum for 2024, a lot of the necessary work begins. Ladies and gentlemen, this morning’s session will discuss the role women play in supply chains today and the barriers they face in typically male-dominated sectors. So I’m going to call to the stage, ladies and gentlemen, the Secretary General of UNCTAD, Her Excellency, Rebeca Grynspan. Natalie O. Sandiford, President of WMAC Barbados’s chapter, the Maritime Transport and Port. Anne Marie Van den Berg, Assistant Secretary General for Supply Chain Management, OSCM Procurement.Naa Densua Aryeetey, Global Advisor for Women in Logistics and Transport, WILAT. Good morning. I’d also like to call Milaika Capella Ras, General Manager of the Caribbean Shipping Association. And Gilbert F. Houngbo, Director General, International Labour Organization. And now, ladies and gentlemen, I will hand over to our moderator. Please give her a rousing round of applause. Shamika Simani, Director, Division on Technology and Logistics with UNCTAD. Ms. Simani, the floor is yours.

Shamika N. Sirimanne:
Thank you, Bill, for that introduction and also waking us all up. And I think we are up and about to go. You know, for the last two days there have been many sessions where we discussed about women’s predicament. Women, the SMEs in supply chains and their predicament, especially when the supply chains run into crisis situations. And we talked a lot about the cross-border traders, and many of them are women, and small enterprises. And so now we are coming together to chart new horizons. That’s the session. This session is about gender equality in supply chains and challenges and opportunities. You see, this session, we will discuss the role of women playing supply chains today and the barriers they face in typically male-dominated countries. sectors such as maritime transport, ports, customs, and others, and I think you have gone, many of you have gone through customs and immigration and ports, I mean we were in the port yesterday too, here in Barbados, and you, this is not a women’s world, it’s another world, but the unfortunate reality is it limits, it limits women’s potential contribution to supply chains and also challenges the industry’s growth, so it’s not a good thing, to have more women and more representation, gender representation is a good thing for the industry and also a good thing for international trade. So we have the most eminent group of panelists to explore the sector’s untapped opportunities and explore solutions for current challenges, and I’m very happy to say we have the real gender champions here at this panel and the real practitioners, and you will bring enormous insights that we don’t have, and you will charter the course for us as we go from this forum to our next forum in Saudi Arabia. So let me start inviting as our keynote speaker, Mr. Gilbert F. Houngbo, the Director General of International Labor Organizations, and to share with us the predicament of labor in the supply chains.

Gilbert F. Houngbo:
Thank you, thank you so much. Good morning to you all. Let me start by recognizing the high table, and as we said, all protocol observed. Distinguished guests, I would like to begin by thanking the government of Barbados and of course UNCTAD, my dear sister Rebecca, and the whole team for organizing this forum. It is really a privilege for us to address you on the topic of gender equality. in supply chain. Over the past 30 years, the world has seen economic growth and expanding international trade driven by businesses that rely on global supply chain. Our estimate in ILO are that one in five people in the global workforce are employed in supply chain. Women represent 40% of these workers. The growth of female workers in supply chain is part of a global trend that has seen millions of women join the formal labor market over the last few decades. And this trend has helped women gain financial independence and it has contributed to reducing poverty. Despite such progress, however, inequalities between women and men persist. Since 2016, the global gender pay gap has stagnated at around 20%. Women are more likely than men to be employed on temporary contracts and in low pay positions. Such gender based segregation is deeply rooted in social norms which in turn impact the position of women in the world of work. For example, women are over represented in supply chains that depend on low skilled. Conversely, women are less likely to obtain higher-paying and higher-skilled jobs or to be considered for managerial positions than men are. ILO’s research demonstrates that inequalities between women and men widened during the pandemic due to its impact on trade. Women were more likely to work in those industries, for example, garment, that were most disrupted by the collapse in global domains. We also know that women have benefited less than men in the subsequent period of trade recovery. The rapid recovery of export has been concentrated in male-intensive industries such as oil and gas, machinery and equipment, automotive and transport. This context is crucial to our discussion in this forum. The sustainable solutions to the supply chain challenges created by the many crises and trends discussed this week are solutions that will contribute to a more social, just and sustainable society. As Prime Minister Motley said on the opening days of this forum, we must make supply chain work for growth and development. Such challenges are also relevant in the global transport industry. The sector is highly male-dominated. And women tend to hold lower paid roles in transport jobs. And they have less career development opportunities. Yet, employers and workers organizations in the transport sector have taken important steps to change this and attract and retain women into the sector and all sectors. And I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank our workers and employers for their efforts. Workers and employers have created gender committees and you are implementing measures to improve pay equity and gender responsive occupational safety and health policies. You are also on better financing of women-led businesses, especially in trucking, which is also supporting women’s participation in your sector. In the maritime sector, women make up just over 1% of the workforce, although this is much higher on cruise and passenger ships. Women face systemic inequalities in wages and contract conditions persist, even though women report being interested in careers at sea. Additionally, gender discrimination makes the already existing challenges posed by extended periods of isolation and limited shore leave even worse for women. To change this, we must create workplaces. that are free from violence, free from harassment, free from discrimination. At the ILO, we look forward to supporting the shipping sector and its effort to address these challenges. Here, too, we must note that through social dialogue, seafarers and ship owners have made important headway toward ensuring a safe workplace. The ILO has incorporated their invaluable guidance on eliminating shipboard harassment and bullying into our Maritime Labor Convention. And next year, we will discuss new amendments to the convention to prohibit onboard violence and harassment. Meanwhile, the ILO’s existing labor complaints mechanism will be adapted as well to seafarers. These are all important and effective measures, but we must not stop here. We must continue our work, including promoting work-life balance and improving maternity protection for women seafarers. The COVID-19 pandemic also showed us that social protection creates more resilient businesses in supply chains. Better social coverage leads to a healthier balance between work and family life. Within our societies, women disproportionately bear the burden of care. for children, the elderly, and the sick. Achieving gender equality, therefore, means redistributing this responsibility. It also means improving women’s access to skill development and challenging outdated stereotypes about gender. As we transition toward more sustainable societies, new businesses are emerging in supply chains. We have, therefore, a golden opportunity to seize on this and turn it into an opportunity to create quality, inclusive job, and support women’s empowerment. So I look forward to our continued collaboration to strengthen equality and social justice in supply chains. Thank you.

Shamika N. Sirimanne:
Thank you, DG, for giving us the numbers and the real picture on the ground. And you started saying when it comes to supply chains, one-fifth of the world’s labor force is engaged in supply chains, and 40% of that is women. But then you also highlighted the women. There are enormous inequalities that women face, especially temporary jobs and low payments, and especially in the transport sector. Because there’s a lot of conversation around the maritime, the transport sector of the supply chain. And you said that’s where the women’s representation is not there. And you said then, I think this is the beginning of our conversation, you said that there is a transition towards new business models, especially after the supply chain crisis. And so there are new opportunities for us to address the injustice. So, now I turn to our panel because our panel will serve as a call to action to how to urge the stakeholders, policy makers to charter a new world and what policy reforms are needed, what private-public partnerships that we need to forge so that the women will be equally – on equal footing will be engaged in supply chain management and will engage in international trade which is much more lucrative than domestic trade. So, let me now turn to our eminent panel. I think, Esty, I think that you are ready to go already. Our Esty is already ready to go. So let me introduce – I know all the names are here so I don’t need to take time to go through your names and introduce yourselves and you are the most eminent panel that we can ever find in this place. Esty, let me turn to you and ask you how does you and trade and development view the current representation of women in supply chains and what are the primary barriers hindering women’s participation and advancement in supply chain roles?

Rebeca Grynspan:
Thank you. Thank you very much and thank you very much, Gilbert, really for being here. You know, we are part of the movement that we say no panel without women but also no panel without men, you know, so good. This is parity. So can I start by saying maybe some general things and going back to what Gilbert said. First of all, I have to say that gender equality is a very personal thing for me because for all of us probably it has been a journey, yes? We haven’t read this in the books or in the studies or in the research. It has been a deeply and profound life experience, yes? And the first thing that I want to say is that I see a lot of progress. I think that we have to recognize that we can change reality because the only way to mobilize people, yes, is if we really think that we can make the change. And I think that the women movement and gender equality has been an incredible force for change. And we have to recognize that because that’s the first thing, you know, for us to continue in this journey. Because it’s true, you know, I have been the first woman in post all my life. I am the first woman head of UNCTAD, yes, 60 years, that take 60 years, yes? So it’s something to celebrate, but at the same time, as far as we continue counting with the fingers of our hands, we are not in equality yet, yes? We still say the first, the second, the third, and probably all the women that are here with me in this panel have gone through the same thing. So when we stop counting, then we will have equality. My second point is that we refer too often to women only as a vulnerable group, yes? And I always say we are not a vulnerable group. We are a group that has their rights vulnerable, but not that the vulnerability of our rights is what makes the group vulnerable. It’s not that we intrinsically are vulnerable, yes? This is something that happens because our rights are not recognized or have been weakened. Yes, and this is important to have in mind because we need to see women as actors of transformation, and so not as an afterthought in whatever we will do. So the first thing that we have to bring is women at the center of the discussion, of the policymaking of the mainstream. It’s not like we do everything and, oh, we have to think afterwards about women. So in this different attitude lies a lot of the importance of policymaking. And so for that to happen, we have to be on the table. We have to be in the policymaking sphere, yes? And that is not happening as much as we want, yes? Mia Mottley was the only woman in Latin America and the Caribbean as head of government for a long time, yes? Now we have three women. But in the General Assembly last September, there were only ten. From 140-something that took the stage, you know, only ten women did address the General Assembly. So we are still not there. So we cannot get tired on this journey. My last point maybe here is the thing that we have to look – and I think, Gilbert, you put it very well – for the policy responses that we need, we need to look at the demand side but also at the supply side. So in the demand side, we need women to get into education. We need something that has happened, even we are seeing now in some countries a reverse gap between men and women. So women are getting into education, but we need women getting into the stem for the new transformations that are happening. So we need to close the digital gap, we need the care economy and the care society to take hold so there is reconciliation between work and family for men and women. Not only for women, for men and women. Men also have the right to affection, you know. So we need to do that and the care economy is very important, but sometimes we stay in the demand side and we neglect the supply side. Because if we prepare women for the new world and for the new economy, so they have to have a place to go. They have to have a place where they will insert themselves. So the supply side has to be looked at much more carefully. And there, obviously, Gilbert, what you said in terms of the work standards, the inclusion, the quality of the workplace is a huge thing for women to be able to get inserted. In the labor market or in the economy, in the startups, in the small and medium sized businesses, etc. So we need, but the other part for most of our countries that we were talking about when this started, about the global supply chains and logistics, is the diversification of the economy. Because if we don’t have where to go, we will continue to get to the low. quality, low productivity jobs. So the thrive for open up the economy, for diversification, we talked about the seeds in terms of services and high knowledge-based services, how important that is for our growth and our sustainable growth, well we need that to happen so we can have the opportunities that women are looking for. And obviously also in terms of businesses, here we gave two prizes to women for innovation, they are really working hard for their innovation to be able to succeed and their enterprises to be able to succeed, Cristina is still here with us, Cristina Marin, well she was telling me I have no finance, yes, there are no sources of finance that I can get to. The numbers are striking, I will give you the numbers in the second part, but let’s think about that, it’s not only about the demand side, it’s not only about preparing women, it’s about having an economy that can get and open the opportunities for that demand side to match with the supply in the diversification, high-end financing of our businesses and the businesses that women have. Thank you.

Shamika N. Sirimanne:
Thank you. Thank you so much Estee for sharing your own perspectives, I mean your own personal journey, and plus that highlighting, it’s not just a one side thing, it’s a multifaceted issue, not just the demand side, we also need to look at the supply side. I think another thing that you pointed out to us is that women need to be at the centre of policy making, not brought to the policy making as an afterthought, you know, once the policy is done, made, and said, ah now where are the women, let’s get them. to say yes to this policy. And here I want to highlight something that you have championed among us at the UN trade and development, is our e-trade for all women programme. Because we always say that in the digital economies there are enormous opportunities for women traders because they don’t need a big brick and mortar shop, they will not be paying the same discrimination in online world. But then we found out very quickly it is not the case, yes there is a massive potential, but this potential is not realised, as you said there is no finance, if a woman entrepreneur walks to a bank saying I have a new idea of an online platform and the first thing is a big rejection. So we then started to say how do we get the women to be at the policy making tables. So it’s not a training programme for women to do marketing, accounting, but it’s a more mentoring programme and to get women to the table where the policies are made. So I just want to highlight this point, it cannot be an afterthought to bring women to policy making. So thank you so much SG. So let me now turn to Miss Natalie Sandiford, President of the WIMAC Barbados Chapter Maritime Transport Port, and you are a practitioner, you know what is on the ground. So Natalie, what are the unique challenges faced by women working in the maritime and port sectors, and how does WIMAC support them in overcoming these challenges? And as you know the DG Gilbert mentioned, that’s where the problem is, the transport sector, where we don’t have the infusion of women coming on board. You have the floor.

Natalie O. Sandiford:
Good morning everyone. Can everybody hear me? Good morning. OK, good morning again. Good morning, everyone. And let me just say thank you to UNCTAD for inviting me here. Coming from the perspective of a maritime lawyer and also president of the Women in Maritime Association of the Caribbean Barbados chapter, I would say that one of the greatest challenges for women in the maritime sector is the biases and the barriers that exist in relation to how women are perceived in the maritime sector. The maritime sector is one where parts of employment, certain types of employment, are very labor intensive. And as a result, men are seen as stronger. And as such, they are, in some cases, regarded more highly valuable to the organization than the women who work there. And this situation sometimes translates into how disciplinary matters in maritime organizations are handled. Where a woman makes a complaint against a male, sometimes because of that bias, she is perceived as the one who is making noise. Or if there is a decision where disciplinary action is to be taken, sometimes it’s very light on the man because the organization determines that they need his manpower there more than they need hers. So that’s just one example. I think. The biases also translate to whether women are seen as capable of being able to command certain roles. The Director General of the ILO, when he was speaking, he gave us the numbers, he gave us the figures. It is great that women in supply chains are now making up a large percentage of the workforce. However, when we drill down to the maritime sector, we see that women’s representation is still incredibly low. And I think that can be addressed by perhaps having, at the international level, a gender-specific treaty or convention, if you may, that in one place addresses the challenges that women face or that the genders face in the maritime sector, and one that speaks specifically to achieving gender parity in the maritime sector. I think we sit here and we know what we have to do. We have programs in place, we have many of them, we have many organizations that are dedicated to advancing the presence and the participation of women in the maritime sector. We have the WIMAs created by the IMO, we have the VISTAs, but another challenge that we face, and I find this in my capacity as President of the Barbados WIMA, is that we need funding. It’s great to have programs in place, it’s great to have these mentorship programs, it’s great to have these networking opportunities, but in order to pursue these initiatives that have been either developed or that have been identified, we need to have the funding. Even if the funding is there, we also have to look at how those funding opportunities are communicated to stakeholders. In some cases, there is a lack of trickle-down of important information that makes certain initiatives possible. So, that is my view. Thank you.

Shamika N. Sirimanne:
Thank you so much, Natalie, for highlighting these very important points. You said, yes, you can do things at the ground level, but you also need international support. And you said about international guidelines, agreements, code of conduct around women in maritime transport. I think these are good points, because this is action points that we want to collect here. And financing has come up as an issue, and I think in this whole forum for the last three days, everybody talked about financing. And we talked about the cost of capital is immensely and exorbitantly higher for developing countries than developed countries. And it is not because we are risky, but it is because the international financial system, the moment you say it’s a developing country asking for a loan, the risk numbers start going up for no reason. So, I think this has been discussed a lot, financing, investment, cost of capital. So, these are very, very important points. So, let me now turn to Ms Anne Marie Van den Berg, Assistant Secretary General for Supply Chain Management, OSCM procurement in the UN, and you are really the boots on the ground on supply chain issues for us. Because we know the theory and we know how to write reports, but you are on the ground and you see the reality. So, what specific initiatives or policies has OSCM implemented to promote gender diversity and inclusion within global supply chains?

Anne Marie Van den Berg:
Thank you. Okay, that’s too much. Good morning, first of all, and thank you to all the Barbadians, and of course, course, DG UNTAT, for organising this forum. I think it has been a very special experience and I’m grateful I was invited to join. I also want to thank you, Rebecca, for your opening remarks just now, because indeed this has been a personal journey for a lot of us and I totally echo your sentiments in this regard. Before I talk a little bit more about the gender aspects of what we do, I wanted to dive just for one minute into who we are, because I suspect that most of you don’t even know we exist and have never realised why we even should exist. So I run the Office of Supply Chain Management in the United Nations Secretariat in the headquarters, and what we do is we service the UN presence around the globe with supply chain services, so goods and services that all the entities on the ground need to actually implement their mandates in the different countries around the world. You may not have realised until now that there’s actually a need for that, and if you think about who these clients are that we service… Sorry, we’ll just do it so we can hear you better. Better? Yes. It sounds very loud for me. Okay, so the clients that we service, they work in deep field locations around the world. They’re peacekeeping operations that provide protection of civilian mandates in very deep areas, in very hard-to-reach areas of countries where there is no infrastructure, there’s high levels of insecurity. But we also support special political missions, the RC offices that we have in more than 130 countries. offices away from headquarters, Nairobi, in Chile, and also the Economic Commission. So it’s a broad spectrum of support, and we provide around 40 different types of categories, ranging from IT equipment, vehicles, food, rations, fuel, aviation services. So it’s a lot of stuff that, fortunately, you don’t have to think about. But what I want to highlight, and even though if we look at volume, we spend about $3 billion a year on UN procurement, public procurement of UN spend. We move about 125,000 tons of cargo, and we move around 100,000 people. So it may not be much, but looking at the locations where we deliver those services, we feel the same pain that you feel when you do your supply chain work. We are equally impacted by supply chain disruptions, by COVID, by the costs. Same issues, same issue also for the gender equality. Our supply chain is not gender equal. If I look at our headquarters, we’re good. It’s a nice duty station. We’re about 40, 60, so we’re doing good. As I go further down the chain, and I get to faraway places, it’s what? 99.1, 98.2. So a few years ago, we started looking into how we can improve that. So we started an initiative funded by the Canadian government. It’s called the Elsie Initiative, and it’s named after Elsie McGill, who was the first Canadian engineer. a first aircraft designer and a women’s rights activist. So what we did is we looked at the conditions on the ground of where the women would work. And listening to all of you during the week about seafarers, they’re on a ship, they work and live in one place. If we go to a peacekeeping compound in the deep field, you work and live in the same place. So the similarities are huge. So what we did in the LC initiative, we looked at how to make the environment in those camps more welcoming, more inclusive, to bring a larger number of women into those camps. Because at the end of the day, we wanted also women peacekeepers to actually face the people on the ground that they were helping. So we redesigned the compounds, making the accommodation facilities more gender sensitive, not even just for women, it became gender sensitive for both genders in terms of accommodation, bathrooms, medical facilities, recreational facilities, communication, so people can communicate with home, et cetera, et cetera. The number of women in peacekeeping is now slowly on the rise. So we think we did well, we still have a long way to go, but we’re making a difference by just creating a different working environment. Just moving, and I don’t know if I can speak more, I have another area in our work where we kind of make some changes to including women in the supply chain, and that would be in the procurement area. I’m happy to continue talking if I have more time. So, in the procurement area, as I said, we spend about $3 billion a year, and we have to follow the United Nations financial regulations and rules, which have been mandated by 193 member states. So, we cannot say we’re going to do something for women-owned businesses or we’re going to do something for this country or that country. We have to be fair and transparent. So, we’re not like a country. An individual country can say, you know what? We have such an uneven playing field. Let’s put some quotas, and we give 20%, 30% of our public procurement in this country to women-owned businesses. We cannot do that. So, our area of leverage to bring in more women into those supply chains in procurement is our vendor outreach. It’s the only area where we can make an impact by trying to bring more women-owned businesses, making them aware of what the market is that we buy in, making them aware of how to register, how to participate in a bid, and how to try and win a contract. So, we have been working together in different partnerships with UN Women, with the ITC Xi Trades, with We Connect, and we do a lot of business seminars for women-owned businesses to make them aware, to train them, and to get them on board. We did increase the number of women-owned businesses that registered with the UN as a vendor from less than 200 three years ago to over 40,000 today. It’s a huge jump. If I look at the corresponding spend that we do on women-owned businesses, it doubled, but it doubled from about $30 million to $60 million. And as I mentioned, we do $3 billion a year. So it’s a small piece of the total. It’s on the rise, but it’s a small piece. And we need to really bring more women-owned businesses into this whole chain in order to level the playing field. So I’ll keep it to that. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

Shamika N. Sirimanne:
Bringing the boots-on-the-ground experience in the most difficult places on Earth. And let me now turn to Ms. Naa Densua Aryeetey, the Global Advisor for Women in Logistics and Transport, Willat, from Ghana. And she has been a real champion of pushing trade facilitation forward in Ghana. You have the floor now. So let me give you the question. In your specific field, what are the challenges that women usually face, and what has Willat done to address this? And I know you have lots of experience in this area.

Naa Densua Aryeetey:
Thank you. Thank you, Shamika. And thank you, Angtad, once again, for inviting me to be part of this panel. When we are talking about women in logistics, let me just share a small story. In 2010, the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport held its usual annual conference in Malta. So we got ready and attended that conference. The night before the conference was started, a reception where we saw women, you know, quite and we all enjoyed ourselves, networking, talking. Then the following morning we came into the conference room. The room was packed, but only four women. Where did the women go? We’re asking ourselves, we’re only four, one from Hong Kong, one from New Zealand, the other from Nigeria, and myself from Ghana. Where are all the women? They came on the ticket of their spouses, and so they’ve gone on their own program and we’re not delegates of the conference. So, wow, this is, to say that a big conference like this global one, only four women, so my colleague from Nigeria said, no, this is bad. Only four of us here. We need to do something. So, at the lunch time, lunch break, we met the four women met and we talked about it and decided that, okay, you all go back to your countries and go and sensitize the women there and bring them to the understanding, the awareness that there is an industry where opportunities and benefits are and you can be a part. To cut a long story short, today, 10 years after, Women in Logistics and Transport, which is a forum of the Chartered Institute of Logistics, the Women’s Wing, is in about 35 territories, a global one with over 35,000 individual members and working very hard to bring more women into logistics and transport. Now… Now, Willat, as we call it for short… It bases its whole agenda on four principles or four thrusts, leadership, empowerment, leadership, empowerment and the other one is, the other two I should say, yeah, leadership, empowerment, entrepreneurship and mentorship. I don’t know why it escaped me. But mentorship is key, entrepreneurship, leadership and empowerment. Why did we choose this main thrust? Because we felt that for women to be a part of an organization or to be a part of the industry that we serve, logistics and transport are key to every economy. Now, our women must be part of this economy. It’s the backbone of every country’s economy, logistics and transport. And women must be seen to be playing their role. Apart from alleviating poverty, etc., it’s for them to grow into leadership, to be mentored into leadership, to be able to be part of the policy making decisions and that they are central to whatever is happening in their industry. So, let me say for a country like Ghana, let me use Ghana. It will be easier for me to use Ghana. What is happening in Ghana? Are women really in the industry? Of late, I am seeing that more women are beginning to understand that they are not limited. They are not limited because I don’t see the men stopping the women from going where they want to go. I see that sometimes we women ourselves… We are scared to move forward. We think, no, no, no, this is not the place that I should go. But the door is open. And in Ghana, we are encouraging the women to be part of this industry. And from the Willards perspective, we do hold a lot of seminars, workshops, training programs. And on the global, Willards has actually built or established what we call Willards Capacity Building Centers that incorporates training programs for the youth and for senior managers. And this is working fine to break barriers. Right now, you see the young ones coming up and very, very interested in the industry. Two weeks ago, we had what we called Stars of Willards. Stars of Willards is referring to the young ones coming up, young women coming up, having gone through a mentorship program, and are ready to take on the mantle. And when we invited them to interview these young women, I could see their enthusiasm. And as we talked to them, what do you intend to do when you are made a star of Willards, as an ambassador for Willards in the logistics sector? There were so many things they shared. Young women as young as 28, maximum 30, and were very enthusiastic. One said, I work in the health and safety environment within the port sector in Sri Lanka. And she’s so proud that she’s the only woman there at a young age, and she’s able to climb mobile cranes and, you know, she’s like, wow. She feels very proud that she’s able to do that. the only one at that particular time within her department, the only young lady doing that, and she’s able to go to the field. The other one is a young maritime lawyer, an advisor. She doesn’t work only in the maritime, but she also works within the air. And we see young women truck drivers, that’s unusual, but they are happy doing that work. It’s challenging. I see that with the training and mentorship programs that Willat is giving out and the call to leadership, it’s encouraging the younger ones to come into the industry boldly and courageously, and that they can break barriers, and they can climb the ladder. Thank you.

Shamika N. Sirimanne:
Thank you. And scaled up to the rest of the world. I mean, you said you saw one woman who is capable of riding a crane, mobile crane. Let me tell you, our SG is that woman yesterday. She was the only woman who went up the crane at the port. Thank you so much. Let me now move to Ms. Milaika Capella Ras. She’s the general manager of the Caribbean Shipping Association. So here is another practitioner where we really need the support. How does the International Chamber of Shipping engage with member companies to promote gender equality policies and practices within their organizations?

Milaika Capella Ras:
Hi, good morning. It’s for me a pleasure to be here and sharing this podium with these esteemed speaker this morning. The ICS is engaging very well with its company’s members that has different initiatives to help and promote the gender equality in the maritime and shipping industry. One of them, they did a, they call it an ICS Diversity Tracker. It’s a study that they did among 200 companies in the shipping industry to see how they are doing with regards to gender equality. And it is a pity to see that they see some improvement, but those improvements are, you know, very little at this point, so there is so much work to do. So for example, if you see the numbers they highlighted in this report, that 7%, 7.5% of the seafarers are women, only 7.5%. So that’s not so much. And besides that, you have 30% of the companies that were surveyed, only 30% of them hired women in important positions in the company, like in board positions. So it’s very, very low. So there is still work to do, but they continue to work very hard to promote this. They work, they have collaboration with the Vista to promote trainings and leadership program under the women. So to prepare these women to assume important roles in the companies and in the maritime and shipping industry. And other than that, so additionally, we can also say that they collaborate with the IMO. Last Friday, we celebrate International Women in Maritime Day, so congratulations to all the women that work in the shipping and maritime industry. So this is like to do more awareness in the maritime industry to promote this and to have that companies are more aware. they work on policies, because I think that’s very, very important that we work on the policies to have transparent recruitment process, and that it is fair and unbiased. I think that’s important. And it’s not only for women, but I believe it’s for men too. So we need to have the right for everybody to treat the same way, to get the same treatment, and to get the same opportunity. For that is very important, and that is what I truly believe, that we need to work on those policy that will help companies, and help those women, and help everybody that works in those companies to have like the equal treatment. Thank you.

Shamika N. Sirimanne:
Thank you so much. And thank you so much for bringing this issue of developing same opportunities for men and women. And a lot more work needs to be done in the policy area for this work. So let me, I see my colleague there, Mark Asaf. Let me tell you that we have a port program, port training program. I think many of your countries are involved in this port training program. And we just take, you take countries to the every aspect of port management. And we make sure that when we do capacity building work, we make sure that it is 50-50, gender-balanced groups. And here is Mark. Mark, you have to wave your hand up. And that’s a real gender champion there. Thank you, Mark. And that’s what UN trade and development been doing to promote gender equality and women empowerment in the global supply chains.

Rebeca Grynspan:
Well, let me talk about four things that we are doing. You have mentioned already two of them. First of all, our program…

Shamika N. Sirimanne:
I see you can mention them again, that’s good.

Rebeca Grynspan:
Yes, yes. One is the E-Trade program for women, but I want to highlight one of the characteristics of this program. So we choose women that have made it happen in the digital E-Trade sphere and that have been successful, but we don’t speak for them. We bring them in, and that’s a difference of the program. It’s not that we go and we study what they did and what was successful, but we give them a platform for them to speak to the global community. So we take them to the conferences, to the gatherings, to the UN, to the business forums, so they can speak and tell their story. And what has happened is, because this is a leadership program, in fact, they become really acquainted with what is happening, with the global realities, and what has happened with this program is that they have been called many times by their governments to help the government make the norms and standards and policies for E-Trade, because they have become more visible and their leadership has been more recognized. So it is important to think that when we talk about programs for women, it’s not us talking about them, it’s them taking the stage. And I think that that is very important, and the other day they were in Geneva. It was amazing, the inspiration. that we got for these women, talking for themselves, their leadership, their thrive, what they have achieved, and what they are doing in their country. So this is one of the key programs that we are doing, and it’s in Shamika’s shop, so really, thank you very much, because it has been very, very successful. And we are part, obviously, of the SheTrade program with ITC and WTO, that is a very important program. The second thing is data. We know that we cannot measure the contribution of women to trade, because data is very bad. So we have developed a statistical guideline to measure gender in trade, together with the Economic Commission for Europe and the Economic Commission for Africa. And so we are trying now for that guideline to really get into the statistical, you know, a normal way of measuring and bringing the data, so we will have better data in terms of gender contribution to trade. This is very important. The gaps in data are terrible, and it’s very difficult to take policies or to make policies without data, and it’s very difficult to convince leaders that this is an important thing, because we don’t have the data. So data is very important. The third thing we are doing, you have referred to it, Shamika, is the port training, where more women are coming into the management and also the operations. And you talked about that, yes, in terms of women coming more into the supply chain, into the management. Now I went into, you know, I climbed a crane also in Panama. And we went to see the operation. There were more women in management and in a very sophisticated environment. And I saw more women operators also of big equipment. But the training opportunities and the opening the space is very important. And you are right, the aspirational part of women. We internalize discrimination. And sometimes the glass ceiling is in our head. Not only outside in the concrete space. So I think that the sponsorship is very important. And the role model to show women from a very early age that they can do whatever they decide to do is if they put their effort into it. And we will have to take away the obstacles for it. But the port management, and Mark, thank you so much, is a very, very successful one. And the last thing we do, and here I want to give you some numbers. We work a lot with cross-border informal traders. And let me give you some numbers about Africa. According to the African Development Bank, Gilbert, you know about this very well. Informal cross-border trade provides income to about 43% of Africa’s population. Cross-border trade provides 43% for families, for 43% of the population of Africa. So it’s a very important thing. And 80%, 80% of the cross-border traders are women. 80% to provide for their families, the basic income. So it’s very important to work with this population because they face everything. The harassment, the sexual harassment at the border, the extraction of income because they are informal and they cannot defend themselves. So the trade facilitation at the border, the digitalization at the border, the training of the informal traders to use digital to be able to do the trade is a very important thing for this income generation women that are so important for the economy of Africa. But in many of our countries, we find exactly the same. So our work with informal workers, trade, cross-border trade workers is very important. So in all these four programs, I think that we have established ourselves. We are doing very well. What we now are trying to do, and we had an expert meeting not long ago, is how we jump a step also in terms of our policies for trade and gender. And here, what all the experts told us is what I said at the beginning. We need the diversification of the economy and making that diversification happen, opening opportunities for women. Because that is something we’re anchored because we are an economy in a way, in an economy organization, yes? It’s trade, it’s investment, it’s financing. What has to come into play in the productive diversification so we can really help in opening up our economies? to better opportunities for all, but also better opportunities for women. So that’s what we are working on right now. Thank you.

Shamika N. Sirimanne:
Thank you so much, SG, for highlighting these four areas of work that we do. As you also said, the problem we have is we need to massively scale up this work, and we have an enormous amount of requests from member states, but we are unable to roll out to everyone because these are resource-intensive areas, but the impacts are huge. As you said, when the advisors for the e-commerce, e-trade women advisors come to town, half my division tells me, okay, now we need to quit, we need to start a business, because they are being inspired by these women entrepreneurs that come, and every time they come, I have an issue thinking, okay, I’m going to lose half my division. So let me turn to Nathalie. I think you started to talk a little bit about this. What do you think are the untapped opportunities for women in maritime transport and port operations? You started to talk a bit. Can you expand on it?

Natalie O. Sandiford:
Thank you. In the maritime sector, I would say that some of the untapped opportunities for women include seafaring jobs. Women are tremendously, as I mentioned before, underrepresented in seafaring jobs, and I think part of this is because many people do not know a lot about the maritime sector. When we survey or when we ask people or when we are engaging with the public about what WMAC does, for instance, people ask, well, what’s WMAC, women in maritime? What’s maritime? There is a lack of general knowledge, unfortunately, about the maritime sector. sector and what it does. And then specifically as it relates to seafaring jobs, lots of women are unable to envision themselves in the role of a seafarer. Now I think at one point women were largely underrepresented in the aviation sector. There were not many female pilots. However, as we grow, many of us can say that by the time we reach a certain age we’ve been on a plane, we’ve seen what a pilot does. So many young girls have the opportunity to aspire to become pilots. However, in the maritime sector, because of the security around ports and so on, it’s very difficult for women to access ships. Young girls are unable to visualize themselves commanding a ship. And that, I just want to take this opportunity to speak about one of our initiatives. We in the Barbados chapter have developed an innovative program called Girls in Blue, which as the Secretary General mentioned when she was speaking, it is important to bring these ideas to young women from as early as possible. Education is important. And so we’ve developed this Girls in Blue program, which we hope to implement soon, which will see maritime education being taught in schools from early as five years old as an extracurricular activity. And along with the practical side, which would include history of the maritime sector, a little bit about trade and law and different policies in the maritime sector and so on, there will also be a practical side where we will be trying to engage with local stakeholders. to allow the participants in this program to do a tour of the port, do a tour of the Coast Guard facility, have an opportunity to go out on a boat. We also have to ensure that the legislation that we have is also enabling to the programs which we put in place. For instance, in certain jurisdictions you have situations where young people as early as 12 years old can obtain a sailing license, whereas in some jurisdictions that may not be the case. So we have to also look at when we come up with these wonderful initiatives that our legislation also allows us to give effect to the objectives which we are trying to achieve. Another area which I think is untapped for women in the maritime sector is innovation. Technology and innovation. A lot of women, unfortunately, are not as yet pursuing those areas in the maritime sector, like developing the new technologies, charting the way to the use of digital twins, developing solutions for port challenges for facing the port sector, and so on. And inspired by UNCTAD’s recent innovation challenge, we have also launched our own innovation challenge. Yes, we have. We have launched an innovation challenge, inviting women and women-led businesses to submit proposals for challenges facing the maritime sector. Challenges such as disaster resilience in ports, charting the way for a cleaner, greener supply chain, things like sustainable fisheries. sustainable fishing practices, and that is out there. So if anyone here is interested in submitting a proposal, you can find out more details about that. However, it must be applicable to Barbados, and so you would have to team up with somebody in Barbados to submit that proposal. However, you are welcome. You’re welcome.

Shamika N. Sirimanne:
Thank you so much, Natalie. I think this is exactly what we wanted from the forum, the things that we begin here that will be taken up by everyone. So I’m telling all of you, one of the things we are going to do from now until the next supply chain forum in Saudi Arabia in 2026, we are going to collect the actions that you have taken after you leave this forum. So keep us informed, and we will, you know, bring this together and present this in Saudi Arabia. So let me now turn to Anne-Marie. So you already started to talk to us about some examples, you know, some successful, some extremely difficult examples, you know, difficult situations within which you work. Can you share with us a good practice that you have seen? You know, what can be replicated by others, especially in enhancing opportunities for women in the supply chain area?

Anne Marie Van den Berg:
Thank you for that question. I think the first example I gave earlier on the facilitation of accommodation, the work and living environment of women, is something that can easily be replicated in terms of everyone looking at their own work environment and how women are received. How are they welcomed? Are they inclusive? Are there certain things that could be done differently? And just to think, because I spoke about a peacekeeping compound and remember if you think about a peacekeeping compound you’ll picture male soldiers with blue helmets, right? So if you have only male in a certain location, the design of everything is male oriented. And I think everyone in this room can look at their own environment and see what would a woman do differently in this environment to make it more welcoming and inclusive. I think that’s something everyone can take away. In terms of, I want to just go a little bit more on the procurement side because I indicated that we are bound by financial regulations and rules of the UN and then we also have all these policies that are out there, right? When it comes to things we need to achieve. And sometimes these things are at odds. So we need to be creative with how we implement policy. And when we say, you know, globally there is direction to make the world equal for men and women, equal opportunity, equal chances to do what you really want to do and have the opportunity to do so, how does that work in practice? I talked about reaching out to women-owned businesses. And that’s kind of a direct option for us to say we have a certain share in the market, we want to reach out to women-owned businesses, but we cannot put in the tender that we want to award to a women-owned business, right? So we can increase the awareness of those women-owned businesses that the market is there. And we can also then apply for these organizations to say, oh, there must be other markets, where can I go? And I think one, the one initiative where we work together with the SheTrades, initiative is that We are now working with our existing contractors for them to go and subcontract women-owned business Businesses wherever they can Right and again. This is something that everyone in the room can replicate Can you find women-owned businesses that somehow you can integrate into your work? Whether you’re in the port whether you’re in customs whether you’re somewhere else there are Organizations out there small medium bigger ones run by women that are happy to help everyone Can find them Thank you

Shamika N. Sirimanne:
Thank you, thank you so much for bringing these practicalities and things we can all do I think this is very very important How do we go from here to this next place, which is a much better place for all of us DG I know that I’m not coming to you because you have given the keynote speech But if ever you want to intervene on this women-dominated panel, please put your hand up and we will You will get your chance Now can I then turn to you now? We also want to know because you’ve done a lot of work not just with the private sector, but you also have You know worked with the government the public sector and has moved things forward What worked in that arena because this is an this is another area that everybody has been talking in the trade facilitation area You know, how do we move? The many government agencies in the same direction, you know, what what are your lessons? What’s your experience?

Naa Densua Aryeetey:
Thank you Thank you very much Yes, I’ve worked in the public sector With the Ghana shippers Authority Whilst I was there, I served on the National Trade Facilitation Committee. Now, my work at that time was to deal with shippers, importers, and exporters. And we dealt with both the small, the medium, and the large-scale entrepreneurs. What we did most of the time was to ensure that they understood trends in the shipping industry, because as importers, they imported things, and not all the time did their business go well. Be it exporters or importers, they had issues. Now it was for us to teach and train them on what to expect within the shipping industry. How can they get their goods or their shipment over if they are exporting? And if they are importing, what are the methods, the procedures they must follow so that their transactions either do not delay, or are not lost at sea, or the short shipment? So we dealt with issues of damage to cargo, short shipment, high prices, you know, and then with the middlemen. When I say middlemen, I’m referring to the logistics service providers, who are maybe the ports, the freight forwarders, or clearing agents, basically on charges. Because sometimes the charges were just too overboard. Be it port charges, be it freight forwarders, their charges, or even maritime administration charges passed on to the shipper. These were problems. And for us, we played the role of facilitating the trade, to make it easier. simplified for these business people. My role at that time was to ensure that even the small who wants to import or who wants to export whatever they have they have the opportunity to do so and so we were encouraging them in export procedures and how they can take advantage of the openings brought by the government. We also trained them on government procedures and policies that came out be it on the national scene on the regional scene or on the international scene. It was very important that they knew of policies going out so that they do not fall prey to anything or for lack of knowledge they may have issues. So these are some of the things that we did to facilitate the work for them and to assist them in their trading transactions. Thank you.

Shamika N. Sirimanne:
Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you now for this insight of how you manage the you know the governmental operations too. Let me talk to let me now turn toMilaika. Milaika you started talking about so much work to do especially in the seafarers area. You said only 7.5 percent of seafarers are women. Have you seen good practices and have you seen good initiatives that we can you can share with us that we can replicate and scale? But after that I know that I am supposed to close but since you have been so patiently listening I’m going to open up for a few questions and then we give it to our eminent panelists and to know first we start with the DG. Yes DG please get ready you can summarize what all the women said and say whether you agree with them or not. I think you can, we can, we will start with her.

Natalie O. Sandiford:
Yes, so thank you for the question. I think we have seen many, many good initiatives in this direction. And just four days ago, with my colleague here beside me, the WMAC, we launched a mentorship program with the CSA. So the CSA and the WMAC partner up for a mentorship program. And with this program, we pair professional women in leadership position to be the mentor for women that wants to, you know, maybe that glass ceiling that we have imaginary in our heart, we can break this and we can have these women improving in their work and have in the future leadership position as their mentor. So that’s something that we just launched a few days ago. And I believe as an organization at the Caribbean Shipping Association, I’m a testament of the commitment of our organization because it was run for many, many years by men. And five years ago, they hire me as a general manager of this company. And not only that, but we see a greater development in the organization because women are having important position in the council of the Caribbean Shipping Association. And also in other committees that we have, like the cruise committee, security committee. So they are more involved in that. But more important, we put money through our training trust funds in program, leadership programs and trainings for the women in the industry. So that’s some of our initiatives that we are doing right now. And I think we have like a responsibility, all of us have a responsibility in this room. So, it’s not specifically in the maritime industry, but in all organizations, we have that responsibility to put this as a high priority on our agenda. And because in our organization, all our conferences have sessions that are well-balanced with professional women and lead women that have an important role in their companies, that are part of the conference, in sessions, and all what we do, we put the women as an important part of our organization. So, that’s some of our initiatives, and I encourage all of you to do the same, because it’s how we start. Then we go and work on the policies, because that’s important too, but then we will keep repeating the same thing. So, if we can start in our own company, we will see much more improvement in the future.

Shamika N. Sirimanne:
Thank you so much. Didi, I give you the floor.

Gilbert F. Houngbo:
Thank you so much. For me, it has been quite very fascinating hearing all those testimonies. Fascinating but not surprising, I have to say very, very clearly, and we certainly concur with the positive vibe that we see from the panel, but also from the room. Since you gave me the floor, I want to bring one dimension which maybe we didn’t cover that much. We know that currently, the negotiations are still ongoing with the famous pandemic deal in WHO, and we know the sticking point, and we hope that there will be an agreement soon. But I just want to use the opportunity that we tend to forget that in this pandemic, the big dimension depend on the supply chain, depends on the maritime business. So whatever we could do to also ensure that in this deal, we take into account the working condition, because at the end of the day, the more we look into the working condition, the easier we create the opportunities for advancing the gender equality challenge that we have. So I just want to use that to make a plea for those of you that can still contribute to ensure that the working conditions at sea are also taken into account on this deal. It will be quite a big way forward. Thank you.

Shamika N. Sirimanne:
Thank you, Didi. This is a very important issue that no one thought about until COVID-19 hit us. And then we started to wake up to the reality. I mean, the whole reality of supply chains, because this is not something that we discussed, because supply chains was functioning well. And it was like the blood circulatory system, when everything is functioning well, we are not thinking about it. But if there is a blood clot, then we are in real bad shape. We are in the emergency room. And that’s what happened to us in COVID-19. So this we need to internalize and to make sure that we don’t get stuck again in the coming next crisis. So I’m going to open the floor to a few questions, and then I will let you decide what you want to answer. And we close. Please, anyone wants to take the floor? Okay, please. Please introduce yourself and then ask the question.

Audience:
My name is Austin Becker. I’m the chair of the Department of Marine Affairs at the University of Rhode Island. And, you know, I think there are a few of us academics here in the audience. I think there’s a lot of opportunities for universities to play a role in this space of helping to bridge women into these sectors and into these careers. And I think we tend to think of universities as places to go for graduate degrees or for undergraduate degrees. But they can play another type of role in bridging with industry and with agencies through things like creating directed studies where students can get credit for doing internships, for example. Or students can do small research projects that can help further the goals of companies or agencies. And I’m curious if any of you can comment on other ways that you have engaged with universities in this particular area. And things that we might think about at the University of Rhode Island and in my department in particular, but also maybe in the business school and the supply chain department. Other ways that we might be able to play a role in helping in this area.

Shamika N. Sirimanne:
Thank you so much. I think we take a couple of more questions and then we come back to our panellists. I think there was somebody on that side. Yes, please. If you would just please stand up so we can identify you.

Audience:
Sorry, I can ask one for the Director General. You’ve talked a lot about new social contract, which I think is quite inspirational. And actually even Secretary General Guterres has also been talking about that. So I wonder, could you just give us a little bit of insight, just at a fairly high level? What does this new social contract entail? Are we talking about workers? Are we talking about in terms of the benefits for countries more generally? And what does that mean for gender and diversity and so on? Thanks.

Shamika N. Sirimanne:
So thank you. Can I go back to our panelists, please?

Gilbert F. Houngbo:
Could you please put your hand up and … Maybe let me start so colleagues can correct what I say wrong. First of all, I’m sure several of us will come back to the point raised by the colleague from Rhode Island University. I’m going by memory, and we can follow up on it bilateral. You know, the colleagues from … I don’t know if there are some colleagues from IMO in the room. I know a colleague from the IMO, and together with ILO, we’re working together, and there are some dimensions where I believe there were discussion about cooperation with academics on that. So we certainly can follow up on that, particularly as it related to the labor conditions within the seafarers in the industry. And together also, of course, with what I mentioned in my introductory remark, the trade union organizations and the employers’ organization of the transport industry. So we can follow up also on bilateral to double-check and get back to you as well. Back to the point on the social contracts, it’s clear to me that first of all, yes, as part of the OCA, the Secretary General, our common agenda, and when I look at it from international labor organization perspective. And to me, the discussion we’re having today is a perfect example of what I call the structural imbalances in our living together, both from economic as well as social dimension. The COVID pandemic has also shown, we all know when I was living in Italy, when in Europe we were vaccinated at 70, 80%, in some countries barely 10% have access to the vaccine. Today, we still, doesn’t matter how all the efforts in context of the SDGs, we know that 800 million people struggling to secure one meal a day on that, although we have 30% of food produced that have been lost on that. We know that you have 250 million people that are working yet at the end of the month, not working 40, 50 hours a week, yet at the end of the month, not able to pay the electricity bill on that. I can go on. We talk about the supply chain. Here, it’s very clear that I keep saying that this, and I hope I was clear also in my introductory remark, this has created millions of jobs, has helped a lot of countries moving out of poverty, moving the population out of poverty. We got to support the growth in the supply chain. At the same token, and particularly since COVID, we know that there are much more child labor. We know there are much more forced labor and modern slavery, particularly when it comes to in some mines and critical mineral and et cetera on that. So my point is that sooner or later, We need to sit together to redefine, we say in French, le vivre ensemble, our common life on this planet Earth. And this is what I’m saying, that there’s a need for us to think about a new or a renewed social contract. You know, when we talk about 20% pay gap between women and men, I mean, it’s sad. Ten years, you know, it’s still more or less 20, 23%. So we have not, barely we have progressed by three points. And the problem is still there today. So either we continue like this and then we’ll be reacting, reacting to different crisis, reacting to geopolitical crisis, reacting to social crisis, or we take our responsibility and trying to sit down and redefine the terms of our sharing planet Earth.

Shamika N. Sirimanne:
Thank you so much. You want to say something? Anybody else in the panel? If not, we, yeah, please. Natalie, please.

Natalie O. Sandiford:
I will address the question on how our organizations are interacting with tertiary education institutions. So we map Barbados chapter. We have a quarterly webinar series where we bring together professionals from around the maritime industry, not only in Barbados but across the globe in order to speak about pertinent topics facing the industry. Our recent webinar, we had one of the professors from World Maritime University join us. And in our future webinars, we hope that we would have some academics engaging with us as well. We also look to undertake research in conjunction with the University of Barbados. So we have a lot of work to do in Barbados. We have a lot of work to do in Barbados. We have a lot of work to do in Barbados. We have a lot of work to do in Barbados. We have a lot of work to do in Barbados. with universities as well as engage with them through other initiatives. So that is something to give some thought about. One of the things that we have on our radar as well is we’re trying to get to a point where we can support a scholarship opportunity for a female who is looking to pursue studies in the maritime field.

Shamika N. Sirimanne:
Esti, you have the last word.

Rebeca Grynspan:
I wanted to follow a little bit on what Gilbert said that I subscribe completely, linking it to the summit of the future that is going to happen in September in the surroundings of the General Assembly, and maybe a few words about that because the UN and the Secretary General has led this summit of the future, and in the summit of the future there are several aspects of this new contract, social contract, at the global level. Because the social contract at the national level is very specific to the characteristics of each country. The inequalities or gaps that you have in some countries are different. Some are with indigenous people, some are based on race, some are based on economic inequality. So the social contract inside the countries have to be led by the countries themselves. But they are aspects of the social contract at the global level that we have to think about. Yes, and that’s what I think Gilbert was referring also to. And in the summit of the future we have some elements of it. One of it is the international financial architecture that the PM of Barbados has led a lot of the voice also in that respect. We have a financial system that doesn’t allow for the countries to be able to do what they have to do to be able to reach the SDGs. So, there are obstacles that come from a systemic nature. And that needs also a social contract at the level of the countries, of the intergovernmental spaces that we need to have for that to happen. So, three aspects that I think are important, where UNCTAD has been an important partner in the proposals for the Summit of the Future, have been the international financial architecture, because our countries have to have the conditions to be able to do the long-term investment for diversification, for inclusion, and for sustainability. If not, we won’t be able to make it happen. And right now, just for us to know, there is a reverse flow of financing from the south to the north. Right now, the payments that we do in our debt are higher than the loans and the new money that we are getting. So, we are resource-scarce, financial resource-scarce countries. If the flow goes in the wrong direction, we won’t be able to do whatever we need to do. And for the small island developing states, we heard the ministers of transport here, this is a very, very vital thing, because of the climate change, because of the adaptation demands that these countries have. So, the new international social contract has to consider a financing system that will be able to support inclusivity, sustainability and prosperity in our country. So I think that that is a very important part of the new social contract. The other one that the Secretary General has very much pushed for is the whole issue of digital. There is a huge opportunity here for digital to help development, to help inclusivity, to help sustainability, but it won’t happen automatically. The gaps are getting wider, also between men and women, actually. The gaps are getting wider and also there is this new element of the artificial intelligence that is something that needs governance. And UNCTAD has written a lot about it, you know, data governance and the inequalities and gaps that we face, the concentration in the industry, yes, that is amazing. So also this issue of digital, the digital compact, is a very important part of the social contract for the future. And the third issue is how we measure development. And here also we need to think about it. As long as we continue to measure development also by GDP, we will take the wrong policy decisions. Because you know, in the pandemic, we experienced that, you know, countries that lost in one year of pandemic, 10 years of social progress. So we ask ourselves, we are measuring this wrongly, yes? If you lose… 10 years in one year of difficulties. There is something wrong in the way we have measured progress. So, we have put forward this Beyond GDP initiative that will measure progress, not to substitute the GDP indicator, but to put the other dimensions on it. And the vulnerability part that the seats precisely have brought to the table is a very important part of it. Many of the seats are high-income countries or middle-income countries, but GDP doesn’t mean anything when a hurricane wipes off several years of GDP. So, vulnerability, the social contract Gilbert here, you know, what are the measurements? What is it that we need to look at to really make the social contract a living thing? You know, so we know what is really happening to people, and not only to the measurement of the GDP. And I think that these three issues, at least there are other issues, you know, that are in the peace and security is also part of it, and obviously the SDGs. But these three things should be part of the new global social contract that we need to put together to really be able to have a more prosperous and sustainable future for all, not leaving anybody behind. Thank you.

Shamika N. Sirimanne:
Thank you, Esti. These are fitting words to the end of our panel discussion. Do not leave anyone behind. And keep your eye open for the summit. the future, watch the UN spaces and try to see how you can contribute to this process and a lot depends, I mean a lot of our future depends on these processes. So let me now say a thank you to all the panellists and it’s an amazing panel. Please give a big hand to our panel. So please go grab some water and then come back here, we are closing in about 15 minutes.