Nokia and UN Women have together launched four pilot projects to bolster inclusion and diversity for equality. These pilots aim to address four different areas such as increasing the number of women employees, raising awareness of cervical cancer and uterine fibroids, promoting science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and empowering gender-based violence victims. After the successful execution of the pilots, the two organisations plan to roll these projects out in more countries across the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region.
The current collaboration follows a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed recently by Nokia and UN Women, the United Nations entity for gender equality and women’s empowerment, which will guide the global partnership. Nokia has also become a signatory to the Women Empowerment Principles (WEPs), a set of Principles offering guidance on how to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment in the workplace, marketplace and community.
The collaboration builds on the ongoing partnership of Nokia and UNICEF to increase equitable access to digital literacy, particularly for girls and children with disabilities in Kenya.
As part of the current collaboration, Nokia will work on implementing the WEPs, and UN Women will involve Nokia in its outreach initiatives to promote inclusion and diversity in society.
Anita Bhatia, Deputy Executive Director, Resource Management, Sustainability and Partnerships, UN Women, stated: “When women prosper, societies and economies grow with them. Starting with these pilots, our collaboration with Nokia is designed to create and celebrate a more just and inclusive environment so that more and more women will emerge as global agents of change.”
Nicole Arian Markazi, Head, UN Women Programme Lead, Nokia, said: “We, at Nokia, are committed to inclusion and diversity to drive equal opportunity. By collaborating with UN Women in Saudi Arabia, Tanzania, Kenya and South Africa, we strengthen this commitment. We strongly believe that equality will unleash the full potential of young girls and women to become innovators, entrepreneurs and leaders for a better world.”
