AFchamber held a meeting to present the project “Gender Diversity at Workplace”
On March 5, 2021, AFchamber Women Professional Committee held a meeting to present the project “Gender Diversity at Workplace.” French Ambassador to Azerbaijan Zacharie Gross and representative of the State Committee for Family, Women, and Children Affairs Elgun Safarov attended the meeting as honored guests. Within the framework of the program, Memorandums of Understanding were signed with Managing Director of Total Regis Agut, Country Managing Partner of PwC Azerbaijan Movlan Pashayev, Director of Ekvita Ilgar Mehti, and CEO of Mega Insurance Sevinj Gulmaliyeva.
The meeting started with opening remarks by AFchamber Managing Director Zibar Huseynova. She greeted the guests and expressed her gratitude to the partner member companies – Total, PwC Azerbaijan, Schlumberger, Ekvita, Mega Insurance for their contribution to this project.
Ambassador Zacharie Gross noted the negative difficulties in gender issues and said that the French government has done a number of activities in this direction, and that gender equality is a priority for the country. He stressed the importance of cooperation among countries to ensure gender diversity in all areas. He appreciated the initiative of the Azerbaijan-France Chamber of Commerce and said it was an important project submitted on time.
Sona Abbasova, Chair of the Women Professional Committee, and Nargiz Vazirova, Deputy Chair of the Committee, informed guests about the project “Gender Diversity at Workplace”. According to the presentation, the “Gender Diversity at Workplace” program aimed to assist companies to increase the ratio of women in leadership positions, encourage business owners to include gender diversity in business as a strategic priority, and implement transformation into the company.
At present, ensuring gender equality and building an inclusive society in order to meet the requirements of modern management standards has become a priority for all countries of the world. In this regard, in recent years, Azerbaijan has also held a number of events on gender diversity, women representation in decision-making, high governance as well as the formation of a society based on dynamic, inclusive, and social justice is included in the document “Azerbaijan 2030: National Priorities for Socio-Economic Development”.
We consider it important to launch the “Gender Diversity at Workplace” project at a time when a number of measures are being taken to achieve rapid development in the above areas. Through this project, international and local companies will contribute to the formation of an inclusive, gender-based business environment by working together and sharing experiences.
Regis Agut, Managing Director of Total in Azerbaijan, said that he was pleased to participate in the project as a representative of a company that shares best international practices. In addition, he announced that today Total Azerbaijan launched a local program to ensure gender equality in Azerbaijan.
Director of Ekvita Ilgar Mehti stressed that although a number of projects and strategies on gender equality have been developed, there are still gaps in the implementation of these documents and it is important to work in this direction.
Referring to her personal experience and the challenges she faces, Sevinj Gulmaliyeva, CEO of Mega Insurance, said that such projects are important to increase women’s participation in decision-making.
The meeting ended with the signing of Memorandums of Understanding.