Procter & Gamble Announces New Commitment to Gender Equality Across the Indian Subcontinent, Middle East and Africa region

Procter & Gamble has announced a series of measures designed to support a push towards gender equality across the Indian Subcontinent, Middle East and Africa region. The news was made public by Mr. Mohamed Sultan, Vice President, Arabian Peninsula, Procter & Gamble during a meeting of the United Nations Secretary-General’s High Level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment (‘HLP’), which was held for the first time in the Middle East region and hosted by the UAE Gender Balance Council.

P&G’s commitment to gender equality is in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #5 – to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls globally. Mohamed Samir, IMEA President for P&G, explained that implementation of this commitment will include four key areas for 2017, which will be undertaken in partnership with UN Women and other female-empowerment organizations.

“P&G has been championing the cause of gender equality both inside and outside of P&G, leveraging the strengths of our business and operations, our scale and our advertising voice to address gender bias and enable education for girls and women’s economic empowerment,” explained Samir.

These four areas include:

1. P&G will expand its supplier development and sourcing from women-owned business in our supply chains across the world, including the Indian subcontinent, Middle East and Africa.

1.P&G will continue to reveal gender bias and spark conversations through P&G brand advertising campaigns and encourage the wider advertising industry to do the same.

1. P&G, working with our NGO partners on the ground, will empower women & girls impacted by the Syrian refugee crisis to realize their potential.

1. P&G will extend our programs to keep girls in school in India, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and Tanzania.

Dr. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women, stated “I commend P&G on their excellent initiative and call on all companies to equal or better implementation of the recommendations arising from the High Level Panel, in the interests of achieving women’s economic empowerment.”

At the meeting of the UN Secretary-General’s HLP, hosted by UAE Gender Balance Council, Her Excellency, the Vice President of the UAE Gender Balance Council, Mona Al Marri, spoke of the impact that female empowerment has had on the UAE and the importance of positive action by all stakeholders including the private sector. “Women’s empowerment is at the heart of the UAE’s national strategy, and the country’s leadership wants to see the UAE at the forefront of women’s empowerment. The UAE Gender Balance Council is playing an important role in driving further progress in the field of gender balance and contributing to the development of society. We are also proud that Procter & Gamble has answered our call for action to promote gender equality around the world and particularly in this region, through their strong commitments for 2017.”

Gender Equality is a priority focus area of P&G’s Citizenship activities. P&G has been steadily working to improve gender equality by leveraging its unique strengths. Some of P&G’s achievements globally and in this region include:

Business & Operations

• P&G hires 50% women into entry level management roles and they get promoted into next assignments at the same progression as men.
• P&G was the first Consumer Goods Company with a license to employ women in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and now employs 15% women managers in KSA across all commercial disciplines including Finance, HR, Sales & Marketing

In the US, P&G has integrated women-owned businesses into our sourcing supply chain.  In P&G’s last fiscal year, the company spent 1.1 BN$ with women-owned businesses and importantly the majority of this spend is direct.    

Scale

• P&G and our Always brand has a 30-year history of providing puberty and hygiene education and is reaching over 17 million girls across the world each year.

Advertising Voice

• P&G has been sparking conversations & motivating change in brand advertising campaigns across the world, with an increased focus in the Indian subcontinent, Middle East, and Africa.