Anglo American Leads the UK Business Community in Promoting Gender Equality
LONDON, May 1, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --
Anglo American is the first company to commit to the United Nations Women/United Nations Global Compact Women's Empowerment Principles at the UK launch, and has strengthened its resolve to increase gender diversity across its international operations and in its host communities.
Launched in the UK market yesterday evening, by the United Nations National Committee (UK), the Women's Empowerment Principles are designed to help companies promote gender equality in the workplace and in the wider community.
The Principles are the result of a United Nations Women/United Nations Global Compact partnership, and provide companies with the guidelines to build new, or refine existing, policies and practices to redress gender imbalances in their workplaces and in their immediate communities. The seven Principles cover the importance of high-level, visible leadership; of using your core business to empower women in the community; to the critical role of monitoring and publicly reporting the progress to realise a more gender balanced workplace.
Cynthia Carroll, Chief Executive of Anglo American, who presented at the launch event, commented: "Anglo American is proud to become a signatory of the Women's Empowerment Principles and we are committed to using this framework to improve our existing diversity initiatives. We hope that by taking the lead, as being the first company to sign up to the Principles at the UK launch, we can encourage other companies to follow."
"Empowering women at all levels of society can improve health and education, raise family income, stimulate growth and lift communities out of poverty. Meaningful progress, however, can only be achieved through the combination of corporate leadership and a deliberate framework and, of course, well considered practical initiatives.
"In our industry, the mining industry, the female participation rate continues to be extremely low - we see significant room for improvement. We have been focussed on redressing this imbalance at our own operations, in our corporate offices, and across the broader mining sector. We have seen the percentage of women in our workforce steadily rise and today 15% of our overall workforce are women, up from 13% in 2009 and 22% of managers are women, up from 9% in 2006. At the Board level, we have also committed to increasing the representation of women, from 20% to 30%, by 2013."
"We look forward to our partnership with UN Women and to working with other international companies to develop the best approaches to tackle gender equality, and to delivering tangible results in this area," Ms Carroll added.
Notes to editors:
Anglo American is one of the world's largest mining companies, is headquartered in the UK and listed on the London and Johannesburg stock exchanges. Anglo American's portfolio of mining businesses spans bulk commodities - iron ore and manganese, metallurgical coal and thermal coal; base metals - copper and nickel; and precious metals and minerals - in which it is a global leader in both platinum and diamonds. Anglo American is committed to the highest standards of safety and responsibility across all its businesses and geographies and to making a sustainable difference in the development of the communities around its operations. The company's mining operations, extensive pipeline of growth projects and exploration activities span southern Africa, South America, Australia, North America, Asia and Europe.
UN Women UK National Committee
The UK National Committee for UN Women is a charity and the local champion for UN Women, working in local communities, in business and with the UK Government to support the global mission for gender equality. The organisation is focused on an end to violence against women; a central role for women in post conflict situations; economic empowerment for women; political participation and leadership for women; policy making that delivers gender equality; and delivery of the millennium development goals.
UN Women
UN Women is the UN organisation dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women. A global champion for women and girls, UN Women was established to accelerate progress on meeting their needs worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.unwomen.org.
http://unglobalcompact.org/Issues/human_rights/equality_means_business.html
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