Jakarta, 30 September 2021. The Ministry of Women's Empowerment and Child Protection of the Republic of Indonesia (Ministry of PPPA), PT XL Axiata Tbk (XL Axiata), and the Indonesian Women Entrepreneurs Association (IWAPI) agreed to encourage the strengthening of Indonesian women's leadership in the public and private spheres. The three parties called for this in a webinar themed “The Importance of Women's Leadership in the Public and Private Sector”, Thursday (30/9). According to them, Indonesian women have an important role in advancing and growing the country's economy.
This webinar is part of a series of agendas welcoming the implementation of the “G20 Presidency of Indonesia 2022”, in which Indonesia will also hold the presidency position for the G20 Empower Forum. The Minister of Women's Empowerment and Child Protection of the Republic of Indonesia, Bintang Puspayoga, was present online to open a webinar featuring Acting Deputy for Community Participation of the Ministry of PPPA, Indra Gunawan, Chairperson of DPP IWAPI, Nita Yudi, and President Director and CEO of XL Axiata, Dian Siswarini.
Bintang Puspayoga said, “Women in Indonesia still face various challenges, such as discrimination, stigmatization, marginalization, subordination and even violence. Therefore, access, participation, control and benefits need to be expanded so that women in the business world can continue to contribute to development and can be part of the solution to the various challenges faced. Various good practices regarding women's leadership and various breakthrough programs carried out by the business world in empowering women need to be promoted so that women's roles and contributions can be recognized in the leadership process at various levels.”
The PPPA Minister added that President Joko Widodo had given five priority directions related to women's empowerment and child protection in the 2020-2024 period. One of them is women's economic empowerment as the upstream of various women's empowerment issues. This can strengthen power relations with men, so that women are not trapped in the cycle of violence and poverty. Therefore, empowering women will provide a multiplier effect because in addition to empowering women themselves, it will also contribute greatly to the welfare of the family, even the nation.
Meanwhile, Indra Gunawan said that the Ministry of PPPA together with XL Axiata and IWAPI became the focal point in promoting the importance of women's leadership in the business world through the G20 EMPOWER. Through this alliance Indonesia wants to promote good practice from companies and the government in promoting women's leadership. Indonesia also has advocates from the private sector involved in promoting gender-based leadership roles in companies.
According to him, this gender equality initiative needs to get special attention from various companies and governments globally and nationally. More and more companies are becoming aware of the priority of gender equality to encourage inclusiveness, while increasing productivity, profitability, and ensuring the sustainability of human resources, especially in managerial positions. One of the real benefits of gender equality that many organizations have experienced is the availability of human resources to support the development and optimize the performance of the organization or company.
Related to this, at the G20 Presidency of Indonesia 2022, G20 EMPOWER Indonesia will bring three main themes. First, increasing corporate accountability in achieving Key Performance Indicators for increasing the role of women. Second, having a program to encourage the role of women-owned SMEs as an economic driver. Third, building and improving women's digital resilience and skills in future work models.
In addition, there are several issues that will be discussed as part of the G20 EMPOWER theme, including women's leadership in the public and private sectors, women and career development opportunities; and equality, roles, opportunities and position of women in the public and private sectors. Then there is also the issue of the role of women in male-dominated industries (especially STEM issues).
Good Experience from XL Axiata
On the same occasion, the President Director and CEO of XL Axiata, Dian Siswarini explained her company's experience in implementing policies related to gender equality and supporting employees to reach the level of company leadership. According to him, for XL Axiata, which is a digital-based company, a diversity of talents is needed. Moreover, based on research, the presence of women in company leadership positions will increase the company’s productivity and performance. Therefore, gender equality in XL Axiata becomes the company's policy and agenda.
“We then created a number of programs to encourage female employees to build careers to leadership positions, even starting from recruitment without gender discrimination. In fact, there is a special mentoring program for female talents who have great potential to improve their careers. The results of the pro-gender equality policy at XL Axiata have produced positive results. Currently there are two women who occupy the position of director. In addition, 30% of leader positions are held by women. Moreover, female employees have become more loyal, where fewer women have moved to other companies than male employees,” added Dian.
Dian also emphasized the need to change the wrong perception that has been embedded in the minds of some people who state that the field of technology and STEM is not the world of women. In fact, according to her, the STEM field has absolutely nothing to do with gender, or in other words, there is absolutely no reason why women can't even be leaders in that field. According to her, the participation of private companies in increasing women's empowerment in Indonesia is very necessary to ensure equality for female workers in getting the opportunity to occupy leadership positions. In addition, it is also necessary for all sectors to work together in creating platforms and programs that can help Indonesian women develop their businesses and talents.
The Chairperson of the DPP IWAPI, Nita Yudi said, the challenge in efforts to empower women is the strong patriarchal culture which becomes a double burden for women in the form of stigma, stereotypes, and the glass ceiling effect that hinders women's career advancement. In fact, according to her, companies that apply gender equality to their employees will get various benefits that can improve their performance. She said, among other things, the ability to accommodate customer needs will increase. Therefore, the implementation of gender equality is not only about flexible working hours for female employees, but also how to involve them in achieving success and in other strategic policies.
G20 EMPOWERs Best Practices Playbok 2021
Playbook 2021 is one of the sustainability efforts of G20 EMPOWER in the form of a book containing a collection of best practices by 400 advocates/leaders to gather various insights from the public and private sectors. This playbook was compiled since 2020 on the initiative of the G20 EMPOWER Saudi Presidency and supported by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD).
Since it was first launched on September 21, 2021, this Playbook is expected to be used by various groups, especially female leaders from the public and private sectors. The purpose of this Playbook is to gather various understandings of what the tips are in accelerating the improvement of women's roles in various sectors.
This playbook itself is designed, among others, to learn various practices/policies, ideas, and insights that can be adopted from various sectors in many countries. In addition, it will also make it possible for governments from G20 member countries to learn about best practices that can be applied regarding cross-sector collaboration implemented in various countries. Then, it is an opportunity for G20 EMPOWER Advocates to share their best collaboration experiences with the government in developing women's empowerment. Finally, as one of the platforms that can connect the companies and governments in terms of strengthening the G20 EMPOWER network in all G20 member countries. G20 EMPOWER Playbook 2021 can be accessed via this link: https://www.g20.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Empower-Playbook-2021-complete_September-20_compressed.pdf