The Closing the Global Gender Gap: A Call to Action is an initiative led by the Women and Public Policy Program in collaboration with the Center for International Development at the Harvard Kennedy School that aims to leverage Harvard University’s rigorous capacity for research and convening power toward the empowerment of women.

We thank ExxonMobil’s Educating Women and Girls Initiative and the Women’s Leadership Board of the Harvard Kennedy School for their foundational support of this work.

Closing the Global Gender Gap Initiative: A Call to Action

Closing the Global Gender Gap: A Call to Action is an initiative led by the Women and Public Policy Program in collaboration with the Center for International Development at the Harvard Kennedy School that aims to leverage Harvard University’s capacity for rigorous research and convening power toward the empowerment of women.

The purpose of this initiative is threefold: to examine and quantify the impact of specific policy interventions, to develop a theory of change, and to stimulate innovative ideas and policy action in order to close the global gender gaps across four areas. These areas include economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. There is enormous rhetoric about women’s empowerment—this initiative’s goal is to shed new light on the channels that successfully effect change.

Our research is stimulated by the Global Gender Gap Report produced by the World Economic Forum. The annual reports, which are based on the gender gap index developed by Harvard Kennedy School faculty and researchers, document the gap between men and women in over 100 countries in terms of our four areas of interest above.

[brochure pdf]

The Business Case Conference
This two-day conference, to be held at Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, in 2010 will bring together key researchers and decision makers to explore the economic value of gender diversity in organizations, politics and society.

Topics for examination and discussion include:

• The relationship between a country’s gender gap and its economic performance
• The impact of gender equality on political outcomes
• The relationship between the gender balance of a company’s senior management and board and its performance
• The influence of diversity on team performance
• The effect of a decision maker’s gender on individual behavior
  

Private and public sector leaders will comment on how research insights could impact corporate practices and structures, policy making, and leadership. The conference will also feature keynote speeches by political and business leaders.

The conference attendees will be leaders in business, government and academia, with 150 guests invited to participate. Key media representatives will also be invited. The conference will be by invitation-only. The conference is part of a new multi-year initiative on the business case for gender equality.

[brochure pdf]