UNITAR’s Woman’s Leadership Workshop in Geneva - June 2016
8 June 2016, Geneva, Switzerland – UNITAR’s Women’s Leadership Programme delivered a 2-day Leadership Workshop on the 1 and 2 June in Geneva. The workshop was attended by representatives from Permanent Missions, the non-governmental sector, and international organizations and achieved the goal of providing a platform and environment that empowered women not only to self-reflect and learn, but also connect with and inspire one another.
The leadership workshop is part of the series of workshops under UNITAR’s Women’s Leadership Programme which seeks to promote gender equality and leadership opportunities for women in multilateral decision making fora.
The workshop was facilitated by Ambassador Tania Dussey-Cavassini, special advisor and facilitator for UNITAR’s Women’s Leadership Programme, who is experienced in the fields of global health, management consulting, executive education, diplomacy and law enforcement. The workshop included a number of interactive exercises and discussions centered around topics such as what characterizes a strong leader, appreciate personal strengths as a woman in leadership, strengthen the application of key high priority skills for effective performance, and build personal confidence, identity and direction.One of the sessions of the day included an interactive and open armchair discussion with leading women from Geneva’s International community. The discussion was led by Her Excellency Ms. Marta Maurás Pérez, Permanent Representative of Chile to the United Nations Office at Geneva, Ms. Corinne Momal-Vanian, Director of Conference Management at United Nations Office at Geneva, Ms. Cornelia Moussa, Director of Human Resources Management Department for World Intellectual Property Organization, and Ms. Caitlin Kraft-Buchman, Executive Director and Founder of Women@TheTable and Co-Founder of Geneva Gender Champions Network. The panel was moderated by Ms. Valeria Esquivel, Gender Research Coordinator at the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD). The panel assessed the facts and figures about the imbalance of women to men ratios in the media and work place, insight into both the progress and stagnancy of gender equality throughout their careers, and the successes and challenges, as well as the lessons-learned throughout their paths into leadership.
The evaluations of the workshop were extremely positive, asking for further workshops in the near future.
« This was a true workshop, in the sense that we worked on ourselves, and found ourselves in ourselves…the rest is to be discovered along the journey we just started »
The workshop participants will remain connected through UNITAR’s alumni network. UNITAR looks forward to working with UN Women and other UN Partners and Member States to deliver similar workshops in the near future.
The Women’s Leadership Programme
Working with UN agencies and key strategic partners, the Women’s Leadership Programme is delivering capacity building and awareness raising events to provide opportunities for women to build personal leadership skills and learn from women in leadership positions, with the aim of reaching 50:50 balance of women and men in political decision making contexts by 2030 (UN Women’s Planet 50:50 by 2030 and HeforShe initiatives).