This year's Oslo Pax conference has been named "Diversity Matters" and puts the spotlight on the importance of diversity when major issues are to be resolved. In addition to ABB's Heidi Robertson, the list of speakers includes one of the founders of Black Lives Matter, the Nobel Peace Prize winners Jody Williams (1997) and Beatrice Fihn (2017) and the Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ine Eriksen Søreide.
The peace conference kicks off on Wednesday 7 October, two days before the announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize 2020. It takes place both digitally and as an event at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo.
“The digital format gives us the opportunity to include leading names from around the world on the list of speakers and for many more to follow the conference via streaming,” says Kjersti Fløgstad, director of the Nobel Peace Center.
The background for this year's peace conference is the 20th anniversary of UN Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security, the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Gender Equality and the fact that there are ten years left before the world shall achieve the UN's sustainability goals, including the goal of gender equality. The aim of the conference is to bring together people who work with gender equality and diversity in different sectors so that they can learn from each other and come up with new solutions.
“When women still make up only eleven percent of the heads of state, seven percent of the top leaders and six percent of the peacekeeping forces, there is still a big job to do. At the same time, diversity is about so much more than gender and it is something that both business and civil society must take on board. The conference "Diversity Matters" will offer good examples and opportunities for learning across sectors that we hope can contribute to progress for the work with inclusion and diversity,” says Fløgstad.
Oslo Pax 2020 is supported by ABB, Designit, Atea and Hydro. You can find more information about the event here.
ABB has taken a number of steps to strengthen diversity and inclusion. The company recently signed the UN Standards of Conduct with five concrete steps to adapt the principles and practices of international human rights standards for LGBTI people.
In addition, ABB has launched it’s new “Global Diversity & Inclusion Strategy 2030” through which it plans to double the proportion of female managers worldwide over the next ten years.
