Disclaimer:
Please be aware that the content herein has not been peer reviewed. It consists of personal reflections, insights, and learnings of the contributor(s). It may not be exhaustive, nor does it aim to be authoritative knowledge.
Title
Please provide a name for your action learning plan.
She Lab - Sustainability Laboratory for Young Women
Challenge statement
Challenge type: If you are working on multiple challenges, please indicate if this is your "big bet" or "exploratory" challenge.
Please note: we ask you to only submit a maximum of 3 challenges - 1x Big Bet, 2x Exploratory. Each challenge must be submitted individually.
BIG BET
Challenge statement: What is your challenge? (Please answer in specific terms: "Our challenge is that...”.)
The effective participation of women in the workforce and their presence in leadership roles are critical for the success of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Moreover, the presence of women in leadership roles within Turkish companies and government institutions is crucial for fostering inclusive decision-making and ensuring diverse perspectives in strategic planning. Our challenge is that many organzations are designing programmes for leadership of young women but there is none in sustainability leadership area.
Background: What is the history of your challenge? What is causing or driving it? Who is involved? How does the current situation look like? What undesired effects does it produce?
Having worked in different women empowerment initiatives and also in private sector projects, I have not witnessed in a program designed for training young women to be leaders in sustainability ecosystem. That was my initial motivation. In the meantime a new private sector partner who are very strong in Turkiye approached us to make a partnership, so I have designed an Initiation Plan for this purpose. The current situation is there are some programmes for young women to be leaders, or some programmes to train them to be social entrepreneurs, but this initiative will be a combination of many efforts in women empowerment as well as on the way to contribute to SDGs.
Quantitative evidence: What (official) data sources do you have on this challenge that better exemplifies the importance and urgency of this frontier challenge? You can add text, a link, or a picture.
In Turkiye, the female labor force participation rate is 34.1%, significantly below the global average of 48.5% (ILO, 2023). This low rate indicates the barriers women face in achieving gender equality and economic empowerment, highlighting the need for significant progress in these areas.
The effective participation of women in the workforce and their presence in leadership roles are critical for the success of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Moreover, the presence of women in leadership roles within Turkish companies and government institutions is crucial for fostering inclusive decision-making and ensuring diverse perspectives in strategic planning. Although progress has been made, there is still room for improvement, particularly in sectors where women remain underrepresented. In 2022, women’s share among the persons in masdgnagerial positions is 18,5 percent. Turkey has been the country with the lowest women representation in public administration posts with a share of 19 percent, among the UNDP Europe and Central Asia Region. Women top leaders make the 8 percent of all in the public administration structure in Turkiye.
Qualitative evidence: What weak signals have you recently spotted that characterizes its urgency? Please provide qualitative information that better exemplifies the importance and urgency of this frontier challenge. You can add text, a link, or a picture.
There are only few women in the sustainability sector as leaders. Either in corporate firms, local authorities or as entrepreneurs the percentage is very low. In addition UNDP Turkiye is involved in Business Platforms for Sustainability, the percentage of women in those platforms are also low.
Value proposition: What added value or unique value proposition is your Accelerator Lab bringing to solving this challenge? Why is it your Lab that needs to work on this challenge and not other actors within UNDP, other stakeholders in the country respectively? Why is it worth investing resources to this challenge?
We aim to launch a comprehensive project that combines sustainable development and women's empowerment. In the pilot phase, an online and certified sustainability training and ideation program (SHE LAB) will be created. Through this program, young women will have the opportunity to explore the field of sustainability and implement their innovative projects. The program will be supported by meetings with industry leaders and will feature a hybrid structure. Participants in SHE LAB will form a network of volunteer ambassadors for active citizenship and equality. The project will encourage young women from universities to take steps in sustainability and gender equality. It also includes an intensive communication component aimed at introducing the agenda of gender equality in sustainability to young people and the public.
It is the Head of Experimentation together with the Gender Equality Advisor designed the initiative. Only with this involvement the programme targets a different challenge that other actors do not work on and also the training programme has many pillars of innovation.
Short “tweet” summary: We would like to tweet what you are working on, can you summarize your challenge in a maximum of 280 characters?
AccLab has launched a groundbreaking initiative to train young women as sustainability leaders. 🌍✨ Participants will learn about sustainability, harness AI for social good, & design their own impactful projects. Proud to partner with Boyner Group on this journey! #Sustainability #WomenInLeadership #AIForGood #SocialImpact
Partners
Who are your top 5 partners for this challenge? Please submit from MOST to LEAST important and state Name, Sector and a brief description of the (intended) collaboration.
Please state the name of the partner:
Boyner Group
What sector does our partner belong to?
Private Sector
Please provide a brief description of the collaboration.
Boyner Group is a pioneer textile company in Turkiye which was known with their works on women empowerment. They approached UNDP to make something together on women empowerment. They allocated USD 400,000 for this intiiative for 18 months.
Is this a new and unusual partner for UNDP?
Yes
Learning questions
Learning question: What is your learning question for this challenge? What do you need to know or understand to work on your challenge statement?
What are the most effective ways to train young women to become leaders in sustainability, leveraging both traditional and emerging technologies like AI?
To what stage(s) in the learning cycle does your learning question relate?
Test
Usage of methods: Relating to your choice above, how will you use your methods & tools for this learning question? What value do these add in answering your learning question?
Co-Designing the Curriculum with Participants and Stakeholders, Blended Learning Model: Combining Traditional and Emerging Technologies, Feedback and Reflection Loops
Existing data gaps: Relating to your choice above, what existing gaps in data or information do these new sources of data addressing? What value do these add in answering your learning question?
Limited data on how young women in different regions or cultural contexts respond to sustainability education compared to men, particularly when it comes to the integration of AI.
Closing
Early leads to grow: Think about the possible grow phase for this challenge - who might benefit from your work on this challenge or who might be the champions in your country that you should inform or collaborate with early on to help you grow this challenge?
young women are the direct beneficiaries, but private sector which are potential employers of these women will benefit and eventually the society will benefit from the women sustainability leaders working in different platforms.
END OF ACTION LEARNING PLAN: Thank you! The form saves automatically and your submission has been recorded. You may now exit this window.
She Lab succesfully gave 120 graduates until now.
5Gender equality
8Decent work and economic growth
10Reduced innequalities
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