KARACHI: Minister of State and Chairperson BISP Marvi Memon on Thursday said the government is dedicated to advance Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) by ensuring equal opportunities to everyone irrespective of gender, age, ethnicity, religion and disability.
“Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) transforms societies, organisations and individuals to positively impact the life quality of people as it leads to better performance,” she said while addressing the ‘Diversity and Inclusion Benchmarks (GDIB) Conference 2017’.
The conference is held to project the research work “Global Diversity and Inclusion Benchmarks (GDIB): Standards around the World” of 95 diversity and inclusion experts guided by Julie O’ Mara and Alan Richter.
This is sponsored by the Diversity Collegium – a think-tank of diversity practitioners based in Washington DC. GDIB supports organisations in the development and implementation of D&I best practices.
Ms. Memon said there is a need to change stereotypical mindsets, show tolerance and think beyond biases in order to progress and prosper.
BISP recently launched first multilingual book “Stories of BISP” in eighteen different languages based on the real life stories of its beneficiary women from 146 districts of Pakistan as a token of respect to regional languages of Pakistan.
“We need to communicate, accept differences and find commonalities to progress and promote unity through diversity.”
She added that BISP caters to 5.4 million diverse women from across Pakistan, and consists of a diverse workforce that helps in better understanding of the stakeholders and customers leading to improved performance of the organisation.
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BISP chairperson reiterated that Pakistan is on the right path towards managing diversity and fostering inclusion that started with increase in number of women parliamentarians as gender diversity and inclusion is imperative for economic growth and development.
“Improvement in gender diversity in workforce requires a review of global best practices and their customization to local industry dynamics for providing a level playing field to women to contribute towards economic wellbeing of the country,” she stated.
Later, she distributed D&I best practices awards various companies. The conference was addressed by co-author of GDIP 2016 Ms Julie O’ Mara, former Governor State Bank of Pakistan Dr Ishrat Hussain, Jehan Ara President Software Houses Associations and many other corporate heads.
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