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Saadia Zahidi at the World Economic Forum 2010 (Photo: Oussama Rhaleb)

The World Economic Forum is going on right now in Davos, Switzerland. The annual gathering attracts many of the world’s top business leaders. Usually that means a whole lot of men and very few women. This year, though, organizers have imposed a gender quota on top corporate participants. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Pakistani economist . She heads the forum’s “gender parity program.” Download MP3

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Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World. The World Economic Forum is going on right now in Davos, Switzerland. It’s the annual gathering of many of the world’s top business leaders, along with political leaders and economists from all around the globe. Usually that means a whole lot of men and very few women. This year, though, organizers have imposed a gender quota on top corporate participants. Pakistani economist Saadia Zahidi heads the Gender Parity Program for the World Economic Forum. She joins us now from Davos. Saadia, it was actually your idea to have a quota at this annual meeting. Why did you consider it necessary?

Saadia Zahidi:  Women make up one-half of the human resources that are available to any country in the world, and essentially any company in the world. And if that one half is not empowered, it’s really countries that are going to be losing out in terms of competitiveness. It’s companies that are going to be losing out as well. And so it’s logical that we want to ensure that women do make it, not only into the workforce, but all the way to the top of leadership positions.

Werman: So tell us how the quota works. These are for these so-called strategic partners who go to the forum. What are they supposed to do?

Zahidi: So our strategic partners are the companies that are the most engaged with us. And out of the five spaces that are available to them, at the annual meeting in Davos, they are asked to ensure that at least one of those spaces is occupied by a high-level female executive from the company. And there is a certain threshold for the level of leadership that we are looking for, to be joining us here and to be able to work on resolving global challenges. And so the idea is let’s ensure that we have the right level of people, and we’ve seen the results. We have been able to more than double the participation of women from strategic partners. Almost 80 percent of these companies are now bringing a high-level female executive. And even those that are not are fully on-board with this policy.

Werman: Did you feel that prior to this year that Davos was something of a boy’s club?

Zahidi: No. There is a real scarcity of women in these positions. And in a lot of ways, this conference, this meeting, is a reflection of that scarcity.

Werman: So how do you think this is going to change what comes out of the World Economic Forum in the long run?

Zahidi: What we’re trying to do – this is not an issue that is to be solved with one quota or another. This is something where you need to take a broad approach. Let’s understand the problem. So, our annual global gender gap report is essentially ranking economies according to whether there are, they are distributing resources equitably between women and men. The second piece is, let’s learn from the best. Let’s bring together those companies that have learnt how to put more gender equality in place. Let’s take their experiences and then let’s make sure that others are aware of those experiences. And that’s the work that we are doing with our Gender Parity Group: Fifty percent women; fifty percent men – not just women talking about women’s issues.

Werman: Saadia Zahidi is an economist. She heads the so-called Gender Parity Program for the organizers of the World Economic Forum. Thanks very much for your time, indeed.

Zahidi: Thank you.

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