Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) transforms societies, organizations and individuals to positively impact the life quality of people as it leads to better performance. The government is dedicated to advance D&I by ensuring equal opportunities to everyone irrespective of gender, age, ethnicity, religion and disability. This was stated by Minister of State and Chairperson BISP MNA Marvi Memon while speaking at “Diversity and Inclusion Benchmarks (GDIB) Conference 2017” at Karachi.
The conference was held to project the research work “Global Diversity and Inclusion Benchmarks (GDIB): Standards Around the World” of 95 diversity & inclusion experts guided by Julie O’ Mara and Alan Richter sponsored by “The Diversity Collegium”- a think-tank of diversity practitioners based in Washington DC. The GDIB supports organizations in the development and implementation of D & I best practices.
The Minister Memon said that we 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 18 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.
The Minister added that BISP is a bouquet of Pakistan that caters to 5.4 million diverse women from all across Pakistan. Internationally recognized BISP, consists of a diverse workforce that helps in better understanding of the stakeholders and customers leading to improved performance of the organization.
Chairperson BISP 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.
In the end, the Chairperson distributed D&I best practices awards to Telenor, Engro, PPAF, Jazz, FINCA, Fatima Fertilizers, Standard Chartered Bank and Bank Alfalah. The conference was addressed by Ms Julie O’ Mara co author GDIB 2016, Shahzad Doda President Standard Chartered Bank, Dr Ishrat Hussain former Governor State Bank of Pakistan, Jehan Ara President Software Houses Associations, Jehangir Piracha CEO Engro Vopak terminal and many other corporate heads.
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