March 8 Is International Women’s Day

“Think Equal, Build Smart, Innovate for Change”

The United Nations (UN) adopted International Women’s Day in 1975 and has made it a major initiative ever since. Before that time, the idea was predominantly celebrated in communist countries and within socialist movements. “After women gained suffrage in Soviet Russia in 1917, March 8 became a national holiday there.” It is a time to look at both the achievements and the challenges that are particular to women around the world. Each year the UN Commission on the Status of Women selects a theme and then plans initiatives to address the goals that are a part of that theme.

The theme for International Women’s Day (8 March) this year (2019), “Think Equal, Build Smart, Innovate for Change”, puts innovation by women and girls, for women and girls, at the heart of efforts to achieve gender equality.

Achieving a gender-equal world requires social innovations that work for both women and men and leave no one behind. From urban planning that focuses on community safety to e-learning platforms that take classrooms to women and girls, affordable and quality childcare centres, and technology shaped by women, innovation can take the race for gender equality to its finishing line by 2030.

It begins with making sure that women’s and girls’ needs and experiences are…