Call for women to join panel to accelerate gender equality in Greater Manchester

Women are being urged to apply to join a ground-breaking new panel working to make a real difference in accelerating gender equality in Greater Manchester and combatting the inequalities women and girls are facing as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.

Greater Manchester’s Women and Girls’ Equality Panel is being established to ensure that all women and girls have equality of opportunity to start well, live well and age well.

As well as aiming to make a real difference in accelerating gender equality and look at issues affecting women and girls’ lives the panel will now be working on understanding and responding issues arising from, or worsened by the coronavirus outbreak in relation to the lives of women and girls in Greater Manchester. 

The panel is now open to women across the city-region to apply to join.

It will be chaired by Greater Manchester’s Lead for Ageing and Equalities Cllr Brenda Warrington and Chief Executive Portfolio Lead for Equalities and Ageing Pam Smith. Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester Beverly Hughes will also be a core member.

Cllr Warrington said: “It is vital that we address inequality issues across the city-region, enabling women and girls to live their best lives.

“The recent pandemic has created new challenges for everyone in the city-region, including women and girls and a key part of the panel’s work will be in understanding and addressing these.

“The outbreak will have created a number of inequalities, as well as increasing existing ones and it is vital that we see what we can do to combat these to ensure we have an equal society for all.

“This panel will help us to do this and make a real difference in accelerating gender equality across Greater Manchester. This group is being created to work for all women and girls and I would urge people to apply to join, to ensure that the membership is diverse and inclusive and we hear from as wide a range of women from different backgrounds and with different experiences as possible.”

The panel is open to all women and applications are being sought from those who are able to advise on key matters related to policy and activity, engage with their networks and ensure that they represent the views of those organisations working in similar fields.

The panel will establish a clear vision for women and girls in Greater Manchester by building on work to date and will develop a work programme and action plan to drive this work over the coming years. It will also ensure that gender equality is actively considered by GMCA and the wider GM system in decisions made to help the city-region a better place to live, work, study and do business.

The application process is now open for six weeks. You can find all the information, including the application form, equalities monitoring form and where to send them here.

Building on this, next week, the Fawcett Society is hosting an event called ‘Build Back Better: Leveling the Playing Field for Women in the Regions’. The event will consider whether local government and combined authorities should have a greater role in lockdown decisions and how they can influence the need to build back better. It will also look at how women in the regions can be better included in national debate. This is a chance to hear directly from women on what comes next - with exclusive data on the experiences of women in the West Midlands and Greater Manchester - and to encourage policymakers to act now to level up.

Among those speaking at the event will be Stockport Council Chief Executive and Greater Manchester’s Lead Chief Executive for Equalities, Pam Smith. You can find out more about the event, including how to register here.

Article Published: 07/07/2020 17:13 PM