Bosnia and Herzegovina uses social media and online events to mark International Women’s Day

 Johanna Strömquist Ambassador of Sweden to BiH

  David Saunders UN Women Representative in BiH 

To mark this year's global theme of International Women's Day, UN Women in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) reflected on the topic with its partners, by asking the question “What is women's leadership to you?” through a social media campaign. A variety of international partners and donors, as well as UN agencies, participated in the campaign. The aim was to reflect on the importance of women's leadership in order to contribute to the discussion on women's rights throughout March. Various quotes contributed again highlighted the need to include women in the decision-making process and advocate for gender equality in leadership.

Meanwhile, UN Women took part in the annual conference on International Women's Day, organized by Agency for Gender Equality of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The conference was titled ‘Gender Equality beyond 2020: Empowerment of women and creating a safer environment’, and was held online, due to COVID. It a broad range of government and non-government representatives participated, as well as international stakeholders. UN Women BiH Representative, David Saunders, participated in the thematic panel titled ‘Transformative approach to meeting the obligations under the Beijing Declaration and the UN CEDAW Convention with a focus on mitigating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic’.

Elsewhere online, the IT Girls initiative and European Union Information Centre organized a virtual discussion titled ‘Digital (in)equality: Women and Girls resist!’. The discussion spotlighted women’s position in the digital sector. The online panel gave an opportunity to promote gender equality in the IT sector, as well as successful initiatives that aim to educate and engage young girls in Bosnia and Herzegovina. While positive trends are noticeable when it comes to the presence of women in this industry, initiatives such as IT Girls have been greatly successful in inviting more girls and women to consider and take up a career in the STEM and IT industries. Johanna Strömquist, the Ambassador of Sweden to BiH gave opening remarks alongside Dr. Ingrid Macdonald, the UN Resident Coordinator in BiH, and Johann Sattler, the EU Ambassador to BiH.