Women Deliver President/CEO Katja Iversen issued a statement on the website, about the reformation of Women Deliver by recognizing the conversations started by former employees about working at Women Deliver and acknowledge the gravity of the concerns they raise and the pain and trauma they have shared.
She said, “any form of abuse or discrimination has no place in Women Deliver”, She also maintained the organization has initiated to review these specific statements and are taking more explicit steps to reform the organization. Reform is about big change and accountability — from diversity in leadership to intersectionality in our work, and much more.
Katja Iversen Said “What is clear is that we as an organization and as individuals have work to do. As we said last week: we recognize the international development and nonprofit sectors have their own history of racist power dynamics that need to be dismantled and we are reexamining our own role in perpetuating those systems and structures. We acknowledge that we can’t just be against racism but must actively oppose racism as anti-racists.”
In the past week, Women Deliver has made a series of public commitments like clear Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion benchmarks for hiring processes, Examine own retention rates for people of color and minority groups, Continue to hire more people of color and strengthen the diversity of recruitment pipelines, Ensure an intersectional lens, along with a DEI strategy. Iversen announced, The organization has started internal work to build on those confinements. Women Deliver is committed to moving quickly and consistently to achieve those commitments.
“We also know that this work is not just about our internal structure, but also about our broader mandate. To truly deliver for all girls and all women our work must also advance racial equality, LGBTQIA+ rights, disability rights, indigenous rights, and other pressing human rights issues. We must work to eradicate systems of oppression that lead to racial injustice, work that is intrinsically linked to our advocacy for a more gender-equal world. Women Deliver commits to being more intersectional in our work, in addition to our commitments to reform internally,” Iversen stated on the statement.
She concluded by saying, “I and we will continue to humbly listen, respectfully learn, and boldly act towards that promise — for and with our staff, our partners, and all girls and all women.”
