Dear National Ozone Officers,
On behalf of UNEP OzonAction Compliance Assistance Programme (CAP), I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY and to especially thank our female National Ozone Officers (NOOs) and national stakeholders for their tremendous and continuing contributions to the implementation and compliance with the Montreal Protocol.
Thank you for all that you are doing for the Montreal Protocol, for our planet and for future generations!
The theme for this year’s celebration is “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality”. According to UN Women:
Today, a persistent gender gap in digital access keeps women from unlocking technology’s full potential. Their underrepresentation in STEM [science, technology, engineering, mathematics] education and careers remains a major barrier to their participation in tech design and governance. And the pervasive threat of online gender- based violence—coupled with a lack of legal recourse—too often forces them out of the digital spaces they do occupy.
At the same time, digital technology is opening new doors for the global empowerment of women, girls, and other marginalized groups. From gender-responsive digital learning to tech-facilitated sexual and reproductive healthcare, the digital age represents an unprecedented opportunity to eliminate all forms of disparity and inequality.
This 8 March, we are calling on governments, activists and the private sector alike to power on in their efforts to make the digital world safer, more inclusive and more equitable. Facing a multiplicity of global crises, we have a chance to create a better future—not just for women and girls, but for all humanity and all life on Earth. Join us.
OzonAction is commemorating this year’s International Women’s Day by launching a specific Gender mainstreaming section of our website. I encourage you all to visit it and learn more about OzonAction’s engagement in incorporating gender into its work, both internally and externally.
On this page, you will find more information about the IIR-UNEP survey on challenges and opportunities women are facing in the heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration (HVACR) sector, as well as about country examples of gender mainstreaming activities in Latin America and the Caribbean. You can also read over one hundred personal stories of Women in the HVACR, and get more information about gender related meetings, news, and the gender policy context.
We will continue to celebrate women in our field by launching the International Network of Women in Cooling (INWIC) new logo and website later this month. Together with the WRD (World Refrigeration Day) Secretariat and our eleven global HVACR partners, we will use this website not only for sharing of information and resources but also as a powerful networking platform that will allow women professionals in the HVACR sector to connect, exchange experiences and interact with each other in a safe and inclusive space. INWIC will also use another digital tool, a mentoring software, to facilitate mentoring of both young women and established professionals across borders and in real-time.
Please stay tuned and check our Gender Mainstreaming page for more information about INWIC and other activities.
I wish everyone a Happy International Women’s Day and look forward to working together with all of you in making gender mainstreaming an integral and inseparable part of our work.
Yours sincerely,
James S. Curlin
Head of OzonAction
UNEP Law Division
