2023 AmCham China Women’s Summit
Remarks by Siddharth Chatterjee, UN Resident Coordinator in China, as prepared for delivery

Our host, AmCham China President, Michael Hart,
Excellencies,
Distinguished guests,
Colleagues,
A warm thank you to the American Chamber of Commerce in China for hosting this event and for the invitation to share remarks. It is an honour to be here with you all to celebrate international women’s day and to participate in this important discussion about women in leadership and promoting gender equality, diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
Let me start with a short story. In the early 1940s, Chinese physicist Dr Chien-Shiung Wu who migrated to the US became the first woman hired as a faculty member at my alma mater Princeton University and subsequently worked on the Manhattan Project. She devised experiments to test the “conservation of parity” law. In 1957, her male colleagues were awarded the Nobel Prize for their work on this law, but Wu was deprived of the recognition she deserved for her contributions to this work. She was well known as the “First Lady of Physics”.
Ladies and gentlemen, we know for a fact that countries with more women in leadership, in the workforce, involved in peacemaking efforts, better management of public health crises, of economic issues, climate change, conflicts, education, and much more. We saw that firsthand when the world reeled from the “shock and awe” of the COVID 19 pandemic where women led.
Right now, at this critical juncture in history, when we face historic challenges to our planet, to our global economy, to our health, it is imperative that we promote and harness the contributions of women.
Indeed, women’s leadership is essential to ensuring progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals—all of the goals—from gender equality, to zero hunger, to climate action.
The global theme for this year’s International Women’s Day is “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality”. Under this banner, the global community is coming together to discuss the gendered impact of the digital revolution, promoting connectivity to narrow the gender digital divide, the need for gender-transformative technology design, and fostering gender-inclusive environments for STEM education and careers.
In every region of the world women are under-represented in STEM fields, representing only slightly more than 35% of the world’s STEM graduates. Women are also a minority in scientific research and development, making up less than a third of the world’s researchers.
Why does this matter? As the UN Secretary General has said, “Promoting women’s full contributions to science, technology and innovation is not an act of charity or a favour to women. It is a must and it benefits everyone.”
We must act now to address these gaps, to promote women's participation, employment, and leadership in technology and innovation. To do so, we need collective action on a number of fronts.
- We should support women and girls to gain education and careers in STEM and help academic and government institutions, as well as the private sector, to build an inclusive environment to retain them.
- Women and girls need full access to gender-responsive digital skills and science and technologies education in the digital age. We must invest in ICT infrastructure and equipment, school connectivity, public digital learning content, and teachers’ capacity.
- We should provide targeted support for women-owned businesses and entrepreneurs, including training programmes to use digital tools and services and access to incubators and accelerators for start-ups.
- We must work to break harmful social norms and gender stereotypes and support universities and employers to increase family-friendly policies and investments.

Last week, UN Women China kicked off our celebration of IWD by organizing a visit to the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
During this visit, I joined heads of several UN agencies in China and met with women scientists, young researchers, and students to talk about their experiences and to reflect upon the opportunities and challenges that digital technology and innovation bring for gender equality and women’s empowerment.
We discussed concrete solutions to respond to these challenges and spoke in particular about how we can more effectively promote young women’s aspirations and leadership in the STEM fields.
What we heard from the women at that table—and what we hear from women across the globe—is that there are societal and workplace policy reforms that are critical for supporting girls and women in these fields.
- First, we need to support and protect the sexual and reproductive rights of women and ensure they and their partners have access to family planning support that can help them achieve their aspirations and find balance between work and family life.
- Family support policies should target working fathers and mothers, offering benefits and flexibilities to both. This would help to address the reality that women who choose to take advantage of maternal benefits often fall behind their male colleagues, both in terms of promotions and earnings.
- Working parents need access to affordable, quality childcare to support pre-school and afterschool care needs. This will help address the reality that women bear a disproportionate amount of unpaid domestic work, including child-rearing duties.
- Workplace policies need to be adapted to accommodate the needs of new mothers, including access to lactation rooms, in-house daycares, and flexible teleworking policies.
- Deeply embedded conceptions of traditional gender roles at home and in the workplace need to be challenged and leaders at every level—in communities, government and in the private sector—need to put words into action and model practices that truly promote diverse, inclusive communities and workplaces and help reimagine gender norms.
For our part, the UN family in China is working hard to support women in the workforce, including in STEM fields, and to support policy reforms necessary for them to thrive.
The UNFPA works with the National Health Commission and the China Family Planning Association to strengthen integrated sexual and reproductive health service delivery systems in less developed areas to enable provision of quality health services, including maternal health and voluntary family planning, among other services.
UN Women and UNDP have teamed up with the China Association of Women Scientists and Technology Workers to bring together senior government and UN officials and business leaders to identify solutions to deep-rooted gender inequality in the science field and to urge a whole-of-society drive to attract and keep more women in science and in leadership roles.
UN Women, the International Labor Organization and the China Enterprise Confederation have jointly organized policy dialogues with the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, National Health Commission, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions and others on concrete steps for supporting family-friendly workplaces.
In partnership with the European Union through the WeEmpowerAsia programme, UN Women brought gender into corporate social responsibility guidance for over 12,000 companies in ICT and the textile industry. They also worked with dozens of major companies with over 100,000 employees to integrate gender dimensions into corporate policies and practices.
These are just a few of many examples. We call upon government and business partners to recommit to our shared goals of empowering women in the workforce and supporting women in leadership, including in STEM fields, and to redouble your efforts in this regard. Together, let’s push back against the push back on misogyny and forward for women, girls, and our world.
The time for greater collective action is now. Let’s get to work. Thank you.

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