Women in Maritime: International Maritime Organization's Gender Programme
Today, women represent only 1.2% percent of the global seafarer workforce as per the BIMCO/ICS 2021 Seafarer Workforce Report.
Within this historically male dominated industry, IMO has been making a concerted effort to help the industry move forward and support women to achieve a representation that is in keeping with twenty-first century expectations.
IMO supports gender equality and the empowerment of women through gender specific fellowships; by facilitating access to high-level technical training for women in the maritime sector in developing countries; by creating the environment in which women are identified and selected for career development opportunities in maritime administrations, ports and maritime training institutes; and by facilitating the establishment of professional women in maritime associations, particularly in developing countries.
Find out more on the IMO's Women in Maritime Initiative.
Maritime SheEO Leadership Programme
The Maritime SheEO leadership accelerator programme aims to equip women with the leadership skills and confidence to take a seat at the shipping decision-making table. The first two batched of the course, consisting of 8 weeks with a weekly commitment of 3-4 hours of learning, were held during 2022.
A third batch will begin on 8 March 2023.
Pacific Women in Maritime Association
Pacific Women in Maritime in Nuku'alofa, Tonga and attended by representatives from Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu, World Maritime University (WMU) and observers from Tongan administrations, the Tonga Maritime Training Institute, Port Authority of Tonga and private sector organizations.
Women in the Maritime Sector in Eastern and Southern Africa
Association for women in the maritime sector in Eastern and Southern Africa – “WOMESA”, is a young association made up of 50 founder members, drawn from countries within East and Southern African region namely:- Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Madagascar ,Mauritius, Seychelles, Mozambique, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Zambia, Botswana, Angola, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Swaziland, Rwanda, Burundi, Sudan, DRC, Comoros, and Kenya.
Closing the Engineering Gender Pay Gap
The Royal Academy of Engineering has commissioned Women into Science and Engineering (WISE) to quantify the gender pay gap for engineers in the UK, identify the underlying causes and recommend effective solutions. This research project is a key element of the Academy’s diversity and inclusion strategy, which aligns closely with WISE’s core purpose of achieving gender balance in science, technology and engineering.
This research aims to:
Maritime Women: Global Leadership
Based on a compilation of papers from the 2014 conference hosted by World Maritime University, also entitled Maritime Women: Global Leadership (MWGL), the book is the first of its kind and focuses on detailed experiences of women in the maritime sector at the global level.
WomHub
A Boutique Incubator, Accelerator & Co-working Hub for Female Founders in STEM. The Incubator and Accelerator supports STEM innovation through providing both hackathons, venture building, virtual and in-person incubator and accelerator support. WomHub’s expertise is with female led innovation and working with female founders, however, it has run equally successful gender agnostic programmes as well. WomHub’s fit-for-purpose Hub in Johannesburg and Cape Town supports female led innovators and provides business support, eventing and co-working space.
'Searchlight': An RNLI and Lloyd's Register Foundation film
New documentary highlights the critical role of young women in saving lives at sea.
The documentary focuses on three young women who volunteer for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) in Oban, West Scotland, which has some of the most changeable and treacherous waters off the British coast.
The RNLI is the charity that saves lives at sea. Powered primarily by kind donations, its search and rescue service has been saving lives for nearly 200 years. Volunteers make up 95% of the organisation - ordinary people doing extraordinary things - supported by expert staff, all working together to help communities at home and abroad save lives.
Searchlight is told from the perspectives of Lawrie, Leonie and Jasmin, who each shine a light on the sense of purpose, belonging, community and confidence volunteering brings them and highlight how it is possible to find yourself in the service of others.
WES Centenary Trail Map
Founded with the intention of supporting women into employment and education in the varied fields of engineering, Women's Engineering Society (WES) has had many notable members with fascinating lives and careers, yet the only member who features widely in the popular historical narrative is pilot Amy Johnson. As part of our Centenary Trail Project, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the WES Centenary Map aims to help redress this, by showcasing new and improved Wikipedia entries about historical women engineers as pins on our map.
Prospects: Opportunities for women in engineering
With more than one million women working in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) excellent progress towards closing the gender gap is being made. However, the campaign to encourage more females into STEM careers doesn't stop here. The sector is aiming for a target of 1.5 million women working in STEM by 2030. This would equate to 30% of the workforce being female. 30% is seen as the 'critical mass level', where a minority group of women would have the ability to affect real change.
Liverpool John Moores University: 5 ways to inspire a new generation of female engineers
As of 2018 less than 11% of the workforce is female. In light of these findings, the industry is now more committed than ever to addressing this gender imbalance, and determined to encourage more women to take up crucial engineering roles. John Moores University have put together a list of five things you can do to encourage and inspire the young women of today to form a passion for engineering, even from a very early age. It’s time to find the female engineers of the future.
LR Gender Equality Network
We are committed to removing gender bias from across our organisation and beyond. And we’re making solid progress. GEN is inclusive – providing a safe space to share the gender-related issues impacting us all, while being a powerful voice for companywide education and change.
Our Purpose:
South African International Maritime Institute: National Seafarer Development Programme
A national intervention to address the country’s sea-faring skills shortage and the inability of graduates to obtain the necessary sea-time to complete their qualifications.
Diversity Tracker
The International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) has released the ICS Diversity Tracker, the first report looking into the state of diversity and inclusion in the global shipping labour force. The Tracker, which surveyed more than 200 shipping companies across the world, sets baseline targets for improved corporate diversity and inclusion policies in the coming years.