For more than 100 years, International Women’s Day has celebrated women’s achievements, from political to social, while calling for gender equality and making a positive difference for females.

This year’s theme #BalanceForBetter, is a global push for gender equality. It encourages gender balance and equal opportunities in business, social life, media and in every context of the world. The global IWD celebrates the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women, while calling for an acceleration of gender parity.

Our goal has still not been achieved. Figures show that globally, women’s education, health and violence towards women is still worse than that of men. Based on the Global Gender Gap Report 2019, by the World Economic Forum, Western Europe is one of the regions with wide observed performance variation. At the bottom ranks of the region, three countries have a remaining gender gap of more than 30%: Greece, Malta and Cyprus. The difference in gender gap size between the highest-ranked and lowest-ranked countries in the region is about 3.4% for Educational Attainment and just over 1% for Health and Survival, with seven of the 20 countries fully closing their gender gaps on education indicators. However, once again this year, no country in the region has managed to fully close its Health and Survival gender gap.

We don’t want to wait for 100 years in order for the global equality gap between men and women disappears entirely. Everyone has a part to play – all the time, everywhere. Youth organizations, youth workers, young leaders, young people, not only in Cyprus, but across the world, on European and National level let’s unite to push the cause, let’s get into the #ActionZone.

Balance drives a better working world. Let’s all help create a #BalanceforBetter.

Happy International Women’s Day!