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Equal opportunity at the SDC
SDC policy on equal opportunity aims to nurture, deploy and use the potential of women and men to maximum effect, so as to achieve equal opportunity and
genuine gender equality in the workplace.
As early as 1997, the SDC undertook to give equal consideration to the needs and concerns of women and men as part of its policy on the advancement of women. In the context of its comprehensive gender mainstreaming strategy, this focus applies both to its programmes and the Agency itself. Within the advancement policy framework, equal opportunities for women and men are to be permanently achieved by 2010. So, equal opportunity is not just part of general federal government policy on human resources but also a targeted SDC strategy.
The specific strategic objectives of SDC advancement policy are:
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a permanent increase in the percentage of women in managerial and executive positions,
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the improvement of working conditions to facilitate a work-life balance,
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the fostering of an organizational culture where gender equality is practised.
HR processes such as recruitment, the encouragement of junior staff and management development are used by the SDC to implement its advancement policy.
Its Junior Professional Officer Programme, for instance, has had specific gender and language-of-origin targets for several years now. In the recent past, the SDC has succeeded in recruiting the requisite number of women and men from a large pool of highly qualified applicants from various language regions, thus making a crucial contribution to implementing policy on equal opportunity and multilingualism. And in June 2005, this exemplary fostering of equal opportunity even won it the “Prix Égalité” (Equality Prize) of the Kaufmännischer Verband Schweiz.