40 companies obtained the Equipares seal or recognition for taking concrete actions to achieve gender equality in their work environments.

Last Thursday, November 24, in the morning, the Equipares seals awards were guiven by Mr. Ángel Custodio, Minister of Labor; Adriana Albarracín, coordinator of the Internal Working Group for Victims and Labor Equity with a Gender Approach; and Carlos Arango, coordinator of Equipares.

In total, 26 recognitions were awarded at the Commitment to Equality level, 19 Silver Seals, 4 Gold Seals and 5 Gold Seal recertifications. In addition to recognizing the efforts of the business sector, during the event the work that the rural organizations in closing gaps and the commitment of SMEs that have decided to join the transformation for gender equality.

What are the advances that companies have made?

At the Commitment to Equality level, it is certified that the companies have a Gender Equality Committee, in charge of supporting the construction of the organizational diagnosis with a gender approach; a Gender Equality Policy and an Action Plan that will allow the fulfillment of goals to obtain the Equipares Seal.

The Silver Seal was awarded to those companies that not only correctly implemented the Action Plan based on the organization’s diagnosis, but also built indicators that allowed them to monitor and evaluate the actions implemented.

The Gold Seal was awarded to Konecta, Frontera Energy, Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia UCC and Veolia Aguas de Tunja S.A. Organizations that, with the tools obtained throughout their process, updated the organizational diagnosis with a gender approach, reviewed and measured their indicators. To find out the real state of closing gaps, they evaluated the impacts they have achieved and with all this information they identified new gender gaps to establish improvement processes.

Finally, the Gold Seal recertification was obtained by companies that, aware that gender equality is a process of continuous improvement, have adopted the evaluation and implementation of measures as part of their day-to-day activities to make gender equality a tangible and measurable reality. In this category, the winners were: Codensa S.A., Colombina S.A, Telefonica Movistar Colombia, Emgesa S.A. and Tenaris.