For International Women’s Day (IWD) 2020, we want to highlight the work that we do at BASIC with the aim of rebalancing power inequities and ensuring that nuclear policy is inclusive and intersectional. In our perspective, barriers to female representation need to be removed to inject new thinking into policy debates.
Inclusive think tanks toolkit: Over the past 2 years, BASIC has run a series of four breakfast meetings on gender equality and diversity in international affairs think tanks, together with Chatham House and the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy. We have written up the outcome of these meetings in a toolkit which will be published this summer. Stay tuned for more information on the toolkit launch event in June 2020!
Gender Champions in Nuclear Policy: BASIC has joined the ‘Gender Champions in Nuclear Policy’. BASIC’s pledge includes the following commitments:
- Increasing the diversity of our Executive Board;
- Ensuring that all BASIC staff feel skilled up on our gender work; and
- Launching the ‘Inclusive think tanks’ toolkit and applying it internally.
As part of a wider refresh of our workplace policies, we’ve also reviewed and updated our ‘Dignity at Work’ policy, which covers equal treatment in the workplace.
BetterTogether event at the 2020 NPT Review Conference (RevCon): At the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) Review Conference in May 2020, BASIC is the lead implementation partner for an event that aims to foster a dialogue on ways that the NPT can guide the nonproliferation regime through the next 50 years. At this event, we will foster dialogue on how to remove barriers to the participation of women within the NPT process, over the short and longer-term.
Gender in nuclear policy work: BASIC is also exploring the links between gender and nuclear weapons, to offer a new perspective on an old problem. This philosophy begins within the organisation—which exemplifies gender parity in its leadership—and extends to our programme work and the external relationships that we build in the nuclear community.
At BASIC, we see gender equity as critical to the evolving field of nuclear policy because ‘new’ security threats require new security thinking; diversity in policy circles thus presents an opportunity to augment international security.