Opportunity and accessibility

Area of focus description

Help realize inclusive economies and social systems that can support individuals in reaching their potential according to their capabilities and aspirations.

Why Deloitte for this area of focus?

As communities worldwide continue to develop and advance both economically and socially, many people strive for fair access to opportunity regardless of their gender, race, ethnicity, or other determining factor.

We help our clients design and implement measurable solutions on key issues that impact lives of vulnerable communities and socio-economically marginalized groups in different geographies by enabling opportunities and increasing access.

With an in-depth understanding and exposure to developmental challenges of different geographies and socio-political environments, and with a keen eye on issues of ‘opportunity and accessibility’, Deloitte is strategically placed to influence. We work alongside governments, foundations, development agencies, business and other critical stakeholders to help further opportunity and accessibility and realize crucial developmental goals of their societies. Some of Deloitte’s areas of focus include pursuit of quality education, mitigating gender inequality and exploitation, and increasing access to work and economic growth.

Intervening in the skilling ecosystem in India

Issue:
One of the greatest barriers to growth and development for many economies and geographies is the lack of a skilled workforce. A large number of unemployed youth is an administrative and fiscal challenge. As the second most populous country in the world with in excess of 1.2 billion people, India also has the greatest number of young people of any country, as noted in the United Nations Population Fund’s 2014 report. India’s global position, especially in providing services to the world, links the world economy indirectly to India’s labor market, and so this issue could have far reaching implications for the world. To address this demographic challenge, the government developed a public-private partnership model of intervention through the creation of the National Skill Development Corporation.

Impact:
A Deloitte team worked with the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) in its pursuit of increasing access to work and economic growth. Over a period of four years, we evaluated approximately 150 skill development organizations on their ability to support NSDC’s goal of imparting employable skills to India’s youth to improve the marketability of labor across different sectors.

Now more than 3,800 skill training centers have been created across the country, allowing the training organizations to create capacity to achieve their objective of training more than 35 million students by 2022.

Improving gender equality at a development organization

Issue:
To provide equal access to services and facilities for women in society, there needs to be a concerted effort to bring in more women to decision making positions in the development sector, both for governments and for transnational government bodies. Putting more women in positions of influence can be conceptualized and implemented to mitigate global inequalities between the genders in access to government services and other developmental imperatives.

The United Nations (UN) was looking at restructuring its global workforce to strengthen and diversify its leadership pipeline. As the lines between UN agencies and development and humanitarian issues become increasingly blurred, UN leaders wanted to be able to work across the system, influence diverse stakeholders, and connect with the cultural environments in which they are working. The UN wanted to strengthen its pipeline, particularly for the humanitarian coordinator roles, where they wanted to dramatically increase the number of women leaders in order to better support the UN mandate.

Impact:
The United Nations engaged Deloitte for this critical assignment, titled “Strengthening Field Leaders Program”, to help conceptualize, code, and pilot a rotational program for high potential women in seven participating agencies. The year-long program helped uplift leader capability, increase exposure, and build a community of high-potential women. A comprehensive playbook was created to define each program component, and the team also created a multifaceted communication campaign. At the conclusion of the pilot year, 50% of participants had been promoted. The ground-breaking program is the UN system’s first attempt to build a more robust and diversified pipeline that increases the number of women in leadership with versatile, cross-agency experience.