Guest Blog: Can events bring economic growth & equal working opportunities?

This month's blog is from one of our lovely past interns, Harriet Mansfield. Let's see what she has to say about events and their power to bring solutions to the world...

Events help celebrate the differences and similarities between cultures and have always been a draw to destinations. Be it a shared love for sport or an exciting difference in music culture, people will always be drawn to different destinations around the world to experience what different communities and cultures have to offer! And events are perfectly placed to capture this human desire and create a socially and environmentally sustainable experience.

Not only do events bring people together, events are an opportunity for people to learn and share ideas such as is seen with the #CSRshareDay campaign. Through best practice, in terms of how events are coordinated and how they provide employment opportunities, events have the ability to inspire others to share their experience they had at one event so it can be replicated elsewhere. And therefore events can be used to show how equal working opportunities are created and that such opportunities are the norm, which in turn leads to sustainable economic growth. Others will see how everyone benefits and hopefully, through people sharing these experiences, soon, events and equal working opportunities will go hand in hand and can show the world that sustainable economic growth can be achieved when everyone is working together!

Even if an event is much more local and not as far reaching as the #CSRshareDay Campaign, social media can be the platform in which anybody can promote equal opportunities from a sustainable event. And through sharing such events, they can be used as examples for others who perhaps previously did not have the resources to create a similar event. This in turn can create partnerships, and through these partnerships people can help others who perhaps previously were not given such an opportunity.

Of course, it is all well and good recognising that events can be an avenue through which equal working opportunities and sustainable economic growth can be achieved. The events industry also must recognise what the challenges are that are preventing equal working opportunities being provided and who these opportunities are not being provided for.  The problems that have been highlighted through the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 8 are:

·       Lack of decent working opportunities

·       Insufficient investments

·       Unequal social and economic progress

These problems can especially impact women and people from lower socio-economic backgrounds. If the events industry can address and overcome these problems and provide sustainable, equal opportunities, then we can really be world leaders for sustainable progress that will economically benefit so many people. And in doing so, the event industry will have fulfilled the conditions for the UN Sustainable Goal 8 to be completed, through providing ‘quality jobs that stimulate the economy while not harming the environment’.

Not only can events create these opportunities that are needed to create sustainable economic growth, but events can be the tool by which people are brought together to learn about such opportunities and how such opportunities can be provided. So let’s get events to get people talking about a lack of equal working opportunities, let’s get events to get people to talk about the lack of investment in poorer communities and let’s get the events industry to prove that through providing equal working opportunities, sustainable economic growth will happen!

By Harriet Mansfield

Past intern and Positive Impact Ambassador

@HarrietMarriax