This is why we are campaigning for more leadership roles for women

The Commonwealth Association of Architects (CAA) came into being in 1964, and the first fully fledged conference was held in Malta in 1965. Since then, there has never been a female CAA president, and in the past 11 years since I joined as a trustee and Alternate Vice President Europe, you can count the number of women taking up any CAA leadership roles on one hand.

At the last general assembly held in Trinidad and Tobago in August 2022, I found this was the first time there were a large group of women leaders attending, many in their capacity as presidents of national architectural institutes. And so, we decided to form a CAA women’s group with several of the women who had attended - to empower more women to join CAA, take up leadership positions and ultimately elect a female CAA president by 2026. We started with five members, and it has grown to 18 women with representation across all five regions; Africa, Asia, Americas, Europe, and Oceania.

We believe that the successful adoption and integration of gender equity in this organisation’s senior ranks and at all other levels is an important milestone in its history and should not be taken lightly. We’d like to think that in sharing this information it will not only inspire others to join CAA but highlight a greater relevance of this institution in international communities.

The results so far

As a result of this women’s group, for the first time three of the five vice president positions will be held by women, and the honorary treasurer will also be a woman. 47% of roles across the CAA will be held by women and 10 women will hold senior positions. We are now seeking ratification of the CAA Women’s Group on council at the forthcoming 2024 general assembly.

In 2023 we hosted an international online event where 13 of us participated in the webinar aptly titled “unstoppable”. This webinar highlighted our CAA women, their body of work and most importantly their journey to their current position in their careers. But this is still only the beginning, and we know we must take this next step publicly to ensure its success.

Although we were unsuccessful in our attempt to put forward a woman as a candidate for the senior vice president (SVP) role this year, by 2026 many of the women recently elected as VP’s will be eligible to stand for SVP. Ultimately they could then stand to be CAA president by 2028, if they’ve served in office for two years in their own member organisations.

This means that CAA is forever changed, as more women are participating and are represented on CAA Council than ever before and we can ensure that it will operate on a more equitable and inclusive basis for the first time with more equal gender representation. We especially would like to see alignment of the CAA with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and have prepared a paper to present to the general assembly being held later this month in Kigali.

We’d like to see a more open and accessible CAA going forward.

We hope our actions will encourage similar recognition of gender disparity and spur corrective action in other international organisations. There are five CAA Trustees and currently two are women. As I write, my period as a CAA trustee is coming to an end and I would entirely expect my replacement to be female. That remains to be seen… Roll on general assembly 2026!!!

>> Also read: To design for a better world we must have more women architects