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12/26/2017 UAE Today - Concrete Steps To Promote Women’s Leadership In Economic Growth Taken At WEEGS

Tuesday, December 26, 2017

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Concrete Steps To Promote Women’s Leadership In Economic Growth Taken At WEEGS

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The first Women’s Economic Empowerment Global Summit (WEEGS 2017) signaled TEXT LINKS
the implementation of one of the recommendations of the UN Secretary General’s
MENA Research Partners
High-level Panel Report on Women’s Economic Empowerment, which was to address Web Design
the issue of women’s economic empowerment by working directly with female
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entrepreneurs with a specific focus on building the bridge between them and the
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private sector, bringing stakeholders together and building partnerships between them.
Gender-responsive procurement of goods and services by increasing the number of
products procured from women owned and run enterprises, and making it a
mainstream trade practice instead of an exception, was one of the summits key focus
areas, as per the UN Report’s recommendations. Currently, only 1 percent of goods
procured globally fall in this category.

advertisement info "I want to thank the UAE government and the Emirati leadership who have played a
pivotal role in different ways," said Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the Under Secretary
General and Executive Director of UN Women.

"We are left with only 13 years before 2030 by which time we should have reached substantive equality. We are making a case and argument
that gender equality is not an open ended journey; it has an expiry date. What would the world look like in 2030 if it lived up to the
expectations of the Agenda 2030? Violence against women will not be a norm; society will not tolerate child marriage or trafficking.
Everywhere, we will have mechanisms to ensure these practices do not thrive. In 2030, we will want to ensure that equal pay is a norm, and
women enjoy greater representation in a diverse set of economic and leadership roles. Is this too much to ask, or is this rocket science," she
added.

The importance role of technology specifically in addressing women’s entrepreneurship issues were highlighted, in context of its role in
creation and marketing of products, accessing finance, increasing the reach of companies and enhancing profitability.
WEEGS raised the bar on the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) by being a platform where 20 organisations, public and private,
demonstrated leadership on gender equality by adopting of two WEPs each under the ‘WEEGS Pledge’. The summit emphasised that this
initiative was a step towards ensuring that by 2030, businesses around the world will promote gender equality, and empower women in the
workplace, marketplace and community as a norm and not an exception. Big international conglomerates like Ernst and Young, Mubadala
Investment Company, Citi, Accenture, and Procter and Gamble (P&G) have signed up to WEPs at the summit.

Joelle Zilliox, IMEA Purchase Leader at P&G, shared the company’s experience, saying, "P&G wanted to expand diversity and inclusion
beyond the walls of their offices for a reason. These qualities are rooted in our culture with a small example being the 95,000 people who have
come together from all over the world to make up our workforce. Through bringing our external suppliers into this ambit of diversity and
inclusion, we have sourced goods and services worth USD 2 billion from diverse and minority women-owned businesses in the US and
Canada. This number is growing. Why? Because our findings show that companies that run effective supply diversity programmes report
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increased profitability. Our internal data shows that women-owned and diverse suppliers actually perform better than the average supplier
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base."
The final session of the two-day event , dedicated to the WEPs, and titled ‘Driving WEPs Implementation: From Promise to Practice,’ sheds
light on the fact that with 1,655 countries signed up to WEPs so far, the ball may be rolling, but there is a long way to go.
Dr. Enas Makkawi, Director of Women, Family and Children's Department at the League of Arab States said, "We have Japan and Turkey as
our largest contributors but the figures are peanuts compared to what they should be. From issues such as recruitment and fair pay to
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