Next Thursday and Friday, Gala Díaz Langou, Director of CIPPEC’s Social Protection Program, will participate in an international forum on women’s economic empowerment which will be held in Honolulu (Hawaii, USA).
The forum, entitled ‘Women. Fast Forward: Asia-Pacific Consultation on Women’s Economic Empowerment for W20 Input into G20’, is hosted by the East-West Center with sponsorship from EY. The purpose of the event is to compile gender-related policy recommendations to include them in the proposals the W20 will submit to the G20 for consideration at the leaders meeting to be held on 7th & 8th July, in Hamburg (Germany).
Díaz Langou will participate in a debate session called ‘Legislative barriers to women’s economic empowerment’ which will focus on two points of the W20 Germany 2017 Implementation Plan: granting full property rights, legal capacity and right to self-determination for women and girls; and providing for equal pay and pension rights for equal and equivalent work. The debate session will be opened by Nayda Almodóvar Reteguis, Private Sector Development Specialist in the ‘Women, Business and the Law’ project of the World Bank, who will give a speech describing the state of affairs.
Apart from Díaz Langou, the other participants in the session will be: Hilda Heine, President of the Marshall Islands; Jennifer Mary Shipley, New Zealand’s first woman Prime Minister (1997- 1999); Hoang Thi Thu Huyen, Chair of the Policy Partnership on Women and the Economy of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and Deputy Director General of the Gender Equality Department under the Ministry of Labour of Vietnam; and Laura Liswood, Secretary General of the Council of Women World Leaders and former Senior Advisor for Goldman Sachs.
Furthermore, the Director of CIPPEC’s Social Protection Program will give a speech at the closing ceremony of the forum, together with Amanda Ellis, EWC Special Advisor for International Programs and Partnerships (on secondment at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of New Zealand); and Gemma Williams, Global Marketing Leader of EY’s ‘Women. Fast Forward’ initiative.
CIPPEC will be attending this forum as member of the W20, a G20 engagement group focused on gender issues. Díaz Langou also attended the last W20 Summit held in April in Berlin, in which Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel was a prominent speaker.
The East-West Center (EWC), located in Honolulu, aims at fostering better relations among the United States, Asia and the Pacific through research and dialogue. Established by the United States Congress in 1960, the EWC disseminates information and conducts analyses of common topics and brings together regional reference institutions to exchange ideas, develop specialized knowledge and design alternative policies. The Center is an independent, non-profit organization funded by the US government, countries of the Asia-Pacific region, private agencies, individuals, foundations and corporations.
The international consulting firm EY, headquartered in London, is promoting the ‘Women. Fast Forward’ initiative aimed at accelerating the gender parity clock at EY and in business in general as it believes it is an economic imperative. The firm argues that the world cannot afford to wait another 170 years, as some estimates predict, to achieve a gender-balanced workplace, and encourages both men and women to take decisive action to recruit, retain and promote women.
