ANKARA — The world's 20 leading economies have launched a new grouping aimed at boosting the role of women in global economic growth. The W-20 — a grouping of female leaders — was launched on Sunday in the Turkish capital Ankara, where finance ministers and central bank governors from the Group of 20 were meeting for talks on the global economy.
The group aims to work toward empowering women and ensuring their participation in economic growth.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said women's participation was paramount to economic growth and said one of the best indicators for the prosperity of a country was the smile on the face of its women.
Davutoglu said: “If the women are smiling ... you can be sure that their country is happy.”
The Turkish Prime Minister said that history would remember this initiative to launch W20 as an important event and it would be said one day that there would be no economic growth without participation by the women.
“Like we are shoulder to shoulder at home, similar should be the case for economy,” he said while calling for gender inclusiveness in all spheres of life.
“If women are decision makers in families, why this can not be the case outside the homes also,” he said.
W20's newly appointed president Gulden Turktan said it would work as an outreach group and seek to promote gender inclusiveness in economic growth process by empowering women.
She asked all G20 countries to nominate their members.
The launch event was also addressed by IMF chief Christine Lagarde, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development secretary-general Angel Gurria, deputy executive director of UN Women Lakshmi Puri, International Trade Centre's executive director Arancha Gonzz, among others.
Lagarde said words are not enough for women and delivery of all promises must be verified.
She said even IMF did not exactly have any major focus on women-related issues earlier but it had to study it after it understood the importance.
“The next step that we will take now is that we will operationalise it. Whenever we go to a country to start a new programme, we will pay special attention to... the women in that country,” she said.
Lagarde said, “It is just no brainer that empowerment of women boost s economic growth, it raises per capita income and it helps reduce inequality.” — Agencies
