Press for Progress: SheTrades Globally

Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is a pleasure to be with you today to celebrate International Women’s Day. My thanks to the International Trade Centre and Maersk for realizing this engaging event in Geneva to shine a light on women empowerment through entrepreneurship.

The focus on economics on this day is a fitting one because it recalls the proud tradition that started International Women’s Day in the first place over a century ago.

In 1909, in the garment district on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, thousands of courageous women went on strike against exploitative working conditions. After months of negotiations and struggle, they ultimately forced factory owners to increase wages and shorten hours.

Since that victory, we have celebrated many more milestones in our collective struggle towards equality.

And yet, you do not have to look far to see there still remains a profound gap between aspiration and reality.

Our focus today is on women and economic empowerment, so I brought with me some recent facts to show just how wide that gap still is in that domain alone:

̶ Across the world, only 50% of working age women are in the labor force, compared to 77% of men.
̶ Just over 4% of CEOs in the Fortune 500 are female, meaning that of the 500 largest US companies, only 21 are led by a woman.
̶ And the World Economic Forum recently calculated that it would take until the year 2234 before we achieve gender parity. That’s over two centuries past the deadline we set ourselves in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

I do not need to tell you that that is simply unacceptable.

̶ It’s unacceptable, because without gender equality, the world can neither be just nor decent.
̶ It’s unacceptable, because without gender equality, societies are less peaceful, and conflicts are infinitely more difficult to resolve.
̶ It’s unacceptable, because without gender equality, economies can neither be stable nor resilient.

We need to accelerate our efforts.
We need to eliminate structural inequalities, but we also need to change attitudes. Attitudes that tell girls to be demure, and boys to be assertive; that sanction girls for speaking out, and boys for shedding a tear.

We need to change the attitude that rewards being confident, competitive, and ambitious in the workplace – unless you’re a woman.

One way of changing attitudes – of defeating biases and deconstructing stereotypes – is by spotlighting women trailblazers who are role models to the next generation – because it’s hard to be what you can’t see.

Showcasing the success of women entrepreneurs: that is another reason why the SheTrades initiative is so powerful – beyond the very tangible benefit of connecting 1 million women to market by 2020.

In similar vein, right here in Geneva, we launched the International Gender Champions Initiative. Every champion – and there are over 200 of them active across Geneva, New York, Vienna, Nairobi and Bonn as we speak – commits to three tangible actions to advance gender equality. The growth of this initiative across diplomatic, political and business circles has been encouraging and rewarding. And while we all have a long way to go, the good news is this: we are making real progress.

Thank you.