What women want from the G20

Using women's potential is vital for social development and sustainability Photo: Sebastian Bolesch

The G20 countries have set themselves the task of bringing about worldwide economic growth, economic stability and social development for all. Women's economic empowerment is fundamental to achieving these goals. Women – even in the G20 countries – are still nowhere near equal economic participation with men.

Women in business, science and society in the G20 countries will be meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on 25 and 26 April for the W20 Dialogue Forum. The main goal of W20 is to promote women's economic empowerment as an integral part of the G20 process. W20 also urges the G20 to set up a working group on gender-inclusive growth.

The W20 Dialogue Forum will be streamed live on 25 and 26 April. Go to www.g20germany.de for the live stream.

One of the highlights: a panel discussion on 25 April titled "Inspiring women: Scaling up women's entrepreneurship". Chancellor Merkel will be discussing with Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, IWF director Christine Lagarde and Ivanka Trump, daughter and assistant to US president Donald Trump, how to promote female entrepreneurship on a larger scale around the world.

Women's empowerment - social stability

Half of the world's population is female and thus affected by world developments in exactly the same way as men are. Far fewer women are gainfully employed and they do a significantly greater share of unpaid housework, educational and care work.

There are far fewer women in management positions in business and fewer women pursue entrepreneurship. Women usually run smaller businesses and find it harder to access finance and loans. In some countries women still face legal and cultural obstacles which prevent their equal economic participation.

Four thematic focuses

The National Council of German Women's Organisations (Deutscher Frauenrat, DF) and the Association of German Women Entrepreneurs (Verband deutscher Unternehmerinnen, VdU) have been tasked with organising this year's W20 dialogue process, which will focus on the following four themes:

• Labour market inclusion: Increasing the labour market participation rate of women and the value of work traditionally done by women
  
• Financial inclusion: Promoting female entrepreneurship and access to finance for women
  
• Digital inclusion: Closing the digital gender divide
  
• Strengthening the W20: Mainstreaming women's economic empowerment at the core of the G20
  

The civil society and women's policy dialogue of W20 began when Germany took over the G20 Presidency on 1 December 2016. The meeting in Berlin will be one of the highlights of this process. The jointly formulated demands will be presented to Chancellor Merkel and will then be incorporated directly into the G20 negotiations. 

W20 is conducting a wide-ranging dialogue with women in business and society across the world to ensure strong recommendations are implemented within the G20 negotiations. Through continuous and firm action, women will also insist on their demands being implemented in the G20 countries.

Future field for G20

The heads of state and government of the G20 countries have recognised that women's empowerment is an essential cross-cutting issue and an important future field for the G20. At their summit in Brisbane, Australia in 2014 they committed to close the gender gap in labour market participation. They also set up W20 – a group dedicated explicitly to dialogue on women's economic empowerment.

W20, an independent civil-society dialogue process within the G20, is only in its third year. W20 Germany builds on the fundamental preparatory work done during the Turkish G20 Presidency in 2015 and the Chinese G20 Presidency in 2016.

Thursday, 20 April 2017

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