Secretary of state mike pompeo on legislature to establish a permanent Womens Global Development and prosperity office at the state department. They were joined by several members of congress and white house officials at this womens global empowerment summit. It runs one hour. Thank you so much for coming. It is my great pleasure to introduce our wonderful secretary of state, michael pompeo, to open our discussion. Secretary pompeo thank you. Thank you, ambassador curry. Ambassador curry will be heading this new unit that we are establishing here at the state department. Congratulations to you. [applause] it is a privilege, and frankly joyous for me to be here today to kick off this and not girl Interagency Steering Committee meeting and to host everyone today. Thank you all, for being here. Our country was founded on the selfevident idea and truth that every man and woman is endowed by the creator with a certain set of inalienable rights, and so deserves a chance to achieve his or her godgiven potential, something we all, regardless of our political party, agree on. What is more, womens achievements are americas achievement and president trumps program is a historical intangible expression of our founding values. Through this initiative, american interests are served by having freer, and more. Rosperous the need for the wgdp is urgent clear and urgent. Too many barriers have kept women from too many opportunities in too many parts of the world. Tomorrow i leave for my trip to Subsaharan Africa and look forward to meeting women across the region. Ivanka was in ethiopia last year and met a woman named sarah, and ethiopian weaver who worked with our usaid to expand her business local business to 500 employees, a true testament to the effectiveness and goodness that comes from the wgdp programs. If we succeed, there can be many stories like her. Thank you all, for being here. Ambassador, i look forward to working with you and your team and look forward to your leadership on this issue. Thank you, mr. Secretary. It is my great pleasure to introduce my partner in crime, the real lodestar of this initiative, ivanka trump, advisor to the president. [applause] ms. Trump thank you, ambassador. Secretary, i can say that sarah will blow you away. What she has been able to do over the last decade, to go from an employer ofs , hundreds of women, and she teaches the skills too, and is now the countrys largest exporter of woven textiles. Really an amazing story. And im thankful just for being here and for supporting the dedicated men and women at the state department, and for your leadership in forging a legacy of bold diplomacy around the world. I look forward to continuing to partner with you as we achieve real impact. Today, i am honored as we come together to celebrate the oneYear Anniversary of the Womens Global Development and prosperity initiative, also known as wgdp. Anniversaries like this allow us to highlight the incredible work yous been done by all of and your teams sitting around this table, and to set new goals to drive us into the future. We are especially excited to announce the state departments new role as lead coordinating Agency Working to support the white houses continued direction on policy. The state department will establish a dedicated team to work on wgdp under the leadership of ambassador kelly curry. State diplomatic and policy expertise is critical to all elements of the wgdp initiative, but particularly as it relates to driving the types of legal and regulatory reforms that are so important to sustainable change across the world. I want to thank you again, secretary pompeo, ambassador curry, and the many others across the state department who share this priority and are committed to the success of wgdp. I would also like to thank usaid administrator mark green, for his incredible leadership on this initiative. Thank you, mark, and thank you for joining us. You have been working with us since day one, and last year launched the dedicated wgdp fund. Usaids Program Expertise is essential for this fund to be successful and we know that it will be. In december, we were thrilled to announce wgdp got its own light line item in the 2020 omnibus bill, which is truly incredible for a young initiative, and signals the strong bipartisan support we have been fortunate to receive in collaboration on this initiative with members across the aisle on the hill since its inception. This past week, the president reaffirmed his commitment to this initiative in the 2021 budget, which doubles the allocation to wgdp. So many individuals in this room have worked tirelessly the past several years to get this initiative off the ground. I would like to thank everyone around this table for prioritizing womens Economic Empowerment efforts across your agencies and departments. Wgdps success relies on the hard work that you and your team put forward every day. So thank you, all. I also want to recognize and thank thank senator Lindsey Graham and senator Jeanne Shaheen for joining us here today. You have both been instrumental in the creation of this initiative from day one and have really worked with us on developing it based on your experiences and making it what it is. We first worked together on womens peace and security legislation, and subsequent to that, the womens entrepreneurship Economic Empowerment act, and have built very constructive relationships based on trust and a shared mission and a shared goal, which is why i am pleased particularly pleased to be able to announce today that we will be introducing Bipartisan Legislation in the senate to promote the empowerment, development, and prosperity of women globally, aptly named the wgdp act. This legislation would permanently authorized wgdp and authorize wgdp and establish womens Economic Empowerment as a core facet of u. S. Foreign policy, in line with the president s own National Security strategy. The Womens Global Development and prosperity act will also permanently elevate these efforts at the state department, by establishing for the First Time Ever in legislation and office of womens empowerment led by an ambassador or at large. Since the bush administration, there have been continuous efforts to codify the role of women as a Foreign Policy priority. This white house looks forward to working closely with congress and passing wgdp legislation and realizing this long overdue goal. We thank you for your partnership and your commitment to helping us get this done. I would also like to recognize and thank representative mccaul. Thank you, representative. And his counterpart in the house, representative lois frankel. I am happy to announce that under their leadership they will be introducing a companion bill in the house of representatives in the coming days, and we think thank you again for your steadfast commitment to advancing this work. Thank you. Thank you for being here. To put all this in a little bit of context, last february the president signed the National Security president ial memorandum to officially launch wgdp. Wgdp is the firstever government coordinated approach to womens Economic Empowerment across the agencies. This also established an ambitious goal of reaching 50 million women across the developing world by 2025. Today, we will release the first report in front of everyone detailing our impacts, and i am beyond excited to announce we have reached over 12 million women in the last year alone. [applause] really amazing. All of this through Innovative New programs and projects across all three of the wgdp pillars, all of which is itemized in the report. One of the key components of wgdp is recognizing the role of both the public and private sector in achieving largescale and lasting results. The private sector is a critical partner in our mission as we seek to address barriers to womens economic inclusion. I would like to call out a few of our partners that were with us since inception, including mastercard, visa, and ups, for helping us generate this tremendous impact. These partnerships have made it possible to source and scale Innovative New projects across all three of the pillars. Under pillar one, we are advancing Workforce Development and Vocational Education for women by equipping them with the necessary skills to secure jobs in their local economies and to enhance the productivity of the work that they are doing. We have launched programs like women connect, a call for solutions to improve womens participation in everyday life by meaningfully changing the way women and girls access and use technology. Through this program, usaid has over 2. 9 million to 12 grantees working to bridge the gender divide in their countries. In pillar number two, we are empowering women to succeed as entrepreneurs. We know womenowned or womenrun businesses make up a third of small to Mediumsized Enterprises in emerging markets, yet some of the greatest obstacles to growth include insufficient access to capital, mentorships, and trading markets. Through initiatives launched by this administration, such as the wgdp iix challenge, we galvanized g7 nations to join us in committing 3 billion to the worlds women, and through the world bank womens entrepreneur finance initiative, which the u. S. Was a Founding Member of, we have mobilized more than 2. 6 billion to date, from 14 separate countries. This weekend i will travel with , ambassador curry, the World Bank President , and the imf managing director to the summit in dubai. With the help of many in this room, we are making historic progress on closing the gender credit gap and empowering Women Entrepreneurs to create jobs in their communities and economies. Finally, and very importantly, maybe the most important, pillar three recognizes the central role of a Legal Framework that enables women to thrive by eliminating legal and societal barriers that prevent women from fully participating in the economy. Today, in 90 countries around the world, there are still laws on the books that restrict womens abilities to work in the same jobs and sectors as men, often times in the Predominant Industries in those countries. In 75 countries, there is at least one law that prohibits women from owning, managing, or inheriting property. We can and must address these discriminatory laws and regulations. To that end, two of the most significant milestones we have seen are the governments that have amended laws to promote womens Economic Empowerment to addressing womens property and land rights. We commend those governments for making these important and bold reforms. The United States stands eager and ready to work with every country willing to take action to address discriminatory legal and regulatory barriers that hold women back and impede economic progress for all. In a landmark report that was also issued today, the White House Council of economic advisors, and thank you, thomas, for being here, estimates that fully addressing the five legal barriers to wgdp, accessing institutions, building credit, owning and managing property, traveling freely, and removing employment restrictions, could increase annual global gdp by 7. 7 trillion, 8. 3 . It is a really amazing report, and we suggest everyone take a close look at it. In the coming year, we can work to empower millions of women to lift their families out of poverty, grow the economies of in their country, reduce dependence, and deliver on the promise of Greater Peace and prosperity. I look forward to working with each of you around this table as we advance this ambitious goal. Now i would like to turn it over to my dear friend, senator graham, to follow up with a few words. Thank you, senator. Sen. Graham thank you, very much. I dont know where to start, other than to say thank you to ivanka and her team for not taking no for an answer. It is just easier to pass this bill than to meet with her all the time. [laughter] ms. Trump lindsey, it is genetic. Sen. Graham we have a determination that is good for washington. Secretary pompeo, thank you for putting the state department behind this initiative. This idea was needed at home and it has found a good home here, in tough, we live turbulent times. You are always willing to work on things that matter. You have the ability to compartmentalize yourself and your country and we are working here to memorialize this in legislation, so that this one administrations idea becomes the United States governments standing commitment to women. And that is why the bill matters, by making it a part of our law that will be passed on from one administration to the other. Very quickly i have been to iraq , and afghanistan pushing 60 times, and what you learn over and over again is that when a mothers voice is silenced, it is not a very good place to live. When a womans future is determined on the day she is born and there is no hope, it is a very discouraging place. So to fix a problem, you have to identify it. Weve got a lot of good programs. Feed the future. President obama was trying to make africa more selfsufficient when it comes to food. President bush tried to get ahead of an aids epidemic and save millions of Young Africans from certain death and empower africa grow economically by having affordable power. But the one thing i can say above all else is that the way a nation presents Economic Opportunity to women will determine their future and ours. To those who wonder, why does this matter to you in South Carolina . I promise you, in places where women can be part of the economy, we have more customers. In places where a woman can have a say about her childs future, you will have peace. And in a place where they are soccer poorly, put in stadiums for sport, mass raped under the name of religion, our soldiers will soon go there because that ideology will eventually come here. This goes to the root cause of the problem. It could be 1120 in a lot of countries in this world, even though it is 2020. Imagine a world where your daughter cannot inherit property, that your wife or your sister cant go to the bank of all the things i have an part of, this could be the most consequential. My commitment to make sure it is done this year will be and nurtured. Thank you all. Thank you, senator graham. Your commitment is inspiring and i hope it inspires her fellow senators to get behind this initiative or it with that, i will turn it over to senator shaheen who has been a rockstar and leading case bipartisan effort to request i am pleased tobe able to join all of you address the challenges that women face globally. A volcker, i appreciate your leadership on this issue. Globalually every measure, women are more extended than men, over one billion women around the world are restricted andhaving the same jobs restricting the types of jobs and where and when they can work. Ithink it defines differently. Regardless if it is 9000 countries for more discriminate communitiese and countries and the Global Economy are often hurt by women not allowed equal opportunity critic researcher just that closing the gender gap in the 28 trillionld add to the global gdp by 2025. Human capital wealth would increase by over 100 trillion according to the world bank. Im excited to be joining senator graham on this legislation. A lothere is a lie of bipartisan support for this initiative and if weekend get off the ground, it will continue in future congresses that in a way that would make a difference around the world. , itchieve empowerment incorporates womens and girls rights, protections and how can order to truly help women and girls succeed. This legislation aims to do that during it takes the whole government approach of gender. Quality im pleased the ambassador curry is here. This makes a permanent dedicated office to address gender issues and a direct line to the secretary of state which we all believe is important. Legislation creates more and ensuresgress that the legislative branch is working together to address womens issues and as everyone has said, u. S. Leadership on womens empowerment is absolutely critical. Thank you all for the work you are doing and i look forward to thisng you continuing effort. Thank you, senator shaheen, for your leadership. I would like to recognize representative mccaul. Secretary, it is an honor to be here to celebrate the oneYear Anniversary of the Womens Global Development and prosperity initiative. Last year i traveled with senator Lindsey Graham to launch this important effort. The energy and excitement around this initiative was incredible and ivanka, you are a rockstar, you were a rockstar there and i am proud to support you in this critical work. You set a deadline and we met that deadline, im proud to say, in this partisan and polarized time in our government. There are very few things we get to work on that earned such bipartisan support, and senator shaheen, thank you for your work on this as well. When i look at the esteemed guests here today, it is truly an interagency, bicameral, bipartisan effort, and that is because we know the impact we are having here today. When a woman is empowered and an active participant in her community, the economy and society, we know countries are more stable and prosperous. That is why lindsay and i passed the global fertility act, to stabilize these nations and to me it gets to the problem of extremism. When secretary pompeo talks about fighting extremism, when mark green talks abo