Us t. It is really hard to belve we launched just six months ago. In that time we have done more than some institutes do in yearalthough of course that is t surprising given who our leader is■c as secretary clinton hersef likes to say, if you want something done, ask a woman to do it and i have. From our very first conversations about we were aligned on a plan. We wanted to launch the institute and then turn to one of the most important and most overlooked topics there is. The full and equal participation of women. We were determined afterthoughtt rather as a core focus of ig p. When i becameidentified five prg challenges. Each of these cen is a womens issue. When women are included in the peace process,ikely to be reacho last. From the talibans efforts to end education in afghanistan and abortion bans around the world and states across the rights arn early indicators of democratic backsliding. Democratic womens issue. Women and girls are more likely to depend on Natural Resources d less likely to survive when Natural Disaster strikes. At the same time, women are living efforts to take action. Climate is a womens issue. Experts estimate if we close the global genderparticipation, we p by 28 billion. It is a womens issue. 85 of women and girls around the worldne harassment and abus. Technology is a womens issue. Every Global Challenge is a womens issue and addressing these challenges through that lens is anwe are launching igps initiative to do just that. The Womens Initiative will produce policy proposals around four pillars. Womens economics opportunities, womens health, womens safety and security and democracy and human rights. Al advancing womens full and equal participation. Because these issues affect not just women but all of humanity, it is not enough to think domestically or internationally. We need to leverage the same local to global approach we bring to all of our work here at igp. Because of the complex challenges, we are leveraging the power that we have here today to bring together great minds to solve problem■s an share ideas. And because it is not enough to produce scholarships that get talked about, we need to ensure ■0data and evidence are transld into policy and practice. Imagine, launching an effort this ambitious takes a village. I want to thank a few members. First, for believing and supporting what igp from the very beginning. And for appointing many women to positions of leadership at the university, including myself. And it is special to launch this initiative at this moment at columbia now tha university is led by its first female president , who is a wonderful friend to igp. Thank y trustees of columbia university. Some of you are here today. Whose guidance and support have been so valuable and meaningful to me and to us. And to the Advisory Board members who are here today, your and partnership is so critical to our success. A very special thank you5v to wo has been at the forefront in the effort to support women and womens issues at columbia for the better part of two decades. We are so proud to have her as a founding donor of this initiative. Thank you, and i know you are watching. That means a lot. I am also proud to announce something very cool. Weip. The Womens Initiative is joining forces to fuel research, education and outreach programs aimed at advancing opportunities for women worldwide and across different sectors. Tay tuned for more information later in the program. But let me just thank them for being such a fierce believer in the power of women. It is a great partnership. Lastly, when you look at the room and incredible lineup we have, you know that some people have been working aroundtheclock to make this happen. Our incredible team. Christina, lauren, katie, alex, rachel, susan, marie anna, caroline, eduardo and manyothero today. Thank you. You really deserve a big round of applause. [applause] now, if there is one person who embodies what it means to advocate for womens full and equal participation, it is Hillary Rodham clinton. In beijing in 1995,the worlds e status of women and girls and sent a powerful message that has echoed across the decades. Womens rights are human rights. Hillary, on behalf of all of the women who are here■ today, and countless more who are not, thank you this not even begin to cover it. It is an honor of a■m lifetime o do this work alongside with you and to call you a friend, er, a partner and a part of our family. Please join me in welcoming hillary clinton. [applause] ms. Clinton thank you very much, keren, and thank you to all of you for being here for this launce. Launch. It is a very exciting day here at igp and columbia. We believe we are starting something that can have a Lasting Impact far beyond the university. Let me start by saying very clearly that simply embracing let alone enshrining those rights and laws and constitutions, is not the same as achieving full equality. Rights are important but they are nothing without the power to claim them. Again and again, especially in recent times, we have seen anger, hostility, sexism and misogyny directed at women who have the audacity to seek power. Deepseated biases are even harder tojm change the discriminatory laws. It is no coup incidents that while we have made it is no coincidence that we have made progress in areas associated with women, including health care and progress in the economy, politics and national security. I frustrating because when i was in beijing, as keren has referenced, and declared that womens rights are human rights, my daughter was 15 years old. I very much wanted to raise her in a world where women were free and equal. Now, she is grown up with a daughter and sons of her own. She is doing her own very important work to fight for justice and equality, and i still find myself reminding people that womens rights are human rights. Id hoped that that would be old news by now. I still see women and girls bearing a disproportionate burden in almost every glol crisis. And when the internet and social media gave us new ways to connect, they also to new ways to harass and threaten women. But when i find myself in moments ofston or weariness, i like to look to women like the ones you will hear from today. And to be reminded of what we are fighting for, and the power we have to make change. Women are not just victims of violence and inequality. We are agents of peace and progress and the women we would hear from today are just a few of the remarkable women working across this university, this country and across world to liberate themselves, lift up their communities and find new ways to build momentum toward equality. As we can see at this institute, there was never a question that we would not integrate womens perspectives and everything we were doing. There was to be no siloing of womens issues. Womens issues, as keren just reminded us, are world issues. Why do we need another project on womens equality . Keren gave you some insight into what we believe will make igp initiative different. The worldclass scholarship that will produce impactful policy recommendations, the comp womes forward, the training of the next generation of Women Leaders and, yes, men who believe in equality, too. But the real answer is we need this igp Womens Initiative because women are not free or equal yet. So, we welcome you pleased the princess is here. She has been a great leader globally in womenity. We want this to be a global outreach, to learn what we can learn from across the world. So, to get us started, please welcome stacey abrams■. , the chr for race and black politics at howard university. The former georgia candidate for governor and igp carnegie distinguished fellow. Secretary gina raimondo, the 40th secretary of the Commerce Department and a staunch women and economic prosperity. And our moderator, a professor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg professor of law, Columbia Law School and igp affiliated faculty. These are just three of the Extraordinary People we will hear from this afternoon. Please welcome them. [applause] thank you. Welcome, everybody. This panel is entitled women empowering women through the economy. We have already queued up issues. Economic gaps and the role of women in various powerful positions. Shaping publicolicy in a way that addresses those gaps. I am a lawyer. What i think of the most is you will see a theme running through this panel about another part of law and policy, thinking about the ways in which you can have federal policy, state and local policy be shaped in a way that actually advances equality. I will say very little. I will turn it over to the panelists to talk aboutiatives. You will see this theme. We will start with what happens at the federal level and then moved to the state and local level. We can take some of these initiatives and supplement them and think about them in new i will start with the secretary. Since the beginning of the administration, there has been a lot of new federal programs and new money being poured into the economy. Ro act, the chips and science act we will explain some of these acronyms as we go along. The inflation reduction act. One challenge is how do you make those and shape those in a way that works for women and people of color . Idea around federal programs that shape the, you have been trying to disrupt this in various ways. I wondered if you could say how are being transformed and working for women and people of color . Ms. Raimondo thank you. Hello, everyone. It is fantastic to be here. As we were waiting i could feel the energy in the room. This is winter by favorite topics. My view is if you put women in ge, everything will be better. I am excited to be here with my pal, stacey. This president bidens leadership is nothing short of extraordinary. Because of that we haveut 1 trillion we are in the process of investing in america in the economy and communities which will create hundreds of thousands, if not one millionplus good paying jobs. I am investing money to stimulate Semi Conductor mactited states. The infrastructure act. You see it everywhere you go. Roads, bridges, broadband, etc. It will level the playing field. Provide opportunity for all americ works if we make sure everybody benefits equally. I will give you one example. In the process of putting money out the door for the chips facilities, i have said, if you are going to get taxpayer money, xyz big company, tell me what your childcare plan is. I want to know. Right . If you are going to get 1 billion of taxpayer money, i want to make sure women have an opportunity to get a job in those facilities. That will not happen if you do not have awhen i did that, a lof republicans in congress said, secretary, you are introducing ci politics in security program. I said i do not agree with that. This is hardnosed■ labor short. These Companies Need to be competitive. The need the best workers and that means women. You will not get them if you do you talked about the buildings. Right now, the percent of women in the Building Trades is the same as it was 50 years ago. Depending on the trade, it is somewhere between 2 and 7 . Why does that matter . Why does it matter that we do not have enough women are farmers, etc. . . Because they pay 60, 70, 80 an hour with benefs. I launched that there are one million women in construction in the country. I said lets double it. Scientific. [laughter] lets double it. Once again, we are working with labor, we have apprenticeship initiatives for women, working with these companies, attr and recruiting women. If you go to a job site right now as a welder and i needed a harness, chances are there are only five extralarge or large harnesses on the job. That is dangerous. There is one porta john. This is straight out of the 1950s. I will stop there but you could the topic. That is why it matters who is making policy and putting money out the door. I have all this money to invest and i will be dammed if half the jobs dont go to women. [applause] i think it is important to think about this as if the money is going out tld be justified. If you do not do that through affirmativeone. I want to follow up on what something looks like for change to happen in this direction. I want to asab piece. The last thing you left with was the Building Trades, it has been a longstanding probleming to diversify the construction trade. On the gender front and even on race and ethnicity. Some of the lowest participation workers who are slightly over represented, latino workers, tend to be some of the most unsafe, non unionized jobs. Is on women and the economy. What are your thoughts in terms of the construction trades■w mas on that given the recent report that shows what the big gap is . Ms. Abrams i will link it to something you said at the getting of the question. An affirmative action, perhaps. What we are talking about is how we have the lived experience of diversity, equity and inclusion. It has become a bit of a pejorative. I want to point to the secretary who just said this is an economic issue. Since inception of this country, we have had a series of movements designed to guarantee that we diversify who gets access to the American Dream and that they can included in participation. When we think about construction, civil rights movement, women suffrage, the womens rights movement, disability movement, name a movement in the United States it has been about, how do you get access to the American Dream . Getting that access, how do we make certain we diversify participation . I want us to reclaim the right like the secretary said on. We have the right to participation fully in this economy and that includes the Building Trades. In the state legislature, a lot of my work with a run defending access to those jobs being created. One of the many jobs it is like a terrible joke lots of different jobs in lots of different spaces but one is with an Organization Called rewiring america. We have 858 billion moving through the economy to electrify residential spaces. Basically that means stoves, heat pump water heaters, heat pump hvacs. Them. 121 million households that will need this equipment. Right now we are missing 1. 4 Million People in the workforce to install this equipment. 700,000 should bewe live in tho. We turn on the thermostat. We are the ones using the equipment. Why should be be the ones installing it . How do we ensure not only that the money gets to the household but the people installing the equipment look like the people in the households . They are women, people of color. That means providing access to training. One of the things we know is strong independent women and different parts of the economy, they do not know where the door is. They want the pathway, they will do the work, they just do not know the secret■g knock, if they can find the door, if they know where the building is. Part of the opportunity is having a secretary shold the pee pursestrings accountable for welcome you in but we also have the responsibility when hiring come in and install are duly funded our newly funded heat pump asked do they have women workingpart of our oo ask the question of who is providing a service. Most of the time we get so wrapped up in trying to get thae also the purveyors of this opportunity. I think about it always in this waywhere is the money coming from . Who is it going to . And who does it touch along the way . As we think about the Building Trades, everyone of those buildings will likely house a family or business. Which businesses are going in . Ng construction . Who is doing the Financial Services . Managing the loans . At each of the structures, we need to look at who gets to touch the dollar. If we do that, that is dei in practice. We are not saying you cannot touch it, we are saying lets make sure the different hands engaged look like the people who live in this country. [applause] from what you are saying, it seems like part of this is about attaching requirements to funding. Part of it might be gathering data. It sounds like you were also maybe alluding to the partnership, Funding Partnership to help with things like training. Ing a different question of the secretary, i wanted to ask more about the childcare piece, given there are progms chips that are now requiring that. Is there space and localities in that . What does it look like to job. [laughter] ms. Raimondo requirements are a from the public space. There is not a single dollar without a requirement. As the secretary point not ms. Abrams we only have a question about the dollar when it affects someone other than who we expect. When she said she was looking at childcare as a social program we put requirements on public dollars every single day. Is, why do we value less the requirements that do the most . When it comes to childcare at the state level, that is absolutely an issue. That is where people are making the toughest decisions. I live in a state where the official minimum wage is still 5. 15 an hour. Eople said the federal wage covers it, it does not cover a certain agricultural worker. I live in a state with a lot of Agricultural Workers and a lot of healthcare workers. A lot of people not entitled to the federal mineral wage. Policies that require the childcare be provided. Those childcare providers have access. I want to talk about this even more. Know that at the state level, especially for women of color and for poor women, access to ch is the difference between making a living and making a life, whether you are on public assistance or whether you are independent. If you cannot take care of your child, especially in a state where you are no longer allowed to make the decision of whether or not you have a child or not lets you lose reproductive freedom and you are not entitled those policies matter. It matters that you have access to childcare. It matters that you have good paying jobs. It matters that those jobs are being funded by public dollars when you should have a better the economy. s we have to think about these things holistically rather than in the silos we are told to consider them in. Engthen and grow our economy. We have a cover secretary that says the way we become a stnomy we have a president saying this is how we become a stronger nation half o