You got quiet so quickly. Good afternoon and welcome everyone. We are in for an important discussion. I am liz schrayer the president and ceo of u. S. Global Leadership Coalition usglc . We are honored to cohost todays event. And i would like to welcome our special guest ivanka trump and usaid administrator mark greene. Todays program is the first public event in the United States of the u. S. Global initiative. This is an opportunity to highlight a Game Changing initiative. Unleashing the full potential of women in the world. And to hear about innovative activity. For the men in this room no offense to you but a topic like this, to go wrong . U. S. Global Leadership Coalition usglc has been pleased to be part of this initiative. I remember early on when the board had the opportunity to meet with ivanka trump your unwavering commitment to bring the idea of womens Economic Empowerment to the center stage has been extraordinary. And everybody in this room joins and thank you for that. And mark, we have been pleased to join you in discussions with you and your team at usaid for bringing your expertise of a Global Development to the table. I was pleased to join you at the oval office of the signing and we were very proud to work with capitol hill on the passage of womens entrepreneurship and Economic Empowerment act. We have some members of congress who will be talking about that shortly. The truth is there are a few agendas that bring together people that are as compelling and unifying as the one we are going to talk about today. In this town its quite nice that we have a topic that does that. Gathered here is a wide array of stakeholders that have come together because they believe in the initiative that we will be talking about. I see friends from the administration, from the white house, the state department, usaid, friends from capitol hill on both sides of the aisle. Leaders that are known as a strange bedfellow coalition. We bring together unusual voices. There are businesses here like walmart, png, and faith based communities, and catholic relief services. There are military leaders and veterans here. All because they believe in initiative that we are going to be talking about. This issue does not just resonate here in the beltway. There are people around the country that really resonates with what we are going to talk about. As you know usglc is active in all 50 states. We have posted forms in town Hall Meetings across the country with Business Leaders , mayors, College President s, faith leaders. We have been everywhere in places like appleton, dayton, lummus, Salt Lake City and beyond. When we have had these conversations that we talk about how leading globally matters a locally. When we turned the topic of women and empowering women economically our audience literally lights up. They understand the power of lifting up women. Of investing in what ivanka trump calls a Smart Development assistance. They are all in when it is about supporting programs that deliver results to our security, our economy, and our values. About this time last year i hosted a conversation to celebrate the 15th year of pepper farm. I brought together a group of people who were the original individuals who helped launch that event. From the administration on capitol hill. I asked the question sitting on the podium, what was the secret sauce that endured through multiple administrations that created the success that saved 17 million lives . There were four ingredients that were mentioned. Tylers focus on results, bipartisan support from both ends of pennsylvania avenue, local country leadership, Government Resources that Leverage Private sector involvement, both from the business and the Ngo Community. Perhaps w gdp has that secret sauce. Earlier this year i went and saw one of those programs. And im sure many of you in this room have done the same. But this was a different, it was 2. 0. The program is called dream. It was a program that doesnt just save lives, it gives life. I met a young girl, she told me her story. She was 13 years old when she was abandoned by her mother. At 50 years old she had hiv aids, two children, and was homeless. A few years later was when i met her. She had been part of the dream program that eliminated the barriers that empowered economically. She was healthy, safe, now a fashion designer. She has a future, and she has a dreams. There are so many stories yet to be told. That is what we are going to talk about today. It is my honor to welcome to the podium and to this platform our first panelist. Our moderator today is a face that is well known and a longtime friend of our community. The state department has a new spokesperson morgan ortega. And the special guest, the advisor to the president , ivanka trump and the administrator of usaid ambassador mark greene. Please welcome all three to the stage. Hi everyone. Thank you everyone for coming today. Its so wonderful to see so many people here that care about womens Economic Development and prosperity. Of course, thank you liz. Youre just a dream for this community. And thank you for cohosting this event. This is actually my first event in my new role as a state department spokesperson. And i am so honored that youre having me as part of this event. The state department is a proud member of the wgdp program. And we were to advance the three pillars of wgdp. Women prospering in the workforce, succeeding as entrepreneurs, and women enabling the economy. The state department was involved in the review process for the wgdp awardees. I will continue to engage on upcoming progress. Such as the International Leadership program, overcoming barriers to womens economic participation. That will debut this fall. Lets get right to it with two of the best people working on these initiatives. I dont think many people know this, but you had a major success in the president S National Security strategy which was the first time you got women written to the National Security strategy. I have an update if youd like to read more. Earlier this year when the president established the wgdp initiative. You tell us a little bit about why its important to get women written into the National Security strategy, and how that ties into wgdp . First of all happy birthday morgan. And thank you for being here. We are grateful for your hard work and service and the advocacy for the issues that we will be discussing here today. And thank you to mark greene who is been an incredible partner in this initiative from the earliest days. And liz and the entire usglc team. You are one of the first groups that we reached out to in a series of comprehensive listening sessions that helped us with this initiative. We started with the premises that there are unique obstacles and barriers to women in the workforce. We have this at home and we are fighting those barriers, and striving to lower them, whether its the lack of affordable and accessible childcare in the country. We are working to address that. Paid family leave, and other issues. We look globally at developing wealth there are a separate set of challenges and unique problems. We started looking at all that has been done previously. What had been successful and where there was a void. We launched initiative in the early stages of the administration to build those forward. For example with the world bank, because there was inadequate access to capital for small and medium size of female entrepreneurs in the world. We launched with opec. The First Development institution to think about lending through a gender level. Its quite novel. And we used g7 in canada to reinforce that and create a call to action among the other countries and institutions. And we were successful in that effort. We took a step back after launching these in a series of others after we connected with mark greene to help bridge the gender divide. We step back and say what the most effective ways, the most important ways economically to empower women . And how can we create a comprehensive government approach to doing this . That never happened before. They had never been in a government approach to womens Economic Empowerment. We know it is smart from a Development Assistance standpoint. And we know it is critically important, which is often underplayed. It is critically important from a National Security perspective, which is why we are very proud of the fact that the president S National Security strategy issue from december 2017 had a section on the role of womens Economic Empowerment. Fostering peace and stability. One statistic that is really eyeopening. If you look at the country that score the lowest on the index for gender discrimination. 80 of them experienced Armed Conflict in the last two decades. When you marry a good Economic Policy in terms of growth, opportunity, and prosperity with smart defense policy and security policies. Then you really get peoples attention. And that is what we are quite excited for. The president launched wgdp as his 16th National Security president ial memorandum. There hasnt been many since the administration has been affect. We work to design it with hundreds of lawmakers, ngos, advocates in the region. And we came up with the three pieces that you mentioned. Women prospering in the workforce. This is helping women with Vocational Education that will help them secure jobs. And as importantly it may be more importantly helping them gain access to markets, technology that will fuel the protect deputy productivity for the existing work that women are doing. We have all heard of well intended programs that teach people skills, and after graduating from those programs those in vigils are unable to secure a job because there are no jobs available. Coming with the private sector on all of these are important. Promoting entrepreneurship, access to capital, and the last one which are really there hasnt been a robust push and a coordinated fashion. And i think its the most critical. Which is changing laws that prohibit women from participant in the local economy. We focus on five specific laws. Today we were really excited to applaud and celebrate the change of the marriage law which will now enable women to inherit property and acquire property, which was previously not allowed under the law. [ applause ] thank you. This builds upon great work done at the local level. And through funding with local ngos and advocates. It reinforces the central nature of change in the law. That is the type of thing that will create extraordinary transformative change. Im excited that today in addition to that great announcement for millions of women, we are also announcing the awarding of the first launch of grants from usaid to empower and move forward wgdp. 100,000 women and 22 countries will benefit. There are 14 projects, each have the three pillars that we just discussed and mentioned. It is 27 million of u. S. Government dollars, we mobilized 160 million of private sector funds to match and accelerate that. Hundreds of ngos and private sector companies. We are very excited about the private sector and the Ngo Community coming alongside of us to amplify and accelerate our work. It is great and you will be hearing from some of those recipients today that will help highlight each of the three pillars that the initiative has and share with us the great work that they are doing. That is incredibly exciting. That is really great news. Administrator mark greene i have a soft spot in my heart for usaid. That was my first spot. We trained you well. And i grew up. We know that usaid is very aligned with the goals of a wgdp. How are those specific programs working to implement this initiative . First off, for us it is a moral issue, equal opportunity of basic American Values that we project throughout all of our work. Its also a very practical matter. Liz talked a little bit about the Global Health programs and one of the best possible ways to advance Global Health is an educated girl becomes an educated mother, who passes a long life lessons and accesses the services. Its also an economic issue. We talk about the journey of selfreliance. Helping countries leave themselves. No country isnt a selfreliant if theyre not tapping into more than half of their population. It is interwoven in many ways, and every country where we work and all the programs that we do. What we see today is a really how we are using the new collaboration to help unlock dollars. We have gone beyond grants and contracts. We will still do those, but were looking for new ways to move opportunity to unlock networks, to scale up work that is being done. And for us a sense the call for proposals didnt come until march, and the closing date was in april. We made the decisions in june. That is a lightning speed. I think you will see because it was a different approach and we still had the expert review panel, all of these incentives together made an enormous difference in a very short period of time. We are excited about what you will hear about today and are more excited about the future and what we think this will do as we continue to unlock these networks and build on the great work that so many great people in this room represent. Thats a wonderful. Just a dovetail on that. I do think its really important, obviously we have a responsibility to the american taxpayer. The goal of Development Assistance is self reliance. If youre not unleashing the potential of 50 of your population, then it is not going to achieve that goal. We think of this as a very Smart Development assistance. We think the Development Assistance isnt an entitlement. We talked about the law and the need to change laws that prohibit women from dissipating their economy. We continue to provide develop assistance to countries refused to make structural changes that enable women to inherit property, to travel freely, to open bank accounts, to work in the same industry as men. Their 2. 7 billion women and 114 countries who are unable to work in the same industry as men. Oftentimes the predominant industry within that economy. 114 countries . Oftentimes people do not realize how prevalent the issue is. The reason why the we focused on five specific laws. The fifth is being able to access credit on equal terms as a man in their society. These five laws we think are so foundational. Yet, there are tremendous barriers all over the globe. In geographic diverse regions. We are focused on that because we think it is one of the smartest places that we can allocate our time and resources to create an environment to make the program into promoting women in the workforce and Women Entrepreneurship that is sustainable and longterm. You mentioned that you been traveling around the world. Where would you say that using the most effective issues were women are really grabbing onto these programs and making a change . Mark and i were recently in africa and we saw tremendous programs. I was blown away by a village that we visited. It was three hours from the capital. And we saw firsthand a great example of a program that usaid worked on creating villages savings and loans. Women come together and form associations and they leverage their collective purchasing power to gain greater access to markets, and are able to secure the capital that they need to grow their business. We saw a very dynamic example of one of those associations. We also announced a new program to create 300 more, with the private sector and several private companies. Nestli, moores, carr gill. It was amazing to see this community of women working together individually. Where they receive the benefit of their individual work. But as a cooperative. Where they build and create opportunity as a collective. It was really extraordinary. I think you captured it well. Again understand that with each of these grants and programs we are unlocking things. Were not building things. We are unlocking and tapping into the entrepreneurial spirit that is at the heart of every family, every woman entrepreneur. I think its universal. Its always on africa, but its just the same in latin america. Youre looking for women that are looking for a chance by attacking some of those enabling environmental barriers. And we are unlocking those opportunities. Will continue this conversation and bring some of those real stories to the stage. We have the president and ceo of a company that advances a womens role in technology. Can you speak about how you are creating networks related to scale their businesses . Specifically in the artisan and manufacturing industries. And share a little more about how your projects in power and work across all the sectors in india . Its a great honor to be here. Its a wonderful opportunity offered to us. Our program that we pitched with usaid is a producer owned enterprise. I love these acronyms. We build women collectives. We work on supplementing the economy that supplies to global giants like ikea and hoping to tap into the world market. Its a huge opportunity and we build these collective properties. We create a wealth for poor women. India has the fifth largest economy. We also have the largest number of poor in the world. A large number of people that live on less than five dollars a day. And that impacts women the most. Through these collectives women start seeing their income triple, a lot of women that are earning for the first time in their lives and it leads to phenomenal no impact. And the value change that we have focused on is biodegradable options to replace plastics. And its for the tribal part of india. Im sorry to say that women are warning less than