The Women Economic Forum (WEF) was held in Cartagena de Indias with the objective of making visible initiatives for the economic progress of women.
What is the Women Economic Forum (WEF)?
The only regional forum based on women economy. This initiative leading the global calendar of events for women empowerment and financial inclusion, its celebrated annually in New Delhi-India along with over 500 international chapters, 150 countries and 50.000 members worldwide. ALL LADIES LEAGUE it´s a women global chamber with more than 50.000 inspiring men and women focused on a single purpose: women economic inclusion.
The Director of Cepei, Philipp Schönrock, participated as a panelist of the session “Visible Women and girls: data for development” where he presented the availability of gender data in Latin America.
He noted that in recent years a greater number of organizations and countries have focused their efforts on improving the measurement and monitoring of gender equality (SDG 5). Organizations such as the World Bank and the Gender Equality Observatory of Latin America and the The Caribbean, as well as statistical offices and non-governmental organizations, work on the generation of reports or platforms that present the reality of women and girls through data and visualizations.
On the other hand, during the last years, initiatives have been created focused on the measurement of gender equality and the generation of opportunities such as: the Global Index on Gender Gap of the International Monetary Fund; the UNDP Gender Inequality Index; the Equal Measure SDG Gender Index; the OECD Index of Social Institutions and Gender 2019; and The Economist Women’s Economic Opportunities Index.
Philipp Schönrock, Director of Cepei
“According to the Gender Inequality Index 2017, girls and women equality has made great progress since 1990; however, gender equality has not yet been reached. Inequality as a multidimensional element is reflected in discrimination in health, education, political representation and the labor market faced by girls and women”
The Director of Cepei mentioned the challenges that the Latin American and Caribbean region still has on gender equality, highlighting the need for greater and better disaggregation of data. In the case of Colombia, the country has made considerable efforts in measuring the SDG indicators, especially SDG 5 on gender equality: including figures at the departmental and territorial level for the monthly income gap between men and women (indicator 5.a.). However, it has not provided detailed information for this indicator by subgroups such as indigenous population, population with disabilities, etc.
Likewise, our Director moderated the “Technology: accelerator of financial inclusion” panel, organized by Mastercard, which was attended by representatives of Microsoft Latin America, Paula Bellizia, VP of Sales, Marketing and Operations; Mastercard, Kiki del Valle, Senior Vice President of Digital Associations of LAC; EY and LATAM North, Martin Soubelet, Technology Transformation Practice Leader.
What is financial inclusion?
According to the Bank of the Republic, financial inclusion is a process of integrating financial services into the daily economic activities of the population, which can contribute significantly to economic growth to the extent that it effectively reduces the financing, insurance and resource management costs, both for people and for companies.
Around 2,500 million people do not use formal financial services and 75% of the population in poverty does not have a bank account. Inclusion is key to reducing poverty and boosting prosperity. It has been determined that financial inclusion is a factor that positively affects 7 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
The Discussion
The three panelists discussed how the main technological global trends are reflected in Latin America and the Caribbean at the regional and local levels; what are the essential aspects of financial inclusion to encourage the participation of women and girls in this field; what obstacles are faced when implementing technological tools for financial inclusion in the LAC region and how have they been solved.
