Thank you, your Excellency for the kind introduction earlier. On behalf of the United States, I want to express my gratitude to you, Her Highness Sheika Manal, and the entire Dubai Women Establishment for hosting the Global Women’s Forum Dubai. Today, we are here to celebrate all that women are achieving in economies throughout North Africa and the Middle East.
We are grateful to be joined by His Highness Sheik Mohammed– thank you for your commitment to advancing women’s economic participation across Dubai and the broader United Arab Emirates.
Also here with us are two incredible partners of our administration’s effort to deliver greater opportunity to women and girls around the world:
Thank you to World Bank President David Malpass and IMF Director Kristalina Georgieva.
To everyone gathered here today: I am delighted that you have joined us for our second annual regional summit of the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative, or We-Fi.
Since we launched this historic initiative 2 years ago, with the UAE and United States as founding members, we will have mobilized $2.6 billion dollars – of both public and private sector financing – to invest in more than 100,000 women-owned businesses in the developing world.
This afternoon, we are very proud to be joined by hundreds of these inspiring women entrepreneurs.
Each of you has overcome immense challenges and are pioneering brighter futures for your families and your nations. You inspire us all. Thank you.
We want your success stories to be the future of millions of women across the region. It’s this vision that brings us together today.
The theme of this year’s Forum is the Power of Influence. We all know that that when women are free to succeed, families thrive, communities flourish, and nations are stronger.
In the United States, we have seen how much progress can be made within one lifetime. A few decades ago, women could not take out a loan without a man or own a credit card in their name. They searched for jobs in the female section of employment listings, and made up only 25% of managers in 1980. Today, more American women are leading in every aspect of society. Last year, there were more women than men in the U.S. workforce, with women securing over 70% of new jobs.
We know that all of you here today can help pioneer historic reforms in this region within your lifetimes. Already, we are encourage by recent progress. Here in the UAE, I want to commend Emirati leaders for removing barriers to women joining the workforce and developing a national strategy that recognizes that women are central to sustainable growth.
Last year, more than 70% of Emirati university graduates were women. Yet only 10% of UAE’s total national income is driven by women – we hope to see that number grow much higher.
Progress builds upon progress. I want to congratulate five other countries in the Middle East and Northern Africa Region for instituting significant reforms over the past two years:
Saudi Arabia has changed laws to respect women’s freedom of movement and access to credit and financial services. Bahrain introduced legislation to prevent discrimination in the workplace. Jordan eliminated legal restrictions on women’s ability to work at night. Morocco expanded women’s land rights. And Tunisia introduced laws to combat domestic violence. We applaud these advancements.
Yet, we know that there is still much more work to be done. Too many women continue to face obstacles to entering the workforce, starting their own businesses, reaching their full potential, and charting their own future.
In the Middle East and North Africa, on average, women have only half the legal rights of men. In this region alone, women’s economic equality has the potential to add $600 billion to global annual GDP by 2025.
That number represents far more than an economic boom – it represents millions of lives full of promise – mothers who could provide for their children, daughters who could be the first to graduate high school, and young women who could start businesses and become job creators. This is the future we can and must achieve together.
To seize opportunities for progress in this region and throughout the world, last year President Trump launched a brand new program: the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative, or W-GDP.
This landmark White House initiative is the first-ever coordinated U.S. Government approach to global women’s economic empowerment.
W-GDP focuses on three pillars – providing vocational training for women; empowering women to succeed as entrepreneurs; and eliminating legal and societal barriers that prevent women from fully participating in the economy.
Our goal is to reach 50 million women across the developing world by 2025, and in our first year alone, we have already impacted 12 million women!
Over the past year, I have had the opportunity to travel to many countries and meet with the women who are benefitting from our work. I want to share several stories with you, which exemplify how W-GDP is changing lives.
At the W-GDP launch last year, I met with Lillian Achom to learn how her organization, AFCHIX empowers women in Uganda to start companies and work as network engineers.
Through WGDP’S partnership with AFCHIX, we are working to close the gender gap in crucial STEM fields – and inspire the next generation of women leaders in Uganda.
In Ethiopia, I met Sara Abera. 15 years ago, Sara began a textile business with just 10 employees. She quickly excelled and earned financing and support through US Government programs. Today, Sara employs more than 500 people – and is the largest exporter of handmade woven garments and pottery in her country.
When I visited Morocco last November, I was proud to stand beside leaders as they signed legislation to recognize women’s right to own land.
This reform was revolutionary for the women I encountered in Morocco’s rural Gharb Region. I watched a young mother receiving a title for 3.5 hectares of land rejoice and weep over the prospect of being able to invest in the productivity of her farm. I witnessed an older women walk amongst olive trees, reveling in the story of progress achieved in her lifetime. It is their courage to shatter barriers of inequality and blaze a new path of opportunity that gives hope to millions.
Recently, our White House Economists found that if nations addressed the five legal barriers that W-GDP is focused on reforming: accessing institutions, building credit, owning and managing property, traveling freely, and removing employment restrictions, women’s economic activity could increase annual global GDP by about $7.7 trillion.
Imagine the lives transformed – the cities that could be built, the new schools that could open their doors, the children that could be helped – if we come together to make these reforms part of our future.
Every woman here today has an incredible story. You are brave innovators and bold entrepreneurs that are bringing greater opportunity to your home countries.
You are the women who are going to help us imagine new industries, discover the next cures, create works of beauty, and improve lives around the world.
Today, we come together to ask the nations of this region to continue to work with us, to break new ground, and to institute changes, legally and culturally, that will give every woman the chance to determine her own destiny and to bring greater peace and prosperity to this region and the world.
Thank you again for hosting us here in Dubai. Thank you to all the leaders present and the courageous women who are pioneering change – and I can’t wait to see all that we achieve working together. Thank you very much.
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