UN Women and Sumarse take actions to empower women

The UN Women Regional Office for the Americas and the Caribbean, along with the Global Compact Network in Panama, Sumarse, recently held a business forum to officially launch the Knowledge Gateway on Women’s Economic Empowerment: EmpowerWomen.org, as well as the Women’s Economic Principles.

Representatives from 30 Panamanian and regional private organizations attended the forum, in which they actively engaged in conversations that led to a unanimous agreement that equality is indeed a good investment, and that empowering women is key to achieve successful business indicators.

Lara Blanco, UN Women Deputy Regional Director for the Americas and the Caribbean, explained the value of empowering women as a formula for business success, while Cesar Mejia, manager of Human Resources and Regional Sustainability for Argos Colombia, shared his company’s experiences and good practices in incorporating actions to promote gender equality as a key element of business sustainability.

In addition to this, Blanco took the opportunity to formally introduce the Knowledge Gateway on Women’s Economic Empowerment: EmpowerWomen.org, and stressed its value as a collaborative hub, connecting women and men from the private sector, civil society, academia, governments and international organizations to take actions around the economic empowerment of women.

In that sense, the executive director of Sumarse, Teresa Alfaro, added that the key to success in the globalized world requires the active participation of women, because they significantly impact over the spending patterns and substantially contribute to improve the quality of life their families and community.

During the forum, the participants shared their experiences and concerns about the roadmap that still lies ahead to achieve equality in all spheres of society, highlighting the fact that gender equality is something that requires the active engagement of both, men and women.

This forum highlighted the need to build a strong commitment to meet the challenges and take the opportunities that will result in gender equality, especially following the recent adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals, which prioritize gender equality and the empowerment of women as an indispensable condition to achieve sustainable development, democracy and peace in the world.

Knowledge Gateway on Women’s Economic Empowerment: www.empowerwomen.org

Women’s Economic Principles: http://weprinciples.org/