Economic Empowerment

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf says positive mentorship, education and partnering will promote women's entrepreneurship to strengthen the private sector, create jobs and advance women's economic rights.

She stressed the need to encourage development, not through philanthropy, but through concerted efforts of better education for girls and women; equal opportunities for jobs, particularly access to the formal economy through banking and other financial services; the development of integrated frameworks in the private sector that enhances and support opportunities for women; and improving government policies and strategic frameworks - quotas which provide preferences for women businesses and enterprises.

"Everyone has a role to play in this regard," The Liberian President indicated, adding, "The public sector can make sure that policies and laws offer women an equal playing field to rise, based on their own merits. Banks can develop more women-targeted financial products and services to reach out to the women's market. Large business enterprises can outsource services to women entities." She noted that what is required is innovation, bold action and risk taking to provide opportunities for women.

According to an Executive Mansion Dispatch from Tokyo, Japan, President Sirleaf made the statement when she served as Keynote Speaker at an International Monetary Fund - World Bank Seminar on "Women in the Private Sector: Good for Development and Business."

Quoting United Nations data on business women in the informal sector in Africa, particularly sub-Sahara Africa, President Sirleaf said that women account for 70 percent of the agriculture work force, producing the same percentage of the continent's food. She said they are also responsible for 70-90 percent of its marketing.

In cross-border trading, she said, these women travel, at great risks, across the continent to buy consumer goods for sale at home; terming them as the driving force that represents growth in small and medium-scale enterprises.

President Sirleaf cited the mobile money banking system in Kenya, where women as the major users, is revolutionizing the way business if done in trading commodities across that country; adding, "Although there are countless women in women-run firms throughout sub-Saharan Africa, they are more likely to be informal, smaller, and operate in lower value-added sectors than companies run by men," she said.

Specifically speaking about Liberia and the interventions that have opened opportunities for women in business, the Liberian leader named the World Bank's Global Adolescent Girl Initiative, the first pilot project initiated in 2008 under the acronym "The Economic Empowerment of Adolescent Girls and Young Women (EPAG) Project," which has enabled 2,491 young women to keep their businesses open and their projects growing.

President Sirleaf named The Goldman Sachs Foundation's 10,000 Women Global Initiative that has trained over 250 more entrepreneurs in business management and leadership skills; the Central Bank of Liberia's Credit Stimuli that has provided loans to 24 women-owned businesses which, in turn, provided jobs to 2,917 persons; as well as an additional facility extended to microfinance institutions, credit unions and village savings and loan associations has benefitted 34,759 women.

"We need to continue to find means to make it easier for women entrepreneurs to grow their businesses by finding innovative ways for them to access credit," she said noting further that the key is to identify what policies really work to increase women's economic opportunities, and concentrate on them.

A panel discussion later followed that included President Sirleaf; the Managing Director of the World Bank Group responsible for Operations Services, Policy and Systems, Caroline Anstey; and the President of the Canadian International Development Agency, Margaret Biggs.

They discussed the economic, business and development case for investing in women's private sector participation, and how it can be expanded; the regulatory barriers which women-owned businesses face, and how they can be addressed; specific needs and expectations of women in emerging economies with regards to finance, and what are the products, services, approaches, and emerging best practice in meeting those needs.

The discussion was moderated by the Chief Executive Officer of the Women's Foundation based in Hong Kong, China, Su-Mei Thompson.

In a related development, President Sirleaf also participated in another seminar on NHK Debate – Globalization at a Crossroads: From Tokyo to Tokyo.

Along with the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde; Chairman of the Board of Hitachi, Ltd., Japan, Takashi Kawamura; Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, Professor Klaus Schwab; Japan's Finance Minister, Koriki Jojima; the panelists reviewed the global economic system and its remarkable successes since the last time Tokyo hosted the IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings in 1964.

As globalization is not without its limits, to mitigate economic and financial risks and continue to harness the benefits of globalization, the panelists discussed how stronger cooperation among countries must successfully be brought to bear on some pressing issues of our time including tackling aging populations; transforming growth models in fast-growing economies; creating jobs in many countries; ensuring rapid change does not leave the vulnerable behind; and solving food security.

They particularly discussed how to bolster and reform the global economic system to tackle these problems and how to ensure that all countries and peoples can prosper together.

The Program of Seminars has brought together financial leaders, policy-makers and top thinkers to discuss economic development challenges facing the world today. The interactive sessions have been organized with special emphasis on the global economy, jobs and competiveness, the euro area, growth in Asia, global health, low-income issues, inclusive growth, and sovereign risk.