UN Women Executive Director to call for women’s economic empowerment at the 2014 World Economic Forum

Date: Wednesday, 22 January 2014

Executive Director of UN Women Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka will travel to Davos, Switzerland to attend the 2014 Annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) from 23-25 January. At the WEF, Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka will meet with representatives of government, civil society and business, and will sit on a “Gender-Driven Growth” panel alongside Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, and Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer of Facebook. The interactive discussion, to focus on gender-inclusive policies and practices to address barriers to empowerment and economic growth with a focus on gender, to be webcast live here at 3:30 p.m. CET (9:30 a.m. EST) on Saturday 25 January.

The panel will be moderated by Linda Yueh, the BBC’s Chief Business Correspondent, and segments will be broadcast on the BBC News programme “Talking business with Linda Yueh”. In her contribution, UN Women’s Executive Director will make the case for government and the private sector to tear down the barriers holding back women’s equal participation in the economy, whether they are discriminatory laws, inflexible workplaces, or widespread failure to acknowledge unpaid care work.

On the evening of 23 January, Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka will deliver remarks at a reception hosted by UN Women partner The Coca-Cola Company, a large annual event attended by 500 prominent guests, and take part in a reception celebrating Africa's vitality, growth and promise, hosted by SABMiller.

The next morning, Friday 24 January, the Executive Director will participate in a “fishbowl” discussion on global gender parity and the WEF’s own Gender Parity workstream, to be attended by 60 high-level participants, primarily CEOs and Ministers. Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka will stress the need to build partnerships across sectors with government, the private sector, and civil society, to remove barriers to women’s full and equal participation in the economy.

Q&A with our Executive Director

As UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka attends the annual meeting, she answered questions about gender equality from WEF online readers.

Q&A: How can we make the world better for women?

Later, Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka will participate in an informal gathering of world economic leaders around the theme “Reshaping of the World: Defining the Imperatives for 2014”, before attending a public workshop on “The Power of Different”, which will focus on diversity (including gender diversity) and creativity as assets for building more resilient and robust institutions.

The Executive Director’s second day at Davos will conclude with her role as a discussion leader at the “Women Empowering Women” Dinner. With over 100 expected participants, discussion will focus on the role of mentorship in supporting women in leadership, with Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka sharing her personal experience and focusing on the role of mentoring for women entrepreneurs in the developing world.

Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka’s final day at the WEF will include key bilateral meetings and the “Gender-Driven Growth” panel at 3:30 p.m.