G20 Riyadh Summit Week: Women’s Empowerment as a Key Enabler for Economic Recovery

A virtual roundtable was held during the summit week of the Saudi G20 Presidency on Women’s empowerment as a key enabler for economic recovery. The round table featured Dr. Reham AlRassi, Policy Advisor Head of G20 Women’s Empowerment, Dr. Hala AlTuwaijri, Chair of the Women Workstream, Mrs. Rania Nashar, CEO of Samba/Empower Alliance, Mrs. Salma AlRasheed, Women 20’s Sherpa, Ms. Michiko Achilles, Special advisor Gender Equality and Human Recourse Policies, Ms. Carla Abiven Executive Assistant – Women’s Forum For The Economy & Society, and Mr. Stefano Pizzicannella, Empowerment General Director for International and General Affairs – Italian Government.

Dr. Hala stated: “Women’s empowerment is a core priority for the 2020 G20 Saudi Arabia presidency and has been considered holistically across multiple workstreams as well as through the advancement of the EMPOWER alliance.”

EMPOWER was launched in Osaka 2019 after a suggestion from the Canadian Sherpa, progress greatly accelerated in 2020 as the Alliance became functional and members met for the first time. EMPOWER was established and grown to 24 country representatives nominated with all G20 members (other than South Africa and China) and 6 guest countries represented.

Mrs. Rania Nashar, CEO of SAMBA and Empower Alliance, mentioned that Empower is working this year to further advance the presence of women in leadership positions, “with the Empower members from twenty four countries to further connect the private sector leaders across all these countries to share best practices and accelerate the change – that’s why we have created two major reports with OECD and ILO to measure the progression and the advancement of women in leadership positions.”

Empower is building an alliance network to support the advancement of women internationally. Mr. Stefano Pizzicannella, Empowerment General Director, shared Italy’s vision to move the alliance forward and shed light on the importance of Empower being owned and represented by the private sector which strengthens their potential impact during the Italian Presidency.

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