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Global
LIMA — Today we celebrated the five year anniversary of APEC’s San Francisco Declaration on Empowering Women for Economic Growth. The celebration was hosted during the APEC CEO Summit in Lima, Peru, focused on critical issues facing the region.
Since the inaugural APEC Women and the Economy Summit in San Francisco in 2011, APEC has made remarkable strides in addressing the five key pillars identified at the Summit that impact women’s economic empowerment: access to capital; access to market; skills and capacity building; women’s leadership and agency; and innovation and technology. As we take the opportunity to celebrate the achievements of the last five years, we do so with an eye to the future challenges and opportunities where APEC economies and the private sector can create meaningful change for women throughout the Asia Pacific region.
WEConnect International will participate in an event with APEC, Walmart, Freeport-McMoRan, Merck & Co., Inc., the Government of Peru, the Government of the United States, and other key stakeholders to celebrate the APEC San Francisco Declaration and to highlight progress made by the public and private sector to close the women’s economic participation gap and, in particular, announce pledges of support for APEC’s efforts to increase women’s economic participation.
WEConnect International is working with corporate members in the Asia-Pacific between now and 2020 to track their spend with women-owned businesses, implement supplier readiness and mentoring initiatives targeting women-owned businesses, build government capacity to collect sex-disaggregated data on women-owned enterprises, and encouraging top suppliers to source more from women suppliers and/or commit to launching a global supplier diversity and inclusion program focused on women suppliers.
For example, Boeing is committed to increase procurement from women-owned businesses around the world, to include them in supplier development and mentoring activities and to encourage top suppliers also to source more from women-owned companies.
And Freeport-McMoRan Inc. committed to partner with WEConnect International and others to implement supplier readiness initiatives, including mentoring, targeting at least 500 women-owned businesses and to track and measure an increase in new money spent on women-owned businesses between 2017 and 2020, in combination with other commitment-makers.
WEConnect International identifies, educates and certifies women’s business enterprises that are at least 51% owned, managed and controlled by one or more women, and connects them with member buyers. WEConnect International members are committed to inclusive sourcing and represent over US$1 trillion in annual purchasing power. WEConnect International supports and promotes women-owned businesses in over 100 countries.
CONTACT: Cate Urban | Director of Communications | WEConnect International | curban@weconnectinternational.org | +1-202-810-6009
