I had the chance to moderate the 10 the year anniversary meeting of the W20 as the Founding Chair of the W20, in Johannesburg South Africa under the South African Presidency
Thank you Professor Narnia Bohler-Muller of HSRC (Human Sciences Research Council) and thank you and Dr. Sindiswa Mzamo.
A Ten-Year Celebration of W20 Session Chair Dr Gülden Türktan, Founding Chair of the W20, Türkiye From the session I have below notes:
India has a saying apart from I “Incredible India”, “when women are respected, we have a better world and then our nation flourishes.” India inspired with this notion deciding that national growth strategy should include women and they called it “women led development” and they said that women should no longer be “home makers” but they should be “nation builders.” This campaign added 50 million women to their workforce. That is, in other words, from 2017 to 2025 India has successfully added 50 million women to its workforce. I congratulate them sincerely.
Other initiatives launched included raising women’s education, growth in self employment and the like women empowerment projects. They had encouraged women by opening bank accounts for all women. 315 million women now own a bank account. They launced the world’s biggest micro finance project impacting 142 million women. They organized grass roots projects where women can share their experience and learn from sharing. Also, 1/3 of the seats in the parliament is reserved for women in India.
India believes unity is their strength and the whole world is one single family and they believe together we can. Further we are all their extended family. Just like the concept of Ubuntu.
Indonesia had Sisternet under the broader digital economy transformation pillar. They focused on strengthening women’s digital skills.
Sisternet program’s main objective was to empower women through digital literacy, entrepreneurship, and technology education, helping them participate more actively in the digital economy and enhance their professional and social opportunities.
Within this framework, the W20 Sispreneur initiative was also developed under Sisternet to support women entrepreneurs by providing mentoring, business training, and access to digital tools, enabling them to build sustainable enterprises and contribute to inclusive economic growth.
Indonesia’s global cooperation with Italy and Russia was a key part of scaling the impact of their projects.
What was hitting in Indonesia was the media coverage they have accumulated. They had over 1,253 pieces of news under printed, digital, radio, and TV coverages. The estimated USD 8 billion in media value truly reflect their visibility and their influence as well as their commitment to the W20 initiative.
From Brazil I had the below news:
Ubuntu: I am, we are — thanks to all the people, especially the women, who have fought for our rights. Thanks to all those who, like us, continue to fight so that future generations may finally experience true equality.
They included climate change to the communique ln order to attack climate issues, reduce inequalities, achieve prosperity, and deliver on all the SDGs.
They believe they need the voices of women from the Global South and the Ubuntu spirit. Women from global South have played — and will continue to play — a crucial role in overcoming the challenges the world faces today.
They have put their indiginous or rural women into the spot light in their work as they have been the ones protecting their existing florests including Amazon.
Further, during the Brazilian Presidency, they included the racial perspective into theirs work as more than half of their population declares themsleves as black or of black descent. Together with T20, C20, Geledés and others, they promoted a seminar and launched a document on the “Economic Empowerment of Afrodescendent Populations and the Role of National and Multilateral Development Banks.”
For the first time, the Care Economy was included as a task team in Brazil. They organized an international event in partnership with the C20 Care Initiative, led by CiPEEC, and supported by organizations including IDRC.
They published a report and promoted discussions on how G20 countries are advancing gender equality during our Summit. As mentioned in the opening, they are all proud to observe that important progress has been made since Beijing.
Finally from Argentina we had below news:
They focused on firstly, empowering the rural women’s participation into their focus. Empowering women not only rural women but women from all sectors to participate in the Women 20 agenda. They had two delegates representing peasant and indigenous women and not only rural women and they are continuing their work with them.
Secondly, they focused on from recommendation piling into action actualisation. They moved from recommendations to action with their legacy projects.
Thirdly, they touched upon and focused on strengthening the economic autonomy for women. They are working on strengthening the agenda for women’s economic autonomy through finding alliances in all the sectors. These were my insights from the Global South and I cordially thank to
Ms Bharati Ghosh, India
Ms Uli Silalahi, Indonesia
Ms Adriana Carvalho, Brazil
Dr Mabel Bianco, Argentina
