Over 10 countries, including Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, would be represented by all-woman delegations at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit.
This was disclosed by Tom Vajda, U.S. Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, at a special media briefing on Tuesday at Washington. The briefing was made by, among others, Ivanka Trump, Adviser to the U.S. President. The excerpts of the briefing were posted on the GES website.
“I’m particularly proud of the fact that this is the first time that women will be the majority of the participants at GES. Currently, 52.5% of entrepreneurs will be women, attending from 127 countries,” Ms. Trump said.
In fact, the large participation of women is in tune with the summit theme ‘Women first, prosperity for all’.
According to the excerpts, Ms. Trump said between 2014 and 2016, entrepreneurship activity among women increased by 10% globally. One study estimated that closing the gender entrepreneurship gap worldwide could grow our global GDP as much as 2%.
Within the last decade in the U.S., she said the number of women-owned firms had grown by 45%. Today, more than 11 million women in the U.S. own businesses. They employ nearly nine million workers and generate over $ 1 trillion revenue.
