Closing remarks at the high-level panel “Empowering women in sustainable and investment through the European External Investment Plan”

Commissioner Neven Mimica i

Your Excellencies,

Distinguished Guests,

Colleagues and Partners,

It only remains for me to thank all of you for the excellent work that you have carried out in this event today. The diversity of your backgrounds and experience shows that empowering women in sustainable investment and business is a priority for all of us - across all sectors and societies.

Today’s discussions have confirmed that investing in women makes a clear business case. Because it’s not just the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do - economically and financially.

The European Union is committed to this goal. And we are now even better equipped to do just that, with new tools like the European External Investment Plan.

You have also discussed today how women’s economic empowerment can concretely help to reduce poverty and increase sustainable development, by creating innovation, jobs and growth.

For example, we heard that the World Bank estimates that the lost potential could be as much as 160 trillion dollar in global wealth or over 23.000 dollar per person. How can any of us afford to ignore this potential? Especially when the costs of closing the labour force gap are just a fraction - less than a tenth.

We support gender-friendly policies that - combined with the right regulatory and legislative environment - address the main barriers to women’s economic empowerment and entrepreneurship - through access to social networks, skills and training, financial and other resources. Tackling cultural and family norms is also essential to contribute to those objectives.

Our 2014 policy framework on a stronger role for the private sector in sustainable development emphasises the need to focus on female entrepreneurship and employment.

For example, we have strengthened our support for the garment sector - whose global workforce is 75 percent female. We have a number of promising initiatives, including a €19 million action with the International Labour Organization to promote responsible value chains. And we are working with the International Trade Centre to build a responsible fashion industry through talented artisans - the majority of them women.

As you heard in today’s introduction, one of the main aims of our new European External Investment Plan is to create jobs and opportunities for women and young people in particular.

For example, the investment windows on small and medium enterprises, and agriculture and rural development could play a particularly central role, given the active involvement of women in these sectors.

Another concrete example of how the EU can support women’s economic empowerment is the EURIZ fund for sub-Saharan Africa. This uses partial risk cover to help provide access to finance for countries, sectors and groups of people who currently have little or none - including women and young people.

Women often face reluctance from banks to lend to them. So the European Union is already providing partial risk cover to encourage local banks to develop specific products, training and advisory services for female entrepreneurs. These are the kind of activities that we want to replicate and expand.

We’re delighted at the initial interest for the new European Fund for Sustainable Development guarantee. We have so far received around 50 high-quality and innovative proposals from more than a dozen partners, for a total value of over €3.5 billion. We really hope all of these will result in tangible benefits for women.

Any partners in the room who want to be part of these exciting opportunities can get in touch with our dedicated team through the one-stop-shop on the European External Investment Plan, which you can easily find online. Any interested investors can submit project proposals to the participating financial institutions, or directly through the web portal.

We want to focus on the sectors with the greatest potential to generate decent growth and jobs - and to encourage investment where it otherwise would not flow. When it comes to women and girls, we know that this is the smartest investment - for individuals, communities and our economies at large.

So thank you once again for your participation, and I look forward to working together to increase our investment in women.