Clinton urges end to barriers to women entrepreneurs

LIMA: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has issued a clarion call for nations to lift barriers to women’s economic participation, arguing that in tough times they are a vital key to growth.
Attending a conference in Lima, Peru, Clinton urged that women be given greater access to the tools needed to become entrepreneurs and called for countries to end laws posing a major obstacle to women entrepreneurs.
“This is a time when all nations need to grow their economies and create jobs, and we... know that women drive economic growth,” Clinton told the conference entitled “Power: Women as the Drivers of Social Growth Inclusion.”
She told the conference hosted by Peruvian President Ollanta Humala, and attended by Michelle Bachelet, head of UN Women, that “advancing the status of women and opening wide the doors of opportunity is the great work of our time.”
“Restrictions on women’s economic participation are costing us massive amounts of economic growth and income in every region of the world,” Clinton argued.
“In the Asia-Pacific for example, it’s more than $ 40 billion in lost GDP every year... In my own country, making it easier for women to enter... the labor market could increase GDP as much as nine percent.
“In the eurozone, GDP could be 13 percent higher. Yet even with so much to gain for all of us, more than 100 countries have laws restricting women’s economic participation.”
She highlighted the work of Peruvian Luzmila Huarancca who “creates beautiful, embroidered cloth from the Andean highlands.”
Ten years ago she won a grant from USAID and Peru and has taught her skills to some 800 women across a dozen communities.
“That’s how quickly in today’s interconnected economy one woman with a needle and thread can give hundreds of women quality jobs, literally stitching new hope into their families’ futures and economic growth for their country.”
The regional conference, sponsored by the State Department, the Peruvian government and the InterAmerican Development Bank, was focusing on how to overcome hurdles women confront as entrepreneurs.
These include a lack of training and mentoring, difficulty in accessing the networks needed to start businesses, as well as the need to connect women to the markets and help them raise capital.
According to the World Bank, poverty would be 30 percent higher in the region without women’s economic contribution, a US official said .
Clinton announced that the US was putting up some $900,000 for the establishment of a new entrepreneurship trust at yesterday’s conference, building on commitments made to the 2011 APEC Leaders summit.
She also toured the Gamarra district in Lima, the center of the country’s textile industry, where a quarter of Peru’s textile workers — some 50,000 people — work. A further 200,000 families work in wool and cotton production.
According to Peruvian figures, the South American nation exported $ 2 billion (1.5 billion euros) in raw and processed textiles last year, amounting to 1.5 percent of its gross domestic product.