Women Leaders’ Summit: Unlocking Potential: Fueling Economic Empowerment

IFC-Milken Institute Training Program

• Launched in 2015 as a partnership between the Milken Institute Center for Financial Markets, the International Finance Corporation (World Bank Group), and George Washington University's School of Business.
• Targets 20 mid-career professionals from finance ministries and central banks in emerging markets for a training cohort in Washington, D.C.
• The second cohort, starting last month, includes 43% women and represents an expansion from the program's initial focus on Africa to include more Asian countries.
• Alumni are positioned to spearhead capital markets development upon returning to their home governments to generate jobs and growth.
• The program combines semester-long coursework on core capital markets topics with internships at private sector firms to equip policymakers with practical skills.
• Long-term goal: Cultivate a global network of several hundred policymakers within ten years to accelerate capital flow to the private sector.
• Engagement opportunities for institutions include sponsoring fellows, hosting interns, or participating in weekly speaker series.

Panel: Economic Empowerment Through Education

Moderator's Opening Observations

• Economic empowerment is defined primarily through access to education, with gender imbalance identified as a critical barrier in remote regions of Asia and the Middle East.
• Modern definitions of education must now encompass technology, coding, and AI literacy to prevent society from becoming a "black box."

Bethlehem Desi (Ethiopia)

• Founded "Anyone Can Code" and "iCOG Labs" in Ethiopia to introduce robotics and coding to African youth, starting with her own community in Harar.
• Advocates for identical educational opportunities for boys and girls, noting that access barriers—not ability—prevent female advancement in higher education.
• iCOG Labs is currently implementing university-level initiatives like "iCOG Makers" to integrate coding concepts into higher education across Africa.

Leili (Iran)

• Highlights that while 60% of university graduates in Iran are women and 45% hold PhDs, a "lack of access" to global markets and traditional family structures limit their economic impact.
• Proposes that economic empowerment requires "empowering minds" rather than just women, suggesting that educating men is equally critical to shifting cultural dynamics.
• Criticizes satellite Western campuses in the Middle East as insufficient, arguing they fail to dismantle deep-seated traditional family hierarchies where women remain marginalized despite professional success.
• Focuses on connecting nomadic and rural populations with entrepreneurship training, including mini-MBAs and language skills, to unlock hidden economic potential.

Kamal (Women's University, Bangladesh)

• Establishes a regional university serving first-generation female entrants from marginalized communities, including Afghan refugees, Cambodian remote villages, and Bangladeshi garment workers.
• Identifies the transition from primary to secondary school as the most critical failure point where "aspirational barriers" cause girls to drop out.
• Argues against vocational-only education for the poor, asserting that high-quality liberal arts and sciences education is necessary to develop resilience and leadership in top talent from the margins.
• Notes that community and family support is a mandatory prerequisite for enrollment, though societal attitudes in places like Afghanistan are shifting rapidly toward valuing female education.

John Wood (Room to Read)

• Rejects "silver bullet" solutions like bicycle programs, arguing instead for comprehensive support systems including social workers, financial literacy training, and family planning skills.
• States that keeping a girl in school through secondary school costs approximately $300 annually, totaling $1,800 to complete 12th grade, yielding a significant ROI on earnings.
• Cites data that educated women reinvest 90% of their income into families, leading to later marriages, fewer children, and improved community health.
• Reports 770 million global illiterates, two-thirds of whom are female, with 98% residing in the 50 poorest countries.
• Operational Model: Utilizes a "community match" requirement where local villages and governments must provide land, labor, and teacher salaries to ensure program sustainability.
• Built 2,500 schools and opened 20,000 libraries without ever paying teacher or librarian salaries, relying on government ministries for those costs.
• Demonstrates success in partnering with the private sector; for example, Tatcha's "Beautiful Faces, Beautiful Futures" program funded one million "Girl Days" of education in a single campaign.
• Room to Read maintains 52% female staff and 49% female managers, treating women in leadership as a standard operational feature rather than a diversity initiative.
• Seeking 50% of funding for a new launch in Myanmar and emphasizes radical financial transparency to attract corporate partners.

Forward-Looking Statements & Disagreements

• Disagreement on Solutions: John Wood explicitly contrasts the efficacy of simple incentives (e.g., bicycles in Bihar) with the necessity of holistic, long-term educational environments to ensure genuine economic empowerment.
• Technology & Inequality: Bethlehem Desi argues that emerging markets can "leapfrog" basic computer skills by directly teaching AI and robotics to children aged 8–16, positioning technology as an equalizer rather than a driver of inequality.
• Philanthropy Scaling: John Wood states that 90% of US NGOs operate under $500,000 annually and that the sector's biggest failure is a lack of scaling, not a lack of initiatives.
• Corporate Partnerships: Panelists agree that the future of philanthropy lies at the intersection of purpose and profitability, utilizing corporate resources for recruitment, motivation, and customer connection rather than one-off transactions.
• Value Alignment: Leili and others note that successful investment requires strict vetting of partners to ensure shared values, particularly when managing large capital pools.