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New York,
September 26, 2009 – The importance of gender equality took center stage
Wednesday at the Clinton Global Initiative as speakers emphasized how
investing in girls and women can have repercussions at all levels of a
society.
"No country can prosper if it leaves half its people behind," said
Melanne Verveer, the State Department's ambassador-at-large for global
women's issues.
Diane Sawyer, the new ABC evening news anchor who moderated the panel,
asked what impact empowering and educating women could have on
extremism.
"The most dangerous places in the world, frankly, are those places where
women are put down in the greatest way. It's where societies implode and
where states fail," Verveer replied.
Verveer was joined on the panel by Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman
Sachs; Zainab Salbi, CEO of Women for Women International; Rex Tillerson,
CEO of ExxonMobil; Robert Zoellick, head of the World Bank; and Edna
Adan Ismail, a former Somaliland foreign minister.
The Clinton Global Initiative, started by former President Bill Clinton,
brings together the public and private sector to discuss solutions to
problems in four areas - climate change, poverty, global health and
education.
Clinton opened the morning session by highlighting a number of
commitments that had been made in the area of empowering women, and
emphasized the importance of the issue.
"Whether the issue is improving the involvement of young women and girls
in education, to climate change and all political, economic, and social
issues in between, I think empowering women is central to what the world
has to do in the 21st century," he said.
Former Vice President Al Gore was scheduled to speak on a panel
Wednesday afternoon about the need for innovation to create sustainable
development.
The conference started Tuesday, with President Barack Obama among the
speakers.
Attendees at the conference are expected to make concrete commitments on
steps they will take to work on global problems. Since the first
conference, 1,400 commitments have been made, said Robert Harrison, the
initiative's chief executive officer. Some have been worth billions of
dollars.
Those who don't follow through on their commitments are not allowed to
return.
Source: The Associated Press, Thursday, September 24, 2009
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