APEC’s progress on women’s economic empowerment

At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders’ Week in November 2023, the culminating event of the United States’ APEC host year, Vice President Kamala Harris said, "We are all here because we agree women around the world should be able to fully participate in economic, political, and social life, and they must be able to participate equally and in positions of leadership." Her statement echoed comments made by former secretary of state Hillary Clinton on September 16, 2011, when she launched the first-ever APEC Women and the Economy Summit during the United States’ 2011 host year. Recognizing the power of women as drivers of growth, former secretary Clinton stood before APEC economies to make the case for unlocking the economic potential of women, breaking down barriers, and including women in all economic sectors across the region, ushering in a "participation age."

Vice President Harris was clear-eyed when she noted to our fellow APEC economies in November that women’s economic security and full and equal participation will be essential to addressing the current challenges faced by APEC economies. Twelve years on from former secretary Clinton’s aspirational remarks on the same themes, this truth has become a shared compass for all APEC economies, which have remained committed to the greater integration and empowerment of women in the Asia-Pacific region.

Over the past decade, we have launched several successful skill-and capacity-building programs for women across the APEC region, along with tools to measure progress. For example, in 2015, APEC economies established the APEC Women and the Economy Dashboard, which provides a snapshot of the status of women in the region by monitoring trends over the years using a set of 95 quantitative indicators. The most recent 2023 dashboard update shows significant progress in women’s access to finance and credit, with the gender gap narrowing by 3.4 percentage points since 2011.

Today, we are living through unprecedented challenges that threaten to derail this progress. A convergence of compounding crises—the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, armed conflicts, humanitarian emergencies, and democratic backsliding—has put our global gender equality trajectory in peril. Compared with 2019, when it was estimated that closing the gender gap would take 99.5 years, the World Economic Forum now estimates that it will take 131 years to achieve gender parity at the current rate of progress. And that is if we can sustain the will to even try. According to the UN Development Programme, around 90% of men and 87% of women hold internal biases against women, roughly the same number as decades ago.

Using the inaugural 2011 meeting’s focus areas as a guide, and against a backdrop of multiple crises and technological upheaval, the United States organized the 2023 WEF meetings on August 18–20 in Seattle. At those meetings, I joined the U.S. WEF chair, White House Gender Policy Council director Jennifer Klein, in multiday sessions centered on accelerating women’s economic empowerment, participation, and leadership, supporting the U.S. APEC host year priorities of "interconnected, innovative, and inclusive." We focused the WEF around four key pillars related to the most significant economic barriers that women face in the APEC region: (1) advancing women’s leadership in the gender-climate nexus, (2) increasing equity and equality in global value chains, (3) expanding digital and STEM inclusion and innovation, and (4) strengthening care infrastructure. And because of our shared compass, APEC economies were able to spend time and resources on fueling the drive forward rather than figuring out where we are headed, and why.

During the APEC Economic Leaders’ Week, Vice President Harris announced a new initiative called Women in the Sustainable Economy (WISE), which aims to bolster women’s economic empowerment globally by expanding access to employment, training, leadership roles, and financial resources in critical blue and green industries. The initiative has already garnered $1.4 billion in commitments from governments, civil society, and the private sector. My office is proud to support WISE through our Building Economic Inclusion via the Blue Economy program to support women entrepreneurs and young professionals in the maritime sector.

To advance the second priority geared toward increasing equity and equality in global value chains, collaborative work between the U.S. Departments of State and Commerce focused on empowering women-owned small businesses in the Asia-Pacific region, which will promote supply chain resiliency and inclusive economic growth. On August 20, the United States supported a joint ministerial meeting focused on expanding the access of women-owned, -led, and -managed micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises to global value chains and promoting women’s entrepreneurship through cross-border e-commerce. The United States cosponsored and participated in events and public and private sector policy dialogues alongside the APEC meetings that focused on local women-owned, -led, and -managed small businesses in Seattle, including Native-owned businesses. These meetings yielded new private sector commitments on supply chain equity, including Boeing’s offer to engage WEF economy representatives on education and mentorship programming, such as bidding simulations, for women-owned businesses. In addition, to help increase the capacity of APEC economies to support women-owned businesses’ participation in government corporate procurement and broader access to global value chains, the United States released the report "Women in Global Value Chains: An APEC Benchmarking Study."

In support of the third priority, expanding digital and STEM inclusion and innovation, the United States focused, through events on "women in the digital world" and "women in e-commerce," on increasing access to markets for women-owned businesses through cross-border e-commerce and closing the gender-digital divide. The latter is critical to promoting economic opportunity, inclusion, and leadership in a dynamic digital economy transformed by emerging technology. We also supported an APEC Digital Month event focused on artificial intelligence (AI) and occupational segregation. Additionally, we discussed with partners how to elevate the role of women and girls with disabilities as innovators and creators, address the growing global phenomenon of technology-facilitated gender-based violence, and promote women and girls in STEM. Private sector commitments resulting from the discussions we convened include the Microsoft Center for Inclusion’s offer to engage APEC economies to cooperate on financial inclusion, such as by unlocking financing for women entrepreneurs in the region through innovative pathways.

Finally, to strengthen care infrastructure, the United States convened several policy discussions with members of the private sector, civil society, and international partners to discuss strategies toward building a robust, equitable care economy. These sessions addressed the need to close gender care gaps, invest in innovative tools and approaches to increase access and affordability, and expand partnerships for care infrastructure. With our partners at the Department of Labor, the United States proudly supported the development of the APEC Embracing Carers Policy Toolkit to close the unpaid care gender gap and share best practices on these issues.

I am proud of what we achieved during the United States’ APEC host year, but I am also under no illusions that all of our challenges have been solved. The WEF and the other APEC engagements that the United States, in coordination with our partners, organized to advance women’s economic security in the region gave us an opportunity to take a look at our roadmap, make course corrections, and recharge our batteries through new initiatives and commitments. In 2024, we are back on the road, determined to continue working with our fellow APEC economies to leverage the progress made to keep moving ahead toward our commonly defined finish line: a reality in which all women and girls—in the Asia-Pacific region and around the world—are able to fully, meaningfully, and equally contribute to, and benefit from, economic growth and prosperity.

This article was originally published by the National Bureau of Asian Research, with support from the Hinrich Foundation.

© The Hinrich Foundation. See our website Terms and conditions for our copyright and reprint policy. All statements of fact and the views, conclusions and recommendations expressed in this publication are the sole responsibility of the author(s).