Business & Money | Sunday 8 July, 2018 6:30 am |

Women 20 held its third roundtable with more than 40 people, including delegates, experts and special guests, who addressed the main topics of the agenda of financial inclusion for women.

The activity, supported by the British Bank of Saudi Arabia (SABB), was carried out in Riyadh where the key points of the financial inclusion agenda were addressed: access to financing for women-owned and women-led companies, financial products with a gender perspective, digital opportunities for the financial industry and the lack of databases disaggregated by gender. The meeting took place as part of the meetings and forum of the Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion of the G20 Finance Track.

Susana Balbo, Chair of the W20, stressed the importance of ensuring access to financial products: “having access to opportunities and bank and financial services is crucial in all sectors to enable women to grow their businesses and grant them economic autonomy. Thus, women can be economically independent.”

In addition, Dr Khalid Alyahya, Deputy Secretary General for the Saudi Secretariat of the G20 and Sous-Sherpa, opened the meeting: "The Women 20 roundtable is a valuable opportunity to hear about the challenges and opportunities for access to financial services by women. Here in Saudi Arabia, we recognize the contributions women make to society and our Vision 2030 focuses on empowering women to realize their full potential.” The Saudi authority also thanked Argentina for the great work done in highlighting the importance of women in economic development.

The meeting continued with the technical presentation and discussion of the participants. The four central points had to do with the main barriers to women's financial inclusion. In addition, the under-representation of women in the financial industry was one of the topics addressed. In this regard, Dr. Alfred Hannig, of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion, warned that only 8 of the 104 institutions they work with have a woman leading the government's financial agency.

The W20 calls on the G20 Member States to take coordinated action to increase the participation of women in the financial sector. The 4 main recommendations that were agreed in the roundtable today will be published in a Communiqué next week which will then be presented to the G20 leaders at the W20 Summit in October. Renu Koli, delegate of the W20 for India, highlighted the work carried out: "the lead taken by W20 Argentina with Saudi Arabian W20 support will with not doubt boost G20's gender-inclusion actions".

The main objective of Women20 is to promote the economic empowerment of women as an integral part of the G20 process. By means of dialogues conducted virtually, expert meetings, roundtables and the final W20 Summit, the W20 works to jointly produce concrete recommendations and advance gender equality in G20 negotiations.