Reem bint Ibrahim Al Hashimy, Minister of State for International Cooperation, has said that the UAE has been keen to engage women into the core of the development work in order to achieve prosperity through supporting and empowering them in various fields, to become active contributors and unleash their potentials to help in building states and societies.

This came during the high level panel on 'Taking Women-Owned Business in Developing Countries to the Next Level', which was held on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Group recently held in Washington, with the presence of Jim Young Kim, President of the World Bank, Philippe H. Le Houerou, CEO of the International Finance Corporation, Steven Puig, General manager of Banco BHD, along with Ivanka Trump, First Daughter and Advisor to the President of the United States, and number of women entrepreneurs from different countries.

In the first part of the event, highlights were on three successful role model women entrepreneurs in developing countries, who spoke about the challenges they had to overcome to establish and expand their businesses.

The second part highlighted the newly launched Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative, We-Fi, which Ivanka Trump has launched during the last G20 meeting in Germany, and aims to take the women entrepreneurship to the next level and advance women of the developing countries to increase their access to the necessary markets, technology, financial resources and networks to start and grow a business.

We-Fi has already received more than US$325 million in donor commitments from 13 countries exceeding initial targets by US$100 million. The UAE is among the main contributors of the We-Fi with a financial pledge amounting to US$50 million.

During the panel discussion, Minister Al Hashimy highlighted how the UAE's efforts through its enactment of laws and its ongoing review in order to promote parity and equality for all segments of society without discrimination or gender bias, making the UAE the first Arab country to close the gender gap in the field of labour.

She also reiterated the UAE’s strategic and ongoing commitment to support women's economic empowerment, and seeks a prominent position among the donors contributing to the We-Fi initiative.

Empowerment of women is one of the three global thematic focus areas of the UAE Policy for Foreign Assistance 2017 – 2021, and one of Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation strategic focus areas.