SM’s Sy-Coson to address Tokyo meet

TOKYO—Two Filipino women who have made significant impact in the fields of entrepreneurship and disaster management are among the invited speakers to the World Assembly of Women (WAW), a gathering spearheaded by Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe aimed at advancing women’s rights and active participation in the global community.

Teresita Sy-Coson, vice chair of SM Investments Corp. and chair of BDO Unibank, and Cecil Mae Ocado, the municipal planning and development coordinator of Tanauan town in Leyte, are joining over 150 participants at the conference that Abe launched last year.

Coson will join the panel discussion on supporting women entrepreneurs across Asia. Ocado is expected to share her experience in rebuilding Tanauan after it was hit by Supertyphoon “Yolanda” (international name: “Haiyan”) in November 2013.

‘Final curtain’

“The final curtain has been drawn on the era in which people ask why we promote the dynamic engagement of women in society. Now is the time for us to discuss how to bring it to reality,” Abe said as he opened the two-day conference on Friday.

The panel discussions with Coson and Ocado will take place Saturday.

With Coson on the panel are women business leaders from Indonesia, Bangladesh and Japan.

They will discuss their experiences in making a business environment friendly to women as well as their victories in overcoming “gender-specific barriers” in the business community in Southeast Asia.

Disaster risk reduction Ocado, on the other hand, will talk about women’s leadership in disaster risk reduction (DRR) initiatives.

Joining Ocado on the panel, among others, are Margareta Wahlstrom, the special representative of the UN Secretary-General for DRR, and Keiko Ikeda, professor of geography at the Shizuoka University and corepresentative of the Training Center for Gender and DRR.

Other conference topics include women empowerment through sanitation and women leaders in science and technology, women and peace-building, work-life management, and engaging men in reforms, such as men’s participation in childcare and family life.

The conference began yesterday with a panel discussion on girls’ education that was participated in by Akie Abe, the prime minister’s wife; Cherie Blair, wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair; Rula Ghani, Afghanistan’s First Lady, and Margaret Kenyatta, First Lady of Kenya.

Michelle Obama’s message

US First Lady Michelle Obama joined via a video message. Her chief of staff, Tina Tchen, represented her at the panel discussion.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first female president, was one of the keynote speakers at yesterday’s opening ceremony.

She received a loud applause from the audience as she took the stage and spoke about how she dealt with the deadly Ebola virus outbreak that affected her country and other West African nations.

Sirleaf also emphasized the need to commit to denouncing the subordination of the girl child in households.

“Our determination to impose confidence in women and girls in every household will increase (their) autonomy and self-esteem, which is cardinal to everyday decision making. A woman with self-confidence is capable to manage herself, her family and the nation,” Sirleaf said.

Dynamic engagement

In his speech, Abe said Japan itself has both milestones and challenges in promoting “the dynamic engagement of women” in Japanese society.

Abe said that in the past two and a half years, an estimated one million women entered the labor market for the first time. The number of female corporate board members also increased by some 30percent.

However, Abe acknowledged that Japan’s “greatest challenge” remains its declining population. He said that Japan was working toward “reconciling economic growth and rising birth rates” as exemplified by countries in northern Europe.

With this, Abe spoke of the need for cultural change, especially in the corporate environment that would allow couples to work and raise a family at the same time.

Abe also announced that the Japanese parliament has enacted a new bill that would require private companies as well as the national government and local authorities to come up with action plans that will set “numerical targets for promoting the hiring of women and the appointment of women to executive positions.”

“This is the first step toward putting women into positions that have decision-making authority,” Abe said.

Abe also said that as Japan assumes the G-7 presidency next year, he wants to include the agenda on women and “link the outcome of this year’s WAW” at the Ise-Shima Summit.