 A warm welcome to this debate. With slow growth plaguing much of the global economy, can women be the answer to boost it? By adding women to the workforce, the U.S. economy is 14% larger. Companies with women on the board outperform those who don't. But is the evidence incontrovertible? After all, a gender gap persists. Women are underrepresented in top jobs and are paid less. So we're asking today, should women be running the world economy? I can't think of a better panel to dissect the issue and to propose solutions. Joining me are Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer and Board Member of Facebook. Pumzile Malambo-Neguka, Executive Director of UN Women. Christine Lagarde, the first woman to be Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund and are so representative of the opposite sex. Carlos Ghosn, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Renault-Nissan Alliance. Welcome to all of you. Sheryl, I'm going to start with you and I'm going to go rapidly down the panel and ask you the question, should women be running the world economy? Yes! Yes! She would agree. And Christine was going to clap our hands too and I know Carlos was. Yeah, clearly Carlos was. Carlos was too. We don't know what it would be like if women were in more leadership positions. We don't know if the world would be more peaceful if women ran more than 19 countries. We don't know if companies would be more, well I think we do actually know that companies would be more productive at scale. But I think we should try this. And I think there's a lot of data to suggest that the performance would increase dramatically. Pumzile. If we are to address generation after generation of poverty-stricken communities and societies, we have to empower women because women are the only force that can ensure that we reduce poverty sustainably. Because when women's quality of life improves, the quality of life of their children improves and the poverty in that particular family from generation to generation is cut off. Christine, I think you already ran the global economy. Well, what would you say to that? So I'd better do a good job if I could. Two points. One is I completely disagree with the way you've characterized Carlos because I don't think we should say the opposite sex. You know, Simon de Beauvoir used to write some 40 years ago the second sex talking about us, the woman. And I think we should be far more clever than people were in those days. It is the other sex, but not the opposite sex because it's a battle that we have to win together because it's going to be in the global interest. Point number two, with only about 20% of women at best in charge, in position, having broken the glass ceiling and so on and so forth. And obvious evidence that they are good managers and maybe better, that they're good investors and maybe better, that they're good board members and maybe better and so on and so forth. There is no doubt that we've got to do it. And in places where it's been tried or it will be tried, we're seeing results. All right, Carlos, I'm going to reintroduce you. Carlos Ghosn are so member of the other sex. Yes. Should women be running the global economy? Yeah, I mean, we have three examples here that we're getting there. There was a huge gap, it was not normal. We're closing this gap, we're not getting there. As you know, being fighting and promoting diversity in general and gender parity is an important element. Particularly women in leadership, it's necessary, we have plenty of examples showing that it's a good thing, we're getting there, I'm very happy. Pumzile, can I ask you, what is the most compelling piece of evidence that the gender gap is harmful to countries? You know, let me just, because we have an audience of business people here. Companies that promote women into positions outperform their peers by 34%. Now, if your business is to make your company perform, that is an important fact. However, if we think about the rights of women in particular reproductive rights, if women were in control of their bodies and they took the responsibility to space their children, a lot of women would have as many children as they could look after. And that would mean the balance between the people and the planet would be much better for everybody. Cheryl, in terms of companies, what is the kind of most compelling argument that you would say, you know, listen, this just shouldn't happen. We should be sort of solving this. It's the same facts, the facts that we're all repeating, which are that companies outperform. When you have more women in leadership positions, those companies outperform. And importantly, when you have more women in leadership positions, those companies have better work-life policies for men and women. So there's a chicken and egg going on. We need better corporate policies, better public policy for us to get more women in leadership roles. We need more women in leadership roles because more women in leadership roles support better public and corporate policies. And of course, peace and security. Definitely, the world will be at peace. There will be better security if women had more to do with deciding when to shoot or not, and I'm sure they'll decide not to shoot. Christine, can I come to you on this? In terms of countries, what's the most compelling evidence that you've seen that countries would be a better off in terms of growth if there were the gender gap were closed? If you allow me, I would go back to the point you made earlier about companies because that's also where it has to happen. That's where the gender gap is not really closing. It has improved, it is stable at the moment, it's not improving significantly. Half the computers, half the cars, and about 70% of the household products in the United States, and that's the only example that we have which is sort of associated with data, are bought by women. Now when your customers are women, you better make sure that your workforce, that your management, and that your board includes as many women as the percentage of those that actually buy your products, because then you understand what it is. And I very strongly believe in the fact that an organization has to be the mirror of the people that it targets. So that's, I think, a compelling argument. Then you just look at the Nordic countries. They are at the top of the list in terms of generally growth, governance, going through the crisis with flying colors, and guess what? They are the ones that are performing best in terms of gender access, in terms of dealing with diversity in a very successful way. And I hope you're going to talk about Japan, but I think that's going to be a very interesting case to follow in the next couple of years to see whether money is put where the mouth has been, which is in and of itself a great achievement, opening the market to women, making sure that the Japanese women can access jobs, making sure that there is enough budgeted money to actually provide for daycare centers. And the list goes on, not just there, but in many other countries. Actually, this is a great time to bring in Carlos, because Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, said at Davos, the Japanese economy would be 16% larger if women participated at the same rate as men in the workforce. So for you, if you think about the most compelling piece of evidence that you've mustered to increase women on your board, what would you share? Well, first I do agree with what the prime minister is saying, and I think, frankly, this is a very conservative estimate for a very simple reason. As you know, Japan is on a demographic decline, and from one side, from the other side, it needs much more people in the workforce, people in management, much more talent, and there is a huge reservoir in Japan constituted by women who can play a much bigger role. So it's a, Japan is a very clear case in which a woman jumping in and taking more leadership position is gonna help a very large economy, and I think the estimate is very conservative. Now, I'm gonna come back to a statistics that Christine has mentioned, is about the car, the car industry. In the car industry, I'm gonna go above the United States and talk about globally, because we have statistics globally. 45% of the car globally, and this is including all countries, 45% of the cars sold worldwide, 82 million cars sold worldwide are made by women, women alone, practically. And, but 85, 45%, they're buying again. Okay, that's all right. This is the ultimate decision maker, 45%. And 85% of the cars sold are influenced by women, 85%. Now, when you know, okay, when you see how women look at cars, which is a different way, a different way like men, obviously they are interested about the engine, but not too much, transmission not too much, driving performance, but not too much, but they're looking at other things, safety, functionality, position into the car, and everything else. It is a fundamental product issue. So you need to make decision on product, you need to decision on the way you even communicate on your product, which is mainly with taking consideration strongly the way women look at the product. So having women in a leadership position, coming back to this is a business issue. It becomes a business issue that you want to make sure that your product is going to be appealing to these 85% of cases when the decision made is going to be for your brand. So it's a very important issue. It's in some cases economic issue, but for companies, it's a really market, you know, competitive issue. I'm going to bring in the audience right now, and I'm going to ask you a question, and I'm going to ask for a show of hands on it. We've been talking about the evidence. We've been talking about a gender gap that persists. Is the issue simply that there's gender discrimination? If you agree that it's just gender discrimination, please raise your hand, a show of hands. There is no discrimination. Okay. I think it's the phrase. It's the phrase. I'm trying again. It's an important part of. Important part of. Yeah. Is the problem, is a big part of the problem, that there's just a lot of gender discrimination? If you raise your hand. Okay. Thank you, Cheryl. I'm going to now ask you, and how big a problem is the fact that there's just gender discrimination? A lot of the audience, when I rephrase the question, a lot of the audience seems to think so. It's a big part of the problem. It's been interesting for me. I've now been with Lenin, my book, all over the world. And cultures are so different, right? Cultures within different parts of the United States, to Japan, to France, to Africa, China, it's all different. Except stereotypes of men and women are actually pretty much the same. Everywhere in the world, we believe men should be assertive, aggressive leaders. Everywhere in the world, we believe women should be nurturing, giving to others. Leadership is associated with the masculine expectations. We call little girls bossy. We don't really call little boys bossy because a little boy leads. But when a little girl leads, we call her bossy. There is a negative phrase for that in every language I'm aware of. I'm going to ask this audience two questions. Men only, please. If you're a man in this audience, please raise your hand if you have been told you're too aggressive at work. There's usually a couple. If you're a woman in this audience, please raise your hand if you have been told you're too aggressive at work. Here's the next question. If you're a man in this audience, please raise your hand if you have anyone's ever said to you, should you be working? Where your kids need you? Should you be working? Anyone? You're my first two hands I've ever gotten. If you're a woman in this audience, please raise your hand. If anyone's ever said to you, should you be working? Those expectations go all over the world. And what happens is that when women assert, when they do the things that make them leaders, we don't like them. And therefore we don't promote them. We don't vote for them in the same numbers. I gave this talk in New York as part of my book launch. I walked off the stage and the CEO of a major company kind of grabbed my arm and he said, thank you. And I said, for what? He said, there's a big job in my company open the CFO role. It's often the step to be CEO. We have two candidates. A man and a woman. Her results are better, but he's much better liked. I was about to pick the man and picking the woman. He followed up with me nine months later. He said, she's doing great. That gender bias is not all of what's holding women back. Lots of things are holding women back like public policy and institutional bias. But the gender bias against women in leadership is an absolutely crucial part of the problem. Christine, can I bring you in on this? How much of a problem do you think is just discriminatory attitudes? I think there is a lot of it. And I think we should not only focus on the advanced economies. We should also bring into the great show the low income countries, the emerging market economies and particularly those economies and those societies where the female gender is repressed full stop. Where girls don't have access to education. Where being a woman is immediately translated as you're going to slave for me. I know it's not the majority of the situations, but there are cases like that. I mean, I hope you're going to talk about it. And that's where really your action is critically important. And where we have to help them leaning in, but we also have to lift the veil of discrimination against them. And in fact, I think it's important that you also underline the fact that it's an ethical to do and women have got rights in addition to the fact that it makes economic sense above everything else. It's a right and it's ethical to have a child of 11 being married off. And we call that child a bride. And we call that a marriage. It is a union that is forced on a child. It is an adult who is having an improper relationship with a child. And we should not dignify that and call it a marriage because we have to change that vocabulary because it almost gives it a sense of okayness and it's not okay. It is more like slavery than like marriage. Absolutely. It is slavery and it's modern day slavery and it is happening all over the world even in some fairly advanced economies. The gender gap is not a new issue. It's been around for a very long time. And which policies in the past just haven't worked, Carlos? I think what doesn't work and we know it particularly in society which are extremely conservative towards women is to establish some principle and goodwill and leave it in the open and ask people to do their best just doesn't work. I mean I can tell you that in our case, Nissan Motors in Japan, we had to go to quotas. I mean when you start and you have 2% of your management pool made by women, there is no way with big principle and good attitude you're gonna change this radically. We had to put ourselves some quotas and objective by saying in the next two years we're gonna have to double this number and in the next seven years we're gonna triple it, et cetera. We end up today being even at a ridiculously low number of 8% of management. But this is practically three times the average of corporate Japan. So quota is important, why? Because quota leads to action. Action means hiring, training, coaching, putting in the process of the company, systematically decision forcing the selection of female potential at all the levels. If you don't do that, I mean if you don't do that, you're just gonna lose a lot of time or have a lot of good will which is dispersed by saying you know we told you it doesn't work. I just wanna add one thing on top of discrimination. I think yes there is discrimination, it's obvious and depending on what country you can size it. But what is the most important is training and coaching. This is extremely important. Because you may end up into a lot of situation where you have very talented women, very talented women who are not having enough self confidence to go for the job or to go for the challenge. So if they are not coached and they are not prepared and this starts at the education when our girls, to tell them we are at the same level, you're expecting the same thing from them, they have to go for the same. If this doesn't exist, you're gonna lose a lot of time and a lot of potential is gonna be lost. May I add something to that? It's really interesting because the mentoring, sponsoring, training as you're saying is a huge issue. So in the United States, 64% of male managers are afraid to be alone in the room with a woman. Because we're scary? Because they're afraid they'll be accused of discrimination because they're afraid they'll be accused of harassment. You know, we like people like us naturally, people gravitate towards people like them, so you have that, you put what is the appearance of impropriety or the potential for that on top of that and it's a really silencing situation and it's one that no one really talks about. A man in a man in a room looks like mentoring, it looks like training. A man in the woman in the room doesn't look like that and until we bring that issue out into the table and talk about it at our companies and say, you know what, it's a badge of honor to mentor a woman and everyone has to behave appropriately but you have to be able to have conversations alone to coach someone and we need to get that issue on the table because it's not discussed enough and it's holding women back. Can I also, just on this quota issue, does anybody have a view on this? Because this has been a source of some controversy for perhaps for women, Christine. I was strongly against it because I thought that women should be recognized on their own merits and there was no reason there should be any particular thresholds or requirements or sanctions or penalties associated with it until I grew up in a big international law firm that I love but where the number of female partners was solo and had been solo for such a long time that I soon realized that unless we had at least targets if not quotas, there was no way we're going to jump the right step in order to have a significant number of female in the partnerships. So I completely changed my approach on pro quotas and pro targets and I think we should be made accountable in all the organizations we are in in order to reach those numbers. I mean with the gender prejudice that we know exists in our society, not unless we do something to make the plane feel more equal, women will just not be identified as leaders. So quotas, unfortunately some people will not like them but for now they are actually necessary. When we reach a time when you don't expect women to perform double combat to a man in order for them to be given the same recognition and amen, we probably will not need quotas but for now we actually need quotas because they're giving women a head start in most of the countries, in politics, in boardroom. This is just the world that we're living in right now. By the way, that's where the Nordic countries have gone and the European Union is now setting under directive a quota for board members and I think it's a required step, not for the long term but it's a required step. Tom Ziele, can I just push you a little bit more on in terms of leveling the plane feel? What kind of policies would you propose? Well, quotas would be one policy but also investing in women so that when they are in position they are also able to perform. So in situations where we are providing education, investing in education, in training, it is actually important that we start by ensuring that the representation of women in a training program is adequate. When these days we are also in science and technology, going out of our way to ensure that women are there, even in addition to that we have to ensure that women have got role models. We must find and promote science teachers so that when a girl child goes into a classroom they can actually see someone who looks like them who's a scientist. So we have got to create an environment within which the empowerment of women and the people that the women can identify with actually happens. Carlos, you said a little bit about it already but as a CEO of a major company, what kind of policies do you think should be implemented to level that plane feel? Well, I can tell you, we have particularly two things that we are doing. The first one is quota on hiring in all the categories, engineers. You need 10 engineers. We are obviously, our objective 50-50, we're not at 50-50 today. So every year we increase the quota of women when we go higher. You need 100 engineers, fine. If the quota is 40%, you can hire 60 male and 40 female, that's a minimum. If you hire 60 males, you cannot complete 100 without respecting this, that's number one. So the hiring with quota. The second one is the succession planning. This is very important. Succession planning is an important process in each large company where all the jobs in the company, once every year, we say if something happens to this person holding this job, who are the candidates who can take this job at all the level of the company including executive committee? And here we have forced ranking. That means we're saying you cannot complete your succession planning unless you have, depending on the position, 20% of female candidate, 30% of female candidate. At the beginning, you can imagine that people say, yeah, we have nobody. Yeah, we have nobody, they're not prepared, they're not ready, et cetera, it's fine. But succession planning is not ready. You can't close your succession planning as long as. You don't have candidate this year, fine. It's open, okay? But next year, we're gonna have to find a candidate. If we don't have them inside the company, you're gonna have to go and hire them from outside the company. So I think that managing through the hiring from one side, the succession planning from the other side, which means training, coaching, promoting, extremely important process. If you do these too well, you're gonna hit all your targets. I completely agree with Carlos and I would add one measure. Measure. Because, and measure very carefully and segment the workforce or segment the people you're talking about because it's quite easy to reach 40% threshold in any organization. As long as you include everybody, fine. But actually, the higher you go in the hierarchy, the less women you have. So you have to measure by cohort or by segment of your population, whether you talk company or whether you talk other organizations. Because once you measure it, then you can hold people accountable. But sort of broad measurements of those corporate leaders who say, 45% women in my company. Uh-huh. How about looking at the pyramid? And then it doesn't look as good. And disaggregate statistics. Collect reliable data and disaggregate it. Whenever we're providing data that is just rounded and we don't say X amount of women have achieved it, X amount of men have... You actually hide a lot. When you are a policymaker and you are responsible for the public resources, women are 51% of the population. You should be able to know that in the manner in which you spend those public resources, the other half, which is the... No, in fact, the 51% actually benefits adequately. The other challenge I think that we face now we continuously talk about women having to be represented at a level of 30%. 51% of the population must be happy with 30%. Please. You know, we're actually lowering the expectations as well. So that trend also is actually a bit dangerous. So I'd like the 50-50 talk rather than the 30% talk. Sure. On corporate policies, to add to what they said, and I agree with both, flexibility. So working hours are increasing. Technology, my industry is part of it, but working hours are dramatically increasing all over the world. And flexibility is a really big issue. Now, not every company can provide it in every case, but people can provide a lot more. I'll share one example, Mitsubishi Chemicals. Japanese company, among the long hours, anywhere in the world, Japan is the highest on the list. They made a rule that meetings can only be one hour, and everyone had to go home at 7 p.m. That's it. And performance did well. And everyone who went home at 7 p.m. and the meetings got shorter. I found in my own life, once I had children, I did more faster than I thought I could have done before, because I just had to. Otherwise, I never saw my son. And as I got more efficient, everyone else got more efficient, because everyone's tolerance for unnecessarily long meetings went down. And I think we need to push ourselves in every organization to be more flexible. I also want to say I so agree with this point. I've been thinking about it lately as the tyranny of low expectations. My great and dear friend, Senator Claire McCaskill, is here, and in the last U.S. election, women run 20% of the votes in the Senate. And every headline in the U.S. said, women take over the Senate. 20% representation of 50% of the population is not a takeover, it's a problem. It's a big problem, and I think it's great that we're here at Davos and women are on the agenda, but our goal is clear. We need to get off the agenda, because women no longer need the special panel because we are fully integrated into leadership, into the economy, and to decision making all over the world. Cheryl, you've written about this before, so can I ask you, do women hold themselves back? Society, I think, is so biased against women, and we grow up that way that everyone holds us back and we hold ourselves back. Here's what the data shows conclusively. When a man and a woman perform at the same level, the man and the woman, and everyone else remembers the man's performance slightly high and the woman slightly low, there are a lot of genderblind studies of performance done, right? Orchestra is behind a curtain, testing classes without names on. Every time you take gender out of the equation, what happens? Women do better than they do elsewhere. That shows you conclusively that we're gender biased because when we don't know gender, women's performance increases. The other thing that happens is that men and everyone else ascribe male success to themselves. Why did I succeed? Because I'm good, because I'm smart, and that's good. But women and the rest of the world ascribe female success to being in the right time, the right place, lucky, working hard. Someone supporting you. You got help, you were mentored, and all of that's true for both men and women, but we ascribe success differently. That means that everyone is systematically underestimating women, and we are systematically underestimating ourselves. Everywhere I go, any meeting I watch more men and women sit. At the same level of performance, more men sit in the center, and at the table, and more women sit on the side. And so yes, women are holding themselves back, and yes, men are holding us back, and yes, we are socialized to hold ourselves back, and that's part of what I know. Lean in is trying to change, and what the great example of all three of my fellow panelists are trying to change. I just want to highlight also the issue of women in conflict areas, where there are peace processes. The inclusion of women as peacemakers, as critical participants to make the peace in those countries sustainable, ensures that even after the peace, women will have a chance to be represented in future government. We have found that in countries where women were involved in the peace talks, there is a greater chance that they'll gain the confidence, they'll avail themselves to run as candidate, and in many cases they will also be elected. So one of the important things that we also need to continue is the involvement of women in all aspects of life that affects them. And peacemaking, as we would see in Syria, as we'll see in Sudan, as we'll see in the Central African Republic, in all of those areas, the involvement of women is fundamental for sustainable peace. I would have posed a slightly different question. All of you here on the panel are extremely accomplished. You've achieved a lot and risen to a level that many women would say, you know, this is the kind of role model we're looking at. So I'm gonna pose this question to Christine first. What's the worst case of discrimination that you've come across? I suppose you're asking me first because I'm the oldest in the group. And that's okay. I'm happy with it. I'll preface my response to you by one thing. I think I've succeeded and I'm here where I am. Because I was not aggressive, because I relied on teams, and because I acknowledged the team and the support that they have been given me, and because we worked together. And I'm not ashamed of saying that. And I think that other types of management and leaderships are fine. But if women can exercise leadership by being inclusive, by being team-minded, by paying back to the team, and you know what? If we can contaminate a few male leaders on that page, and if we can contaminate a few of those males who don't succeed in reaching peace settlements, that's fine and I'm prepared to fight for that. Okay, now, worst discrimination I faced, my first interview with a big law firm in Paris, where I had qualified on all fronts, and the managing partner said to me, we're giving you a job, but don't expect to make partnership. And I said, why is that? He looked at me with contempt. Said, because you're a woman. That was about 35 years ago, okay? Things have not changed enormously in many areas. Now, the law firm I lived my life with was not that law firm. From Zehra. Mine is a bit dramatic because I grew under apartheid where there was both race and gender. In South Africa, there were laws under apartheid that decided, for instance, that women could not contract on their own without the help of a male adult, or for that matter, son. So, I mean, how worse can it get? I didn't have a sign at that point, and I can just imagine if that had to happen, but that was the way the law was. Cheryl. Well, certainly growing up in apartheid in South Africa is an experience that I haven't faced. And I think I've actually been pretty lucky. I've faced a lot of the smaller stuff. I've been at dinners recently, where men speak and it's fine, and men literally put their hands here like stop speaking now. To me and the other, there was a dinner, there were two women. Everyone kind of was talking, except when I spoke, or the other woman spoke, we were told not to like this, hands to our faces. Nothing like South African apartheid, but shocking in today's day and age. But I have friends who have been fired when they got pregnant in the last few years in big cities in the United States. I've had friends unfairly and ridiculously sexually propositioned in offices. I think Christine's point that yes, things have changed, but they have not changed enough. And a lot of the things that we would think just don't happen anymore, particularly in the developed world, are still happening. Carlos. You're gonna ask me the same question. Yeah, yeah. Yes. If you like. No, no, no, no, no, let's answer this because this is about diversity. It is. I mean, we're talking about women here, but there is a lot of segregation when a person is different. It can be a foreigner. It can be a young person in a society which is most value seniority. It can be a senior person in a society which is much more good. I mean, what we're talking about here is discrimination for reasons which are nothing to do with talent, nothing to do with contribution. And I'm sure that here in the room, many people can relate to what you're saying, but we're focusing on gender discrimination. But there are so many other discrimination we ought to fight against because it's a huge potential, particularly for companies or even for countries that we need to unlock. Prejudice against their own debts is a problem for women as well. So it's a prejudice we have to fight against. Before I open this up to the audience, I'm gonna do a really quick fire. The best advice you've ever been given for getting ahead. Cheryl. Believe in yourself and believe you can change things. Whenever you fall, fall forwards and rise. Christine. Greet your teeth and smile. Try. Carlos. There's no problem without solution. Great. The floor is now open. So please raise your hand, a microphone will come around to you. Please say who you are and who you would like to answer your question or if you'd like the whole panel to answer your question. And as a reminder, first two rows, they seated, the rest of you please stand. Right here in front. Okay. And then we'll come to, then we'll come here. Okay. Thank you, thank you very much. My name is Dina, which means I am a global shaper from the Mexico City Hub. And I am most passionate about this, this issue related to education. I am wondering if we could go back to fundamentals. Where does this all come from? Do you think when you speak about girls' education, do you think where is a place of girls and boys' education for them to understand the same as in access to opportunities that will be the same for both as normal, not as something that's unusual? You'd like to take that? I think teacher training actually is the place to begin because teachers influence children a lot. I think those of us who are parents, you know that when your children are young, when you try to say something and say, no, my teacher didn't say so because they look up to them. If our education systems, our curriculum are properly engendered. And if you hear teachers who are able to impart knowledge in a manner that infuses these values of respecting both men and women, encouraging both girls and boys to see themselves as equal, education would do society a great service. But many of our teachers come out of teacher training school without that background. And I think it's part of what now we have to do because we're trying to correct. But of course, going to the children directly, as parents, as society is also important. But I would say that teacher training is actually an important area where we need to intervene. A question here in front. Let's bring the mic over. We'll try to get through as many of these as we can. Yes, please. My name is Deepak Jain. I was until recently the dean of INSEAD. And before then, the dean of Kellogg School of Management. And if this Christian Lagarde would allow me, I had the pleasure of having her in my class. Oh. That was a good teacher. Yes. My point is to Carlos and Christine, I believe that for us to close the gender gap, first we also need to focus on giving them an opportunity. And my passion has been to focus on countries where women don't get that chance. So we have set up a university in Bangladesh called Asian University for Women, where we are targeting countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, India, where it is not common for women to go for higher education. And my question would be in a minute, first year when I went there and I'm going there next week again, a girl from Afghanistan came to me and said, Dean Jain, I never had the opportunity to see the sun. Because they are all dead. And thank you for giving me this opportunity. She did so well, we sent her to Stanford University, and she graduated with two degrees. So my question is, how can we get resource? Because here, these women cannot pay. So are there ways for us to promote these type of education, not only in Bangladesh, countries in Africa, and others? And would you help me in terms of finding sources and not only the monetary, but I also need some human help to come and teach, not for people for other reasons. Thank you. Well, Deepak, I'd like to pay tribute to you, because you have indeed focused on education your entire life, and you are now focusing on the education of girls in countries like Bangladesh and other places. So I'm so pleased that you're here and that you can attest to that. We haven't talked much about money. But at the end of the day, it's a question of what budget is available to help, whether it's the budget for the daycare centers in Japan, or whether it's the budget to help with the education of young Bangladesh girls, Afghanistan girls, Pakistan girls, and many African countries, children, not just girls. So I think it has to be part of the development goals, not in terms of quantity, but in terms of quality. It has to be targeted. It has to be better measured. And I think that the private sector has to be embarked on that initiative. I mean, there are very, very wealthy universities around the world. You know quite a few, and you've taught in some of them. They have to partner. They have to spend a bit of money outside of home. And they have to be proud of it. And make their students proud of being associated, twinned, or however they want to call it, but putting some money aside for other projects that are not necessarily on the curriculum of those big universities would be a good idea. Carlos. I think there are two kinds of financing, or financial support. The first one, which the company does for itself. For example, we have a huge technical center in Japan, in Asugi. We have about 15,000 engineers. You know, when we started, we had 99% males. We gave ourselves an objective to have, as a first step, 10%. Well, we put the goal. We start to hire, but women left. Until we created childcare centers inside the technical center, and things changed. So this is the kind of investment companies have to do to be consequent with themselves. This is one thing that's easy. But then the other thing that you're mentioning is Nissan helping women in Afghanistan being educated, even though you don't have any plant or any facility. But this is through corporate social responsibility programs. And every company has some kind of guidance. In our case, we have two objectives, where we practically put all the money behind the programs. One is environment, which is obvious. And the second one is diversity. And when we talk about diversity, we're coming. So I think in order to promote that, we need to push companies to put diversity in their corporate social responsibility programs. Because I don't think you're gonna get too much in countries like France or Europe, but you're gonna get a lot when it comes to a lot of the emerging markets. Great. Yeah, okay, question there. If you can have the microphone, please. As a man, I feel very accused today. And I think that I have a good advice to the women's society, to stay all for a minute, not the three of you, because you have done already, and look what you can do yourself. Because the men are not stupid when they can get the good women as a general manager, he will take it. And with the knowledge of 85% choosing automobiles, I really don't understand. But the women themselves, you can't force it by quota. Forget it. We have milk quota in Holland, it didn't work. And quota is forced, the women should do it themselves, organize themselves, and should show the other part, the other, the man, that they are better or they can do it also. But don't do it forced, do it yourself. Thank you, of course. Yeah. I accept that. Sorry, Christine first. I just want to set the record straight for your country, the Netherlands. Because there are things that your country has done that has actually promoted women in a big, big way. And that is allowing for, but it's not because the women went out to show that they were strong and good at which they are. It's because the policy makers understood that and therefore implemented flexible time situations, good policy regulations applicable to the labor market so that women could be welcome to the labor market. So it takes two to tango, right? Fanzilla, you wanted to come in. But also, I think there's an assumption there that men are where they are because there's something good that they did. They didn't have to prove anything. I think there's also an assumption that men represent the best of humanity. Please. I'm going to pick the hand right there, because I think this might be on a similar point. Pass the mic, please. See the woman in red. And then I'll come here. Thank you. My name is Akudo Anyaoui Kemba and I'm a WFYGL. I'm very proud of the ladies on the stage. My question is for you and women. I'm very proud of the work that you're doing. But I have a question about the lives that African women are living in Africa. There's a lot that we don't bring to the forefront and a lot that we don't talk about. And I'm very interested in your experience, madam, in engaging government on some of the crimes that are being committed against women in Africa, those crimes that are being veiled with culture and honor. All the widowhood practices that go on, all the issues that affect the girl child. In all our countries, we call it different things. In Malawi, it's called removing the dust. In Nigeria, where I come from, there are lots of widowhood practices where women have to get maltreated once their husbands die. These are all hidden under culture and no one is talking about it enough. And I would love to see a situation where these things are really brought to the forefront at the WEF summits and a lot of other sort of global level summits so that we can start to tease out what really is culture and what's crime. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. You know, at the United Nations, these things are not actually hidden under the table. I think one of the issues that has been spoken about a lot in relation to violence against women has been the mutilation of women and girls. And in many countries, governments have been forced to move to adopt legislation that addresses that. However, that has not been enough because of what the speaker points out, cultural practices. It is where we actually work with civil society because civil society is able to shame and name but also to take an active role in trying to take correctional actions. We are not there yet. We have many African countries with constitutions that promote equality and they also have legislation that promotes equality but implementation is actually quite poor. That makes the importance of women's movement to be very relevant and very strong. But however, this is not the responsibility of women alone, even in rural areas, even in all parts of countries where these practices are. It is the responsibility of both good men and good women. Thank you. I'm going to squeeze in one last question here. And apologies to all of you. I know we could go on, but... Excellent panel and such an honor to be here. My name is Desiree McGraw and I'm from Quebec. We have some very progressive policies, $7 a day childcare, extended maternity parental and paternity leave. It's made a huge difference. 50% of our cabinet ministers are women. This is part of our culture. So my question to the panel is about politics. I think we can do a lot on the micro scale in business and social enterprise but at the end of the day it's about public policy. And these policies are in place in Quebec largely because women were in cabinet. So I don't think there are any politicians, elected politicians on the panel. But if you could speak to that because it seems to me that is such a key issue and politics being even more aggressive than business where women really are often not well liked for standing up and being good at politics. So someone could speak to that. Well, I was going to go to Christine first, former French finance minister, but... You are that right. There are not enough women in politics and when women are in politics they make a huge difference. We were talking about the US senator earlier on. Well, who actually managed to break this gridlock that prevented the US federal operations to actually operate? Predominantly women. Then the process went on. But those who actually made the decision to get on with this stupid opposition sterile for all purposes were women. So yeah, there has to be women in politics and they have to just take the future of humanity in their own hand even if they are still way too much of a minority. And it's important for women to elect women because the fact that women are a majority and yet in many cases we elect men is a problem because if women were able to prioritize women, good women because also it's not good enough just to elect a woman because she's a woman. You have also to ensure that they will do the right thing once they are on the job and supports them to be the best they can be. But I couldn't agree with you more. In my own country in South Africa, a lot of the good policies have been pushed by women and women have played a very active role in politics and in parliaments. Cheryl, could we see you in politics? Not for me, but a wholesale agreement. Just wholesale agreement that we need more women in politics and the recent stuff in the US Senate proves it. We are afraid out of time, but I want to give a final comment to each of my panelists. You all know this issue inside and out. Was there something surprising from today's discussion that you've noticed and would take away? Cheryl? I don't think it's surprising. I think it's important we keep having the discussion. But what I really liked about today's discussion is the sense of impatience because we've been having this discussion for a long time. And to your point, we can't stop short of 50%. Well, I mean, maybe not so much surprising, but I'm actually encouraged that we have as many men and women in the audience. Because there's also been a tendency that when we speak about women, is women speaking to women. I think what you see in this audience is actually progress. Great. Christine? No, I'm just very grateful to you for having organized this debate and grateful to the audience for their participation. I fear that we will have to do it yet again a few more times before we get to Cheryl's objective, which is to have it off the agenda because we will have reached the goal. Thank you. Carlos? Well, actually, if there is one thing which surprises me today, not so much about the debate, because as you said, we have been saying this. It's when I look at the public, usually when we talk about women, we have a majority of women. Today it's balanced. It's not anymore an issue of the past. It's something that everybody going through today. We're moving in the right direction. Obviously, hopefully, the speed is going to get just higher. Terrific. Well, there's a BBC program on Radio 4 called Women's Hour. And over 40% of the audience is men. So now there's just like concern. If that audience goes any higher, no, I'm joking. This was a terrific panel. And that is all we have time for. It's been a huge topic as to why gender gap persists. We've discussed the evidence that it's harmful to businesses and to economies who've looked at policy alternatives. Perhaps gender-driven growth policies are just what a sluggish global recovery needs. Please join me in thanking my stellar panel, Carlos Ghosn, Christine Lagarde, Pumzile, Malambo, Nguka, and Cheryl Sandberg. Thanks to all of you, the audience, for your participation. And a huge thanks to the World Economic Forum for partnering with the BBC on this panel and special broadcast of Talking Business with me, Linda Yu. Thanks, everybody.