 If the pace of change that has happened over the last 12 years continues to hold true in the future, it will take us another 100 years to close the global gender gap. Things are slowing down. Last year, it would have taken 83 years to close the global gender gap. This is the 12th edition of the Global Gender Gap Index. The index helps countries understand how equitably they're distributing resources and opportunities between women and men. This is the ninth year that Iceland is at the very top of the Global Gender Gap Index. It is the top country in the world when it comes to having made progress on politics, on economic participation, on health and education, but it's actually also moving ahead very fast. It's likely to be the first country in the world that will have closed nearly 90% of its gender gap, although it's not there yet. In the 12 years that we've been producing the index, Yemen has been at the very bottom, but that's not to say that it hasn't made progress. It has actually been making significant progress compared to its past performance, but it's remaining at the bottom because other countries are moving ahead faster. Gender equality does not have to be a luxury goods that's only afforded by rich countries. It can actually be something that developing countries, emerging markets and developed countries alike, should be aiming for, and in fact, they will grow faster if they do. There are a number of advanced economies that are further down in the rankings. So the United States is at 49, Italy is at 82, and Japan is at 114. These are all countries which have closed gaps on health, that have closed gaps on education. In fact, several of them have more women than men graduating from university, but they're not converting that talent into results in the workforce nor in political leadership. And so, for example, the United States, while it is doing very well in terms of economic participation, is lower than the world average when it comes to political empowerment. At this current rate of change, it will take Western Europe 61 years to close the overall gender gap and 168 years in North America. This year we have a research partnership with LinkedIn, where we look at what is happening across various sectors in the economy, when it comes to entry-level positions, middle management positions, and then to senior leadership positions. And what we found is that there are sectors which have reverse gender gaps. So there are sectors where there are many more women when it comes to entry-level and even middle management positions. So that's areas like health, education, and the nonprofit sector. On the other hand, there are many sectors where there really is a lack of a pipeline of women going into those sectors. So engineering, manufacturing, construction, and the ICT industry, which of course is one of the highest growth industries around the world. Across every single sector, regardless of which one it is, there are more men than women when it comes to leadership positions. So it's really not just a pipeline problem, it's also something where companies, organizations have to look within their structures and see are they creating equal opportunities for both women and men to make it to the very top. There is no downside to gender equality, but there is a significant upside. On the one hand, we know there's a moral case for gender equality. There should be equal rights, opportunities, resources for both women and men as equal citizens around the world. On the other hand, there is a very significant economic case as well. So both women and men are now graduating in either equal numbers from universities or there are more women than men graduating in most countries around the world. For most of the world population, the higher-skilled talent is actually with women rather than with men. And so it's a complete loss for organizations, it's a loss for politics, it's a loss for any kind of leadership roles or any kind of skilled roles when we don't ensure that women and men are being integrated in equal numbers.