 gender parity in several dimensions in the economy, in politics, in society more generally. And then more recently we have been developing a series of action-oriented models, partnership models, we call them task forces, to in specific countries where there's an interest from the business community and the political community and elsewhere at a high level that wishes to drive progress faster, we provide a model and a platform for pulling together an alliance if you will of those leaders to help to model that behavior, set targets and drive progress further. We have done that over the last several years in different parts of the world, in Mexico, Turkey, Japan, South Korea and last year we began in Chile in partnership with the Inter-American Development Bank represented here by its president Luis Alberto Moreno. But we have been in the last several weeks or so discussing whether in fact there would be a promising opportunity in partnership with the IDB to provide a platform for a similar type of exercise here in Argentina. And today we're very pleased to talk about the launch of such a process. And we've got Carolina Stanley, who's Minister of Social Development with us, thank you very much Madam Minister and thank you as well to you and your government for providing such a fruitful platform for the general discussion here in the summit this week, as well as Marcos Peña, who's Chief of Cabinet of Ministers on the end of the Argentinian government, and Cecilia Giordano, who's CEO of Mercer Argentina, which Mercer is a partner of the forum and we have had a very fruitful collaboration on various aspects of our human capital work. What I would like to do is simply invite you now, President Moreno, to offer some initial thoughts about the launch of this effort. And then we'll work through the rest of the panel and then take questions thereafter. Well, thank you very much, Rick, I guess, talking Spanish or in English. As you wish. Okay. Bueno, primero que todo mucho. First of all, thank you very much and welcome. It's a pleasure for me to be here with all of you, with Marcos and the Minister and especially with the work that we have carried out with the World Economic Forum. This points at what Rick was saying in this sense. This is a region that has had a lot of progress in gender. But if we look at it all in all, we still have many gaps. And these gaps are absolutely key, not only because of the human rights of women, but especially because what they mean vis-à-vis our society, what they mean on the economic impact that women have on the labor market. In other words, you find many, many differences. For example, women with the same responsibilities earn up to 30 percent less. That is the type of things that can only be focused to the extent something is done similar of what we are launching today. This is an action plan. What kind of action plan? An action plan that gathers, puts together the governments and in the case of the federal nation of Argentina, not only the nation, but the provinces, the cities and the companies. Because that is precisely where the capacity of being able to change something is to be found. The differences that we see between the participation of men and women on the Argentine labor market is 26 percent, 26 percent in income terms. We can list all the problems we find. That's not what we want to do today. What we're doing is creating a structure with which we're starting to talk to a subject which I know that ultimately is so, such that the changes come from the head. That's why it is not a surprise that we have the chief of cabinet of President Macri and the minister. He has told us how important the topic is therefore to change the new Argentina. And that's why I'm so happy to be able to participate in this effort to thank the forum and all of my colleagues inside the IDB, which have spent so many hours because it calls for a structuring process, which I am sure that just like we did it in Chile, this is the second country where we do it. It will be very successful. So thank you very much, Rick, for this. Thank you very much. Now, minister, over to you. Yes. Good afternoon. Thank you for sharing this initiative in Argentina. Gender parity is something on which we have worked a lot, but it's still a pending debt in many, many senses. One of them is the labor market. Of course, obviously. Not only because there are less women than men who are looking for jobs or that gain access to certain jobs, but also because of the salary gap. And the salary gap, as was just mentioned, reaches up to 30 percent and unfortunately is even greater when we're talking about vulnerable populations or vulnerable women. When we talk about poverty, when we talk about a society that we want to be on equity, what we need is to generate opportunities of generating freedom, to make sure that the people who are born in Argentina will all have the same opportunities. What we are creating here today is another tool to make sure that all of the women born in Argentina have the same opportunities as men, which means that we not only have to attack problems that attack women like violence, but also to fight on each and every place where we still have to become aware that there is still no equality. We need that equality between men and women. That's where we stand. We're working together with private companies, the civil society, because it's a commitment that we have to take on board as a country. And we are showing the commitment. We have a concrete tool, and we are pledging a specific course of action with specific goals that we will define and that we will respect, because that's the idea to have specific goals to make it visible, to make the problem visible, whereas today it is still a problem that is hidden in Argentina. And when it becomes visible, we have to avoid to be doomed by a country that is not the same, because once we see it, and then once we decide to turn the reality, that is the road, the path that we have started, and that we start as a government. And we are just one step ahead of what we wanted to do working towards the equality of men and women. Thank you. Mr. Pena. Thank you very much. Welcome to Buenos Aires. We are really very happy to host this event in Buenos Aires. I think that reinforcing what Carolina just mentioned, first of all, I want to tell you that we believe in the need of a present-day agenda. And in this 21st century, we are sure that it's impossible to hold a debate on equity between men and women if you do not first address the inequality of women to have the same education opportunities, education and others. And our task from the state and from the politics, reaffirming a commitment by the President and the Vice President, Gabriela Michetti, is to generate greater awareness and also for us to be able to improve in our tasks inside the government in the state and work hand-in-hand with the private world, the trade unions, the academia, and many sectors, many of the Argentine leadership that have to get greater commitment to push this agenda forward, make it a reality and reduce the gap that we have seen from the very outset. And that is not only from the very beginning, but then you see it in life. I think that in this country, in this age of changes, one of the deepest changes that we have seen is a strong citizen mobilization with the motto of not one less that has become every day more important of very wide sectors of society, not only women, mind you, claiming for equity, for equality, and to reducing the gender gap. This is very important because this is a discussion that should not take place only from a public perspective, but also inside the homes, the families, and everywhere to make sure that such inequality becomes a reality in practical terms. To end, I also want to talk about responsibility. I think there's another central issue is not to look elsewhere, not just to talk about it, but also take a point, make a stronghold, make, take an initiative, and as we were saying with President Morena, President Macrius, to push this discussion at a regional level and the many points of the agenda that we have with G20 and other instances that we'll find to talk about these global issues. So thank you again and our full commitment to this issue. Thank you very much. And now Cecilia Giordano. Thank you. At Mercer, we have an initiative for diversity and inclusion, and in terms of women, we have a specific report that calls organizations to action. We understand that the issue of women is not just a social issue. We understand that it's an imperative of organizations and businesses. Women, we have a report that considers more than 650 companies in 42 countries and that employ 3 million people. So our survey is quite representative. And in the organizations that have women as members of their boards, what we find is that those organizations are more resilient, they have greater capacity for adaptation, they're more innovative, and not just a qualitative issue, but the climate, the atmosphere is better in those organizations and also their outcomes, their results in terms of revenue and actual results. They perform better. So our report calls on organizations to take action today. Talent is scarce and if we all fight for talent, organizations today have to generate female talents today to occupy, so they occupy positions in the future. In this forum we talk a lot about the fourth industrial revolution and the impact of technology. Today technology, and when we talk about AI or robots, this is what we're going to see in 2030, but we're already seeing that today. And when you see that the impact of technology, the technology will take up positions that are being taken up by women today. The representation gap is even greater. A few years ago it was 117 years, the gap today. Today we have a more than 170 years worth of gap. So we have to take action at the public, private levels, organizations, individuals. So we all provide a place for females, which is an imperative today. At the very end you hit an extremely important point, which is the pace of progress. Directionally, I think many countries are going in the right direction and Argentina is no exception. If you look at the educational enrollment numbers, females are now exceeding males. But if you look at other aspects of economic participation and leadership representation, it's still lagging like in many, many other countries. And you just referenced a statistic we use as a little bit of a device to give people a sense of the inadequate pace of progress. And that's what I think we find so promising about this Argentinian initiative, this multi-stakeholder initiative of leaders of society coming together to set a framework, a strategy, identify targets that can be a basis for accountability, and then model behavior by encouraging commitments. And that formula has worked in a few other places and I think it has great promise given particularly the leadership level of commitment we're seeing here today. So I compliment you on that and also thank you President Moreno for providing the institutional support behind it because absent that, it's very difficult to get an ongoing initiative in place. Let us now open up the floor to questions of our distinguished panelists. Simply indicate your name and affiliation. Why don't we take a couple of questions at a time? Floor is open. Yes? Good afternoon everyone. My question is for all the panel members, but mostly for Marcos Peña and Carolina Stanley. You talked about the strike today and you asked trades to respect the female quota. What example does the state provide from its position in terms of how that quota is? What do you do to add more women into the public activities, into the activities of the government? We believe that probably one of the sectors, electorally speaking, when you talk about the elections quota, the one that's lagging behind most is representation in trade unions. And you can actually see that in reality trade unions do not have enough female representatives. At the political level, there are mechanisms that are being implemented in Argentine politics, but in addition we believe that pro and cambiemos political parties have contributed a large number of women leaders to our country, to our government reality that make permanent contributions. The vice president, the governor of the province of Buenos Aires, the minister of social development, our minister of foreign affairs are all women. As regards public officials, there's still room for improvement. We accept that that is something that we have to work on, even if at the middle levels of political leadership there's a higher number of women than in the past. We still believe that there's room for improvement and part of this initiative has to do with undertaking that responsibility. I'm from El País. I have a couple of questions. First I'd like to know if the government will set an example by promoting the gender parity law in Congress. That's been discussed in both houses, whether you will promote the bill so it becomes a law. And we all know there's a general strike, someone by the trade unions, people have been detained and arrested. What will the, how will the government respond to all this that's happening? What do you think the effect on the country will be? Well first, to answer the second question first, we feel that today's strike, it's a trade union strike very much focused on transportation and large cities, mostly in the metropolitan areas. And very much focused, I say, because since there's no public transportation available, most workers who would have gone to work didn't have the chance to do that, combined with some actions, roadblocks, some intimidation actions that were made public. So we feel that this has not been a majority expression of workers or Argentinians in general. We believe that most Argentinians at this time of change and enthusiasm that started only 16 months ago, support an agenda of effort, but of a forward-looking agenda, being together to work every day and to move away from this economic transition that we are going through. We believe that most Argentinians feel that and deeply reject any violent extortion method that might try to impose the will of a few on the whole. As we've said, as we've always said, we have many channels of dialogue open with trade unions, just like yesterday, tomorrow we will continue talking to them. We believe that at the same working table, trade unions, businesses and governments have to agree upon policies that can help us generate new jobs in Argentina. We need to create millions of new jobs in Argentina. We believe that these actions do not further this aim. They delay efforts, but we don't want this to blur the enthusiasm that's been created in Argentina, symbolized by this meeting where people from all over the world coming here to be informed, to invest, to create jobs. We will continue working in that same direction, convinced that the desire for change among Argentinians will not be curbed, even if in some cases, like today, we kind of come to an agreement. But we have to agree on the general path we want to follow. And the first question was, the gender parity law was promoted by the ruling party in Congress. We are the minority party in Congress, but of course, we will continue supporting all those initiatives, and that one in particular, and we will continue working so that that law is no longer necessary, so that this is not the result of a legal obligation, but a real projection and growth of female leaders in all political levels in the country. Let me ask a question to the minister, Stanley, and also for Mr. Moreno. What is really the social situation in Argentina, and what is happening in Latin America with the social situation, with the poverty centers affected by different situations? Minister, what's the actual social situation in the country among the poorest? As regards poverty in Argentina, we started working in December 2015, and we also made the decision at the time to use instruments to measure poverty. So the index, the statistics office, was restored. It had stopped working before, and last year with the president, we announced the first poverty index that had been issued by the statistics office index, and a few days ago they released the second index of the second semester last year with a lower number, which is still high. Clearly, there are many Argentinians living under the line of poverty, which urges us to continue working on these matters. Of course, poverty has a side to it, that's structural poverty. We've had it for many years, and as a result of that, we have to address poverty not just specifically based on measuring income, but we work as a government, understanding poverty in its multiple dimensions, and in an integrated manner. In fact, one of the three pillars of the campaign and of our government now is zero poverty, and the president not only ratified this this morning in the opening speech today, but when we announced the first poverty index, he wanted to be measured by how that index went down. There are different spaces, places, as you said, in the province of Buenos Aires as well as in other provinces that have very poor cores or centers, and that forces us to work in a very concrete manner, in a specific manner, not only with transfer payments, which we've done so far, by transferring payments, you do not reverse poverty, but also you need to accompany families and trying to serve their needs in terms of habitat, housing, access to education and health, and also employment. Those are all fundamental pillars when it comes to thinking about how to help people come out of poverty, thinking about three fundamental tools, early childhood, so that children born in Argentina have real and equal opportunities to those of any other Argentine. Quality education, a short time ago, the Ministry of Education presented the results of the Aprender tests that our studies made to see how much teenagers know teenagers in secondary school today, and we saw a high dropout level in secondary school, but also very low levels of education among students living in school, and that goes against a fundamental value when it comes to coming out of poverty, and that has to do with real opportunities and freedom. If we cannot teach our children everything they need to know to choose a job to be able to work, those children will not be free, and they will not have opportunities. And third, employment as a necessary way so that all Argentines can generate their income, and we are working in this direction. In the last few months many jobs were created, we still need to create many more, but just like we are creating jobs, we need to train Argentines so that they can have access to those jobs, and that is something that we have to do jointly with all areas in government with this goal that we all have, achieving zero poverty. I think it's difficult to add anything to what the minister just said, because what she said is what happens everywhere in Latin America, is how do you measure poverty? The traditional measurement which used to be by income level is not enough. It has to add what technicians call the multi-dimensional dimension, which is what the minister just explained. In other words, this is all of the public services provided by the state. Education, health, early childhood, employment possibilities. In other words, how do we build a social grid to help the population to leave poverty now? Regarding question, what happens in Latin America today? On the one hand, we had a decade that, thanks to the economic growth, millions of Latin American left poverty and numbers are important. In a 600 million inhabitants, 80% left poverty. But of course, the largest risk for many families that are in the middle between poverty and can leave that is the volatility that we have because of the low economic growth. And there are countries which by virtue of their economies being slowed down, they saw an increase of people going back into poverty. Hence, the main axis which is to build trust, which ultimately feeds the capacity of an economy to grow. And the best example is to be found here in Argentina. This revamping the Argentine economy means they're bringing greater investments, more place for the private sector and to reinstate things that had been lost for people to work and the effort and not to work on the income from the state as an arbitrator. I think this is absolutely essential to build riches and for that construction of riches to be properly distributed. Just one more question and if it's a brief question, please. Mercer, I think it is fantastic that the government be generating the legal infrastructure and the policies and that the IDB supports with tools. What do you expect from the private sector in the terms of inclusion? If you had to ask us something, what would you ask? We have the minister. She speaks better than anybody else. Well, the first thing I ask the private sector is commitment. And commitment doesn't necessarily mean a concrete investment, but to commit to bring awareness, to commit to carry out actions that we are working on from the state and where they can participate and to commit on dialogue. I think that when we talk about these topics, just like when we talk about poverty, I think all of the sectors need to leave aside some selfishness, things that have to do with some special things that one thinks about and leaving the rest aside. Why? Because I believe and we believe as a government that we always have something to learn. So to the extent the private sector and the public sector organizations commit, then they can think and help us revisit how we can possibly improve. And then of course everybody, because this is related to what you do, and I as a mother always say that the best example for my kids is what I do and not what I tell them to do. So that's where each of us in our companies in a small world, in our family, become aware of what equality means and to practice equality in a vast sense of the world. And it will become, it will give us a much wider Argentina. Thank you. Very much. This draws our session to a close, but could I ask you to join me in thanking and wishing well this task force and its work going forward.