Breaking biases, building equality (CSW Side Event)

Muy buenos dias. Very good morning to all of you who are joining us this morning in this event entitled Breaking Biases, Building Inequality.

I will give the floor to Javier Flores, who is the CEO of the fmbpva.

Good morning. It is truly an honor for me to welcome all of you to this event organized by the foundation together with the Permanent Mission of the Dominican Republic to the United Nations. I would like to thank everyone who is here with us today, and especially the speakers. Gloria Reyes Gomez, Minister of Women of the Dominican Republic Michelle Machete, UN Undersecretary General and Director of the Regional Office of Latin America and the Caribbean of UNDP Vivian Aido, Regional Director of UN Women for the Americas and the Caribbean Ana Goesmes, Director of Gender Affairs Division of ECLAC Terence Gallagher, Head of Finance Health at IDB Invest Elsa Maria Gomez, a Dominican entrepreneur who will tell us about her life and Mercedes Canalda, Executive President of our bank in the Dr. That is Banco Ado Pem.

I remember how 10 years ago we attended the CSW for the first time with a clear conviction to promote women's economic empowerment as a fundamental tool to achieve gender equality. After all this time, we continue to see that the challenge in this area remains huge. It's almost overwhelming. Today, women have 64% of legal rights that men have worldwide, which has a direct impact on fundamental areas of life such as work, money, security, property, business and retirement. Furthermore, in more than 170 countries countries, legal restrictions based on gender still exist that prevent women from accessing employment or starting a business.

When it comes to social norms, we see that around 40% of women and girls in countries with discriminatory social norms, according to the OECDCG report, continue to face stereotypes that act as invisible barriers.

When we analyze the case of Latin America, women are perceived as caregivers, dedicating much more time than men to unpaid domestic and care work. These differences have clear consequences that are very harmful in the labor market. Globally, around 50% of working age women participate in the labor market compared to approximately 75% of men. According to the ILO. The result of this discrimination has an overwhelming effect on the rights of 50% of the population and a huge economic and professional impact on them, as well as a high cost to the economic development of their countries.

There is no doubt that progress has been made in recent years, but more work is needed. According to The World Economic Forum's Global Global Gender Gap Report of 2025, at the current rate, it will take us 123 years to achieve full gender parity. That's equivalent to five generations, which is unacceptable. Since the inception of FMBVA, we have always been committed to the women's economic empowerment. One statistic has been consistently observed in our experience over the past 20 years it that 70% of entrepreneurs who overcome poverty are women.

This evidence reflects our dedication to providing opportunities to the more than 1,800,000 women we serve today. We firmly believe that when they advance, their families and communities also advance. Our experience shows that women reinvest a greater proportion of their income in health, education, food and the well being of their families. You will hear from Elsa in a little bit when she tell us her story. This will show that our work goes beyond providing financial services.

It is about breaking down the barriers that limit people living in vulnerable situations so that they can advance. Therefore, if we want to achieve real and lasting gender equality and eradicate poverty and achieve sustainable development, it is time to act. Because accelerating progress towards achieving gender parity worldwide is not only a moral imperative, but it's also just. We cannot succeed as a humanity if half of humanity is left behind. Now leave you with this magnificent panel of high level experts who will enlighten us with experiences and initiatives to break barriers, biases and structural gender norms.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much Javier. It's really a pleasure to be here and to moderate this panel with the participation such as undp, UN Women, Eclak Bin Invest, ADB Invest and also ANKO organizes the Dominican Republic, specifically the Minister of Women. Before we delve into these barriers and how we can pave the way, let's put the moment we are into context. Michelle.

UNDP is a leader measuring multidimensional poverty and the they have conducted a very important study focusing on women and revealing that they have higher rates of poverty and there are some key factors such as lack of Internet access or poor housing or precursor employment. In your opinion, in Latin America, what is the link between these indicators and discriminatory social norms that still exist?

Thank you material who is also my compatriot. Greetings to all of you specifically, but in particular Javier Flores, CEO of the foundation, partner and also a dear friend with whom we share vision and also greetings to all the fellow panelists. I would like to congratulate Madame Gloria Reyes, Madam Minister, who was recently appointed as a Minister of Women of the Dominican Republic to address your question.

Elizabeth At UNDP we have the mandate within the United nations to have human development that's resilient and sustainable. And as part of our mandate we constantly Work to produce tools and to generate evidence so that decision makers can really localize this concept of human development to really improve the living conditions of people. Understanding that human development is the expansion of skills, capacities, agency and opportunities so that people can have the freedom to choose the life that they deem valuable. In 2022, we launched this tool that included this dimension of poverty. In the past, poverty was merely measured as lack of income.

Of course, income is very relevant, but it's a means, not an end.

I have to say that Latin America and the Caribbean region has been a pioneer not only in using disaggregated data, but also translating global commitments into local indicators and tools. We've also been able to really reach the information that reflect the deprivation of rights of specific populations. For example, in Panama we have an indicator for women and adolescent girls. And the Dominican Republic, they've linked multidimensional poverty with the climate change vulnerability. And also the work we've done with the private sector.

That's how we met actually had a discussion to address how we can also include the other sectors and in this case the private sector. And also ANA with eclac, we launched a tool to measure at a regional level so we can really take into account the context in Latin America and the Caribbean as a region.

Where there isn't a consolidated middle class. So with these tools We've launched in 2024 this Multidimensional Poverty index for women. Because we as women suffer deprivation of rights that are very specific, due because of our nature, because of who we are. For instance, violence, the violence that takes place in society is different from gender based violence or access to information. And the structural bias that we find.

There's very specific aspects of the labor market that are linked to the use of time and care, work and economic rights and participation. Just to mention some of the dimensions of this tool.

It encompasses 10 countries of the region, but at least in five poverty women's poverty exceed monetary poverty. And that is crucial when we want to come up with public policies. Dear colleagues, something that I wanted to emphasize in the context of Latin America and the Caribbean is that while poverty has to remain a priority, it cannot be the only priority. And the region has to contemplate vulnerability as a priority. We see that 25% of our population live in poverty, which is unacceptable and that requires specific interventions.

We see in.

But for every hundred men that live in poverty, we find there are 120 women that live in poverty. They lack the necessary mechanisms and resources to really withstand shocks in the current crisis. That we live in. We cannot anticipate all the crisis that will come, but we can anticipate that we will suffer multiple shocks. And that inability to withstand them means that not only 25%, but rather one third does not actually have the mechanism to withstand these shocks.

We see that 80% of displaced people in the region are women. We're 14 times more likely to lose our life due to natural disasters compared to the rest of the population. And 40% of women in Latin America and the Caribbean are either unemployed or in the informal market, which is something that the foundation has reflected. That represents 25, 21% of the region's GDP. So I would say, Elizabeth, that these material deprivations and the biases that exist reinforce each other.

And the poverty has to be understood as a multi dimensional phenomenon. Before we started we were say that none out of 10 people, that includes many of us, have at least a gender based bias.

The first step is to acknowledge that more than half of the population believe that men are better leaders than women. That is a fact and that has a direct correlation in how we manage our institutions, our labor markets and how we take our public policy, make our public policy decision. That creates a vicious cycle that creates fewer opportunities, less income, and it perpetuates poverty. Let's not stop at the diagnosis and I will conclude with what we need to do. The last UNDP's Human Development Report calls for a human paradigm.

And in light of what I've described, I think it makes sense to include resilience in our development agenda not only as a goal in itself, but as a guiding principle of that agenda. And it becomes indispensable in the context of Latin America and the Caribbean. Resiliency means that households must have a minimum of assets to anticipate, withstand shocks and crises, but not only to withstand them, but actually have the ability to bounce back after a shock which did not happen after the pandemic, and continue to advance. And when we talk about resiliency, we need to do it with a gender perspective and we need to understand we need to build resilience for half of the population. And that requires a differentiated how do we do this?

We need to transform systems. We don't do this with isolated interventions. And that's why we work hand in hand with UN Women and BBVA Foundation. We seek to promote this participation that should be effective and to transform systems that can distribute time, protection, income, assets and opportunities. For instance, transforming the care economy as a crucial economic infrastructure, so that we can also transform the labor market, ensuring the Presence of women in highly productive sectors, energy, technology and so on.

We creating specific gender bonds and other tools and promoting financing for equality. Aligning fiscal systems and budgets with a gender equality focus. And I will conclude, Elizabeth and dear friends, with a message we were discussing this with. The main theme of the CSW has much goes beyond activism, which remains very important. It addresses what's structural, the decisions that need to transform the system that was not designed taking women into account and the participation of this conference led by UN women.

I think it's been hopeful for all of us in this process of breaking biases and transforming social norms. I'll conclude by reiterating our availability and willingness to cooperate from undp. It is our mandate too. And we'll continue to support our member states but also civil society organizations working hand in hand with our partners and also allies within the UN system to drive this agenda that is possible, that's tangible, and that will benefit not only women, but the whole of society. Thank you so much, Elizabeth.

Mucha Gracia. Thank you, Michelle.

Now we can see a scenario where no country is close to reaching equality in the next 20 years. Now I give the floor to be Vienna. What would you highlight from this current global context? There's a gender snapshot from UN women and how does it impact women's economic empowerment in general, but particularly Latin America, and what can be done to address this?

Thank you, Elizabeth.

I'd like to express my gratitude to the BBBA Foundation. Particularly I would like to thank Javier Flores, its CEO. It's a pleasure to be here with my fellow panelists in the margins of this CSW 70 with a priority theme which is access to justice, which is the right that allows the exercise of the other remaining rights. It's important to look at the global context with realism, but also with determination.

There was some data that was shared. We know that Latin America and the Caribbean region is one of the most dynamic in terms of the progress made in the last decade, thanks to solid partnerships, thanks to a feminist movement that's vibrant, that's inspiring and driven tangible reforms for the lives of women. Reality shows us that the situation of women in the region is very different from 30 years ago. But there's a huge challenge ahead, which is that to make those normative changes and translate them into tangible realities for the lives of women and girls. In this regard, there's some data that concerning this gender snapshot from 2025 conducted by UN Women shows us that the progress toward gender equality has stagnated and none of the targets linked to SDG 5 are on target by 2030.

Women and girls were never closer from achieve inequality and they've never been closer from losing it all. All that progress and that's the battlefield that we're witnessing when we talk about poverty and autonomy. We have millions of women in extreme poverty, persistent gaps, and that requires urgent action and investment. For instance, investments to close the digital gap, which could increase the global GDP by 2.2 trillion, which could take millions of women out of poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean. This reality is expressed with particular intensity in a very unequal region where the normative progress are coupled with a disproportionate burden when it comes to care work on the part of women.

And there's a lot of informal work and that affects mostly women, that limits their ability to generate income and to make autonomous decisions throughout their lives. We also see also the intersectionality, the reality of indigenous, Afro descendant women, rural women, peasants. And these are elements that we need to take into account when it comes to addressing this issue. At view of women, we reiterate that equality is not just a moral imperative, but a precondition for sustainable development, for social cohesion and for democracy. To invest in women's economic autonomy is not an expenditure as an investment.

It's one of the most strategic and smarter decisions that states can make and also the private state can make. And I know that that's the conviction of BBVA foundation. And we need those comprehensive responses with really broad partnership, not only among those that are already convinced, but we need to expand and expand our reach with normative changes, with labor policies, with a gender focus, so that we can advance towards that care society that we are building. And we need strategic partnerships with the finance sector and the productive sector. Because when women can access resources, loans, decent work and justice, the entire society can advance.

Thank you.

Thank you so very much. Viviana. I would like to give the floor now to Anna from the Eclaque to give us a view. What have you seen in the region? Because we talk about structural knots in terms of gender equality.

What are they and how do they show up in economic autonomy and the decision making process and how do we move forward to overcome? Thank you so much. Good morning everyone. First of all, I'd like to thank the BBVA Microfinance foundation and Javier Flores, he's director and we meet each other each year to talk about the finances and economic autonomy. I'd like to thank the mission of the Dominican Republic and particularly the Minister Gloria Reyes from the Dominican Republic will chair the A CLAAC sessions in October and will chair the next commission of the csw.

So it is quite pride for the region and to the world high authorities and civil society colleagues. What we come to speak about here is about a world that was able to get equality with the law. All Latin America and the Caribbean countries have a constitutional norm consecrating the principle of equality. We talk. I'm here to talk about the talent that we had throughout the 20th century because women started to massively access education and had better average in the region in terms of years of study and competencies.

However, no country in the world or in the region has been able to achieve equality in the facts, what we call substantive equality. The first thing we've done is we broke through the statistical silence. The inequality exists, it has been documented. We have official statistics, we have in Gender Equality Observatory in the region created and where we have all the statistics from all the countries. And we can see what Vienna was saying.

The region is moving forward, but at a very slow pace. What do we do this? How do we do this? Is this the time for the house? How do we do this better and faster?

This is the region brought this to the world. Equality is a condition for democracy, peace and development. It isn't only benefiting women, it benefits all of humanity. Homes with more equality, countries with more equality, they do better.

These are countries that have better equality. So we need to add men as allies, young people, to bring this to the world. The region has also said that in order to promote equality, we need to guarantee women's autonomy in three dimensions. Physical autonomy, the right to live a life free of violence and to have their own sexual and reproductive rights. Economic autonomy, decent work, access to credit, property, financial education and among other things, autonomy in the taking of decisions.

Full participation of women in science, technology in society and full participation of men in the care economy. So that's the dynamic that we're looking for. Ministers have identified four structural knots in inequality. First of all, the UNDP already mentioned it is social economic inequality and the persistency of poverty. Per 100 men that are poor, there are 123 women.

There is a wider gap, less poverty, but more feminization of poverty. We're more successful taking men out of poverty than taking women out of poverty. Second is the persistence of sexual division of labor. There is segregation in our region. Women dedicate three times more time to non remunerated work and it impacts opportunities.

Especially poor women or girls that are mothers or girls that in our region continue to be poor. Another indicator that we measured in the region are their own income. One out of four women has not her own income. This is a central indicator of autonomy for women compared to three out of four men. So it's approximately a huge gap.

And this has to do with being able to join the labor market. It's stuck. And only half of the women are part of the labor market, as compared to 75% of men. This is key and it is key to move forward with income, credit, insurance and of course, the SMEI's work. Also it is key.

The Dominican Republic played a key role bringing to the U.N. the idea that gender violence is the extreme form of discrimination. And 25th November, therefore has become the international day to put an end to violence as an homage to the Mirabal sisters. Violence persists. And it's not a bias. It goes way beyond the bias.

Violence kills. We'll talk about 11 feminicides A average in the region. One out of five girls was married before 18. And we're talking about patriarchal patterns that are very embedded just to. For instance, there is very little development to give parental leave for men in the region.

There's also underrepresentation in all innovative sector such as science, technology, innovation. Women are not present in the energy transformation, the digital transformation, the productive sectors in the region. Women are underrepresented. They are overrepresented in sectors, as we saw during the COVID Pandemia, that are sensitive to shocks such as tourism or services. These areas are more sensitive to impacts.

There has been some advances. The region is looking for parity. 36% in parliaments, however, 17% in mayorships, the government that is closest to women. And we also see, as UN women also mentioned, that there is violence towards leader women, their journalists or human rights defenders. Not only do we face inequality, but we face misogyny being expressed in new forms of violence.

Each time that a woman takes a position in the digital world or in the real world, we see these new forms of violence. I will talk about solutions in a minute because we have some. But I did want to give you some statistic and data on the inequality on the region. Thank you.

It's so interesting you talk about that. You will talk about the solutions. What would you prioritize? There are three solutions because we'll move on to the other panelists to give a face to the context. But just to be brief, Anna, can you tell us because I'm sure our audience would like to know.

Okay. As I said, the region has established a tlaltelolco commitment It's a decade of action. We will push throughout a decade together with member states. And the states cannot do this alone. We need the private sector, we need the communities, the local governments.

This is the decade of partnerships facing the global message of hate and inequality. We need to work together for this paradigm that we called the CARE Society. This society is organized around organizing people and the planet. The time and good living is really what the region has proposed is essential. We need to work on the implementation, regulatory frameworks, institutionality, capacity, information systems.

But if something needs to change in the next few years, it's financing, financing, micro financing and financing policies of equalities, like the Minister did with and other policies. We have to invest on equality. And it is time to make these investments, big investments, so that the change will be faster.

Thank you, Anna. Now that you brought this up, let's move to the Dominican Republic.

We've heard the context of Latin America and in Latin America, to be an entrepreneur is one of the ways that women are take to move forward. Minister Gloria, what a pleasure to have you here. Can you tell us what's the situation in the Dominican Republic for women? Can you give us some context? What are the challenges?

What are the norms that discriminate them? Can we give a face to this through your knowledge? And we will quickly hear one of these entrepreneur women.

Thank you so much. I'm so glad to be here.

Javier Flores from ba, our partner foundation. I'd like to thank Ana Huespes and B. Juana. Thank you for joining us. I'd like to thank the undp. I'm so too bad that Michelle had to leave, but her leadership is inspiring.

I know she's an important ally for our countries.

I must also welcome the Dominican Republic, the delegation who's here and the community of Dominican women that are here to support this. Our entrepreneur. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

You see, this was so important, right? We had to say hi to the delegation. The Dominican Republic in the last few years has made important advances in terms of women's development. We've promoted this throughout the different interventions that we've made at the csw. This is the drive that we've seen in socioeconomic indicators.

We've also been honest in terms of the challenge, the persisting challenges. We have pointed out what's good and all we've done. We're very aware that we still have important challenges ahead.

And for instance, social norms. I think that has already been mentioned this morning. These factors keep reproducing gender equality in different forms among women and girls. Michelle was talking about the Gender Social norm index in 2003. Nine out of 10 people have some kind of bias against women.

And that's concerning this. Many times when women themselves have this bias on ourselves, which confirms that inequality is not only a legal gap or an institutional gap. Since we're discussing access to justice in csw, it is also rooted in beliefs that are rooted in society. We've made an effort, the state has made an effort to start to attack these social norms and, and the stereotypes that continue to assign women the almost exclusive responsibility to non remunerated domestic work or to care. And we can see the consequences.

It limits economic autonomy of women. What Anna was saying and Viviana was saying and what Michelle was saying earlier, this limits women's participation in the labor market and the difficulties to have access to productive resources. If we could talk about one thing that limits women, it is the disproportionate responsibility and core responsibility women take in terms of care. I believe that's where it all begins when we talk about women's inequality. Obviously there are actions that we must take.

In the Dominican Republic, the Ministry and the government has established three important actions. First, to mainstream gender equality in public policy, assigning budgets, gender equality indicators and measurements of performance so that we could correct our course. We're also working hard to strengthen institutional capacity in our institutions and work team. We've created the National School on Equality, the Magali Mineda School. Magaly Pineda is a memorable feminist who we always remember.

She was a pioneer in the feminist movement in the Dominican Republic. The school is a platform to train public servants and also to provide citizens education on equality. It allows us to review the norms that exist in our country who keep gender bias and stereotypes in Congress. We're working hard to review our legislation. The Ministry created a space IGUA Lab, which is an innovate space for innovation of public policy.

And in March, with the Ministry of Public Administration we launched a regulation on care, responsibility and conciliation with public administration which will allow a more balanced distribution between the responsibilities of the state and of the families. We know that to transform social norms is indispensable to be able to move forward to women's autonomy and a more fair and equal society. Just to give you an example, when a woman decides to adopt a child, the President, the chairman of Konani is here. She needs how many days of days off? 21 days.

21 days. We had no regulation so that this mother or the family could actually take these 21 days to be able to do the trial period before adopting. But in this new norm we have now a regulation because what happened is the family or the mother had to take vacation days in order to be able to take that time. So in a daily life of women needs the state to provide solutions that are real, that provide them an advantage and that supports them. Finally, care responsibilities.

When we are assigned the care responsibilities, for instance to take care of a family member if we're the main caretakers or even men sometimes we need to be able to have the capacity in public administration for people to be able to take time off to take their relative to the hospital. This was not part of the norms at the administration, but we've done it this month and that's important. I wanted to share with you this public policy that I think it's a new practice that we could possibly use. We'd like to also inspire the private sector. We have people from.

We'd like the private sector to get inspired so that you can support us. I am convinced once again it is not just a state's responsibility to provide care and to provide for families. The private sector should be part of the solution. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. To be part of the solution. That's a call. Let me now give the floor to Terry. What is your vision from the IDB about building products and services with a gender perspective?

That's essential. And what the Minister was talking about is something we know quite well because bank in the DOMINICAN REPUBLIC SERVICES 60% of the entrepreneurs that we support. They're poor or vulnerable. Another interesting data. Hedo Pen has recently carried a study along with Beating BEST which revealed very positive results.

But I think Terry is ideal to tell us about it. What were the findings and why were they so relevant and important for the region?

Thank you, Elizabeth and Javier Mercedes and thank you to the foundation for having invited me. It's a great pleasure to join you here and participate in this debate. Pin Invest has been working with many financial institutions in Latin America and the Caribbean helping them identify the persistent differences in their credit portfolio between men and women customers.

Most of the time we find the same pattern. Women receive credit that are smaller with more limitations, shorter terms and in some times they are charged higher interest rates when they usually have a better payment trend than men. Alopen and us however found a completely different case. We had an exercise with the BBA foundation and the bank. We looked at 170,000 credits.

We compared men and women that had similar characteristics and the results were surprising. Women are not only wanted bit more Higher amounts. But the bank approved higher amounts, approximately 4% higher with the longer terms and with the same interest rates. What's most interesting is that the payment behavior was exactly the same and there was no more risk. When we looked at the profitability, the women's portfolio, particularly small SMEs showed that they were slightly more responsible and less variability.

In other words, ADOPEM was acting exactly as a rational bank would act. Who looks to maximize their profit and returns. Unfortunately, that is not the case with most other institutions that we looked at where they invest more and more more money in male customers even though they behave less and they're worse at paying back than women. Although Penn learned that credit is for many women who are vulnerable, their main tool for autonomy. This is a tool that they take care of and use to grow their business.

This is what's written relevant. It shows us that there are many banks that continue to give lower loans to women with worse conditions are leaving money on the table. In practice, they are giving up a portfolio that would be more profitable, more stable and with better performance. Minibest is taking these lessons and working with our customers so that we can apply these where they're most needed. Our goal is very simple, to build along with our allies, solutions that could generate real inclusion and positive results such as the ones we've seen in Adobe.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much, Terry, for your view. And finally, we're at the last portion of this meeting. We've heard a lot of realities, a lot of numbers. What about listening to someone? We'll give it a face.

Let me call Mercedes Canalta, the executive chair of Banco de Pen, to come to the stage so we could have a conversation with Elsa Gomez, entrepreneur from the Dominican Republic.

Before we do that, before we hear this conversation between these women, let us learn about their history. Let's look at this video. We will move to the Dominican Republic.

Wow.

It's so good to hear the testimony in the video. But let us now hear the life story directly. If you could please switch on the mics. Thank you.

Good morning.

Thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to share a real life story. Thank you, Terry, for bringing us the results of your study on gender bias. When we started this process, we were so certain we were going to do a good job if we could have an equal participation by women in the national surveys. We wanted to create opportunities for entrepreneurs like Elsa that's here with us today. So Elsa, can you take us a little bit more?

We'll come up here because of Microphones. But can you tell me what you think about this trip to New York? What was your experience to take a plane and come here to share this important scenario? Microphone, please.

It has been so important for me to be here with you because this is part of a recognition. I'm a little bit nervous, to be honest, because this is the first time I get on a plane.

Okay, so can you tell us, can you tell us a little bit? Elsa, how did you start your business? What was your motivation? Why did you decide to take this very non traditional activity for women? And what was your important commitment of managing, I don't know, workers in constructions and to position yourself in this very relevant area that is not so traditional for women?

Okay. This began in 2014 when my husband asked me whether we could have a business together. From then on, we decided to start this business. It has not been easy for an entrepreneur to begin something, especially if you don't have so much knowledge about it. Like I didn't because I had no idea of what I needed to do.

It was difficult at the beginning, but now it seems like a regular thing. It's normal, you know, Now I know what I'm doing now.

You're tough, right? Elsa, what she was telling me that this business is not only profitable and allow them to grow, it also helps her help other women meet their dreams. A construction business in where she can recycle things and it impacts the environment, giving opportunities to so many women entrepreneurs that can maybe build their own house.

So Elsa, how do you feel about having your own time and deciding your own schedule, working? What has being your own boss meant to you and the owner of your company? It's important to me because I'm my own boss and I decide how to spend my time. I have time for my family, I have time to help my children education. And I have time for the business as well, which is very important of course, because the business takes up a lot of my time.

I come in at 8am and I leave at 6pm And. And so it's very difficult. However, sometimes my husband is there. So since he can help, I go out and do other things that I have to do. So.

Good. Thank you. I actually visited Elsa at her house. I met her family. They're all great business people.

Her father, her mother have businesses. So it's great to see how they can grow. And she has grown through her work and leadership. She's developed her own business and she's been able to impact her family and her community and in our country. Finally, Ilsa how was it for you, this digital training that adopen has provided?

Because of the platform that we developed to be able to help women to close the digital gap. Has it been difficult for you to access this? What's the most important thing you've learned during that program?

Well, it's been very important to me because page 13, Adopen is to support Dominican women. It also provides the opportunities to take different type of workshops.

I took several, but the one that I liked the most was financial education. It made a big impact because I was able to see how I was going to manage my money, how I would invest was very, very important to me to take this workshop.

How good. Through this digital entrepreneurship in community, something we've developed, it's great that we can impact women such as Elsa in training, especially so that they can increase their digital knowledge and have more efficiency managing their business and bank transactions, etc. Digitally.

And finally, to conclude, Elsa, can you tell me a little bit about the message you may want to leave all the Dominican women that are every day trying to improve their lives and their children's lives?

My message would be, there are no obstacles you cannot overcome. There are no barriers you cannot break down. If you're disciplined, if you have education and you're good and you behave, and if you actually want to do something, you. You can do it.

So for me, it's been a great experience to be here. So don't stop, don't give up, keep going.

Thank you so much, Elsa.

Thank you, Elsa and Mercedes, for your conversation. It was so interesting. We, as we were saying, it gives a face to the daily realities that everybody was discussing. We combine the experience of the experts and this testimony that is so powerful, I think it's clear that it's urgent. We need to keep moving forward together in partnership, as many panelists were saying here.

So any little thing, we can contribute from each organization and each one of us could contribute. So we can prevent 286 years to go back backwards, 286 years for women's equality. So let's work together, let's move forward so we have more equal opportunities for everyone. Thank you so much.