The World Bank launched the 2012 Development Report in Istanbul. Head of KAGIDER Gülden Türktan and Assistant General Secretary Nuray Özbay were present at the conference.

The opening speeches were made by the World Bank Turkey’s president Ulrich Zachau and Minister of State for Women and Families Fatma Şahin. Zachau’s message was, “It is time to think equally and act equally.” Zachau pointed out that gender equality is the sensible and progress move, also mentioning KAGIDER’s Equality of Opportunity Model in his speech. Minister Şahin pointed out the positive developments in the area of education, but added that the country’s employment sector remained problematic. Sahin stated that the reason for Turkey’s low rankings in the UNDP and WEF reports were due to out of date data submissions.

Fatma Şahin declared that she has given much importance to the subject of working on a project with the Ministry of Labor and Social Security in order to remove the obstacles facing women’s employment such as child care. She suggested increasing the presence of women in local government positions and ascending from that position when it comes to women representation in politics. Ana Revenga who is the author of the 2012 development report stated that 51% of the university students worldwide, 2 out of 5 working people worldwide, and 19% of parliamentarians worldwide are women. Revenga emphasized that if gender equality improves in Turkey, the efficiency in employment will increase from 20% to 22%.

The World Bank’s economist and speaker of KAGIDER’s Women Entrepreneurship and Leadership Summit, Sarosh Sattar, presented local comparisons in order to express how leadership presents an important opportunity window.

After the speech, Şirin Payzın took on the moderator position in the panel. The speakers of the panel were Nur Ger representing TÜSİAD, Deputy Undersecretary of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security Sıddık Topaloğlu, Deputy Undersecretary of the Ministry of Family and Social Policies Kenan Bozgeyik, Head of Özyeğin Foundation Hüsnü Özyeğin and Academician İpek İlkkaracan. In this sitting the reasons of inequality in employment and potential solutions were discussed. Child care, education and changes in mentality were some of the solutions discussed.