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 given by Ulrich Zachau, the World Bank Turkey’s president and Fatma Şahin, Minister of State for Women and Families. Zachau’s message was, “It is time to think equally and act equally.” Zachau pointed out that gender equality is the sensible and progressive step, 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 remains problematic. Sahin stated that the reason for Turkey’s low ranking in the UNDP and WEF reports were due to outdated data submissions.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 to women’s employment such as child care. She suggested increasing the presence of women in local government positions and raising up from that position when it comes to women representation in politics. Ana Revenga, author of the 2012 development report, stated that 51% of the world's university students, 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%.

Sarosh Satter, World Bank’s economist and speaker of KAGIDER’s Women Entrepreneurship and Leadership Summit, presented local comparisons to express how leadership is an important window of opportunity.

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