EİB Signs "Women's Empowerment Principles"

EIB Signs Women's Empowerment Principles Jak Eskinazi, Coordinator President of Aegean Exporters Associations, stated that women must play an active role in social and economic spheres for sustainable development to be achieved, and congratulated all women on International Women's Day on 8 March. Eskinazi announced that EIB has completed the signature process for the Women's Empowerment Principles (WEPs), a joint initiative of UN Women and UN Global Compact. Jak Eskinazi, Coordinator President of Aegean Exporters Associations, points out that more than four billion people lack basic opportunities such as decent work, good health care and quality education simply because they are young, female, or both. "In order to improve our processes, we have signed on to the principles of UN Global Compact, the world's largest sustainability initiative; and we are embodying social justice, social responsibility, gender equality and environmental protection both in our institutional culture and through our projects. Our signature process for the Women's Empowerment Principles (WEPs), a joint initiative of UN Women and UN Global Compact, has been completed. As Aegean Exporters Associations, we are putting our signature to Gender Equality." Eskinazi, stating that the steps Turkey's institutions need to take regarding women from 2022 onwards are clear and specific, believes that EIB is taking a leading role in achieving gender equality. "Keeping women and mothers close to our future vision, education and workforce is the first condition of Turkey's goal of being a respectable nation. At Aegean Exporters Associations, one in two of our employees is a woman. Compared to the previous period, female representation in our Boards of Management has increased by 100 percent this period. We have four female Vice Presidents serving in our Exporters Associations. Our management boards will be renewed in April. I believe that in this renewal, female representation will increase and we will have female presidents in EIB." Jak Eskinazi, explaining that they established the Young Exporters Council in 2020 to encourage youth and women to engage in exports and undertake activities, said: "Nearly half of the Young Exporters Council belongs to our female exporters. In the TIM Women's Council, we also have the largest representation, meaning one in every three exporters consists of our female exporters from the Aegean region. Just as we were the first Exporters Association to sign the Global Compact, we are also the first Association to design a mentoring program for women and youth. With our EIB Export-Up Mentoring Program, we continue to stand by our women and young entrepreneurs for sustainable exports."