Chairperson of the meeting and Director-General of the Department, Advocate Mikateko Maluleke,
Our Host Premier of the North West Province and All MECs Present
Deputy Minister in the Presidency for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities in the Republic of South Africa, Honourable Steve Letsike,
Distinguished representatives from the G20 Member States,
Distinguished representatives from guest countries,
Mayors and Councillors Present
Our Esteemed partners, including: UN Agencies, the Institute for Economic Justice, the University of Cape Town, Tshwane University of Technology, the Banking Association of South Africa and the African Development Bank
Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen
Good Morning
I am deeply honoured, on behalf of our government, to welcome you all to the beautiful North West Province, our host for the 2nd Technical Meeting of the G20 Empowerment of Women Working Group. We express our sincere gratitude to each and every one of you who has travelled from far and near to contribute to yet another important step toward what promises to be a vibrant and memorable G20 Working Group.
I also wish to greet the members of the TROIKA, and once again extend our appreciation to Brazil and India for laying such a strong foundation for the world to reimagine the empowerment of women as a comprehensive, far-reaching, people-centered, and developmental imperative. Following our initial meeting that took place virtually, we are truly excited to officially welcome—
within our shores and in person—our distinguished representatives from G20 Member States, our invited guest countries, and our valued partners. We are eager to share with you our country’s warm atmosphere, our people’s hospitality, and our rich heritage.
The North West Province, nicknamed the “Platinum Province,” stands out globally for its exceptional mineral wealth, resilient agricultural value-chains and world-class tourist destinations.
Mining is responsible for more than a third of the province’s GDP, making it a dominant economic sector in this part of the country. North West produces about 94% of South Africa’s platinum and is responsible for a remarkable 50% of the world’s platinum production. This makes the province, the country and the region strategically critical to global industrial supply chains, especially as demand for platinum group metals (PGMs) continues to grow in the automotive, electronics, and alternative energy sectors. The province’s mineral wealth extends beyond platinum: It produces 46% of South Africa’s granite and over 25% of the country’s gold. Diamonds are mined at Lichtenburg, Koster, Christiana and Bloemhof. Importantly, the North West Province is aligned with the Western Limb of the Bushveld Complex, a remarkably rich mineral formation that contains the world’s largest platinum reserves. This geological advantage alone positions the province and its people as a critical player in global mineral supply chains. Beyond mining, Agriculture and Agro-Processing forms another important pillar of the provincial economy. The Province produces about one-third of South African Maize, and its western parts are renowned for cattle ranching and game farming.
Finally, as you will experience for yourselves, the North West offers world-class tourism attractions that constitute another major pillar of the provincial economy. I do hope that, in between your official duties, you will find time to experience this for yourself. The Province is actively developing several industrial initiatives that present opportunities for both domestic and foreign direct investment. These include the Bojanala Platinum Special Economic Zone located here in Bojanala, our host municipality. Programme Directors, the essence of us profiling the North West in this manner is to illustrate how, through mining and beneficiation, agriculture and agro processing, and world class tourism, the province brings together three key catalytic sectors whose development has direct implication to the economy of the country, the region and the continent and the world. This should undoubtedly inform some of our deliberations at this technical meeting, especially when it comes to the theme of financial inclusion as a catalyst for Women’s Economic Empowerment.
At this point, I would like to remind colleagues about our G20 Presidency Theme and Working Group Priorities. South Africa has assumed the G20 Presidency under the theme “Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability”—a theme that reflects South Africa’s commitment to building on the efforts and successes of previous G20 Presidencies while advancing the sustainable development agenda. The collective essence of Solidarity, Equality, and Sustainability aligns with the values enshrined in our Constitution—a cornerstone of our constitutional democracy that not only guides South Africa’s internal affairs but also shapes how we engage with the rest of the world. This theme further underscores our commitment to making this a G20 Presidency of the African
continent, positioning Africa’s increasingly catalytic role at the forefront of global well-being. Solidarity underscores our vision for a people-centred, development-oriented, and inclusive future.
Equality represents our commitment to a collectively just, equitable and humane future for all Sustainability reflects our commitment to meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs.
This theme has also informed three high-level deliverables of South Africa’s G20 Presidency that will guide our work:
- Inclusive Economic Growth, Industrialisation, Employment and Reduced Inequality
- Food Security
- Artificial Intelligence, Data Governance and Innovation for Sustainable Development
During our February 2025 Technical Meeting, we presented the rationale behind our proposed key priorities for the Empowerment of Women Working Group. These are:
- Policy perspectives on the care economy—paid and unpaid care work and household responsibilities;
- Promoting financial inclusion of and for women; and
- Addressing gender-based violence and femicide.
The meeting was a huge success. We are really pleased by the extent of alignment and overwhelming support that these priorities received from fellow G20 member States, our invited guest countries and partners.
Programme Director,
With regard to financial inclusion, we are also meeting at the tail end of what has been an incredibly productive and insightful conference on approaches and best practices to financial
inclusion as a catalyst for women’s economic empowerment. Over the past two days, delegates from across the G20 family of nations, academia, private sector partners, and civil society came together at this very venue to engage on various domains of financial inclusion. These included themes such as economic decision-making and policy leadership, women’s access to land and related productive assets, the removal of trade barriers that disproportionately affect women in cross-border trade policies, progressive fiscal reforms, and the long overdue overhaul of the global financial architecture. We are looking forward to turning the recommendations of that conference into tangible and concrete measures to ensure that the next 30 years are not a repeat of the past 30 years.
With regard to the care economy, I am really pleased that some of the first panel will be looking deeply at the significance of the care economy, a pillar of our economy that remains foundational to both the current and future well-being of any society. The very idea of the care economy helps us foreground well-being ahead of growth that is neither inclusive nor sustainable. For as long as those at the bottom of the ladder, who are mostly women, are in the margins, there is no economy that will grow. Research shows that Women globally spend 2-10 times more hours than men on unpaid care work, which significantly limits their ability to pursue paid employment, education, and leadership opportunities. This unpaid labour was valued at approximately 10.8 trillion US Dollars annually before the COVID-19 pandemic. Professional care work (like childcare and nursing) is still predominantly performed by women, but these essential jobs often offer low wages and limited benefits despite requiring significant skills and emotional labour. Countries with stronger care infrastructure, including affordable childcare and paid family leave, consistently show higher rates of women’s workforce participation. For example, in Sweden where there is universal childcare, women’s labour force participation exceeds 80%.
The recent World Economic Forum published an article titled “Why caring about the care economy is key to growth and well-being”. In this article, the forum correctly argues:
- The care economy not only sustains human activity for current and future generations but also safeguards the right to both care and receive care.
- Unpaid care work, if compensated, would represent 9% of global GDP, yet the social and economic value of the care economy remains mostly invisible.
I am also pleased that some of the breakaway meetings will be responding to the issue of Food Insecurity, which remains prevalent in our contexts. I do, however, hope that you take a holistic view of food security. I wish to emphasize that Food security, when viewed through a reparative justice lens, encompasses not just the immediate availability of food but the restoration of historically marginalised communities and their sovereignty over their food systems. We are only food secure when all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient,
safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and cultural preferences while acknowledging and addressing historical injustices that have created current food inequities. The latter part of this definition is crucial because, as Africans, we were not always food insecure – we are responding to a man-made challenge.
As colleagues will remember, shortly after our February Meeting, South Africa joined the global community in recognising the convening of the 69th Session of the Commission on the Status of
Women (CSW) as a historic milestone and a giant leap forward in the global movement for gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. We congratulate the global community on the unanimous adoption of the political declaration, and reaffirm our longstanding commitment to the full, effective, and accelerated implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. Despite the challenges before us, there is hope. As we convene the G20 Working Group on Women Empowerment, we can draw courage from the CSW69 Declaration and its unwavering
commitment to gender equality. Delegates at the CSW69 reminded the world, in no uncertain terms, that gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls are inseparable from sustainable development and from fulfilling our pledge to leave no one behind.
The unanimously adopted CSW resolution stands shoulder to shoulder with the 2024 Rio De Janeiro Leaders’ Declaration, where our leaders did not only celebrate the inaugural convening of this very Working Group, but also resolved as follows:
“We reaffirm our full commitment to gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls. We encourage women-led development and will promote the full, equal, effective and meaningful participation and leadership of women in all sectors and at all levels of the economy, which is crucial to the growth of global GDP. Acknowledging that gender-based violence, including sexual violence against women and girls, is alarmingly high across public and private spheres, we condemn every form of discrimination against women and girls and recall our commitment to end gender-based violence including sexual violence and combat misogyny online and offline. We commit to promoting gender equality in paid and unpaid care work to
ensure equal, full and meaningful participation of women in the economy, by promoting social and gender co-responsibility, encouraging and facilitating men’s and boys”.
Programme Director,
We have quite an extensive agenda ahead of us. This technical meeting will receive a range of presentations covering key themes aligned with the priorities of the working group. These will include:
- Policy perspectives on the care economy—both paid and unpaid care work, as well as household and domestic responsibilities;
- Resourcing GBVF Initiatives for a Safer Tomorrow; Gender equality in the workplace; and a report-back from the Conference on Global Innovative Strategies and Best Practices on Financial Inclusion for and of Women.
I am confident that our discussions here will form the foundation of a comprehensive Ministerial Declaration, one that should stand the test of time, one that generations will point to with pride.
I am confident that together, through our shared vision and unwavering determination, we will generate transformative outcomes that resonate far beyond this room. I look forward to the outcomes of this meeting as well as the upcoming 3rd Technical Working Group scheduled for July this year in Mpumalanga province. I hope to see all of you in that meeting and look
forward to your robust participation towards a firm proposal to the Ministerial meeting we will host in October 2025.
Once again, thank you very much for your active participation and I look forward to our engagement.