International Cooperation and Development Fund (TaiwanICDF) held the “Empower Women ! Empower LAC! Forum” at the Grand Victoria Hotel in Taipei on February 15. President Tsai Ing-wen and President of Paraguay Mario Abdo Benítez attended as VIP guests and gave speeches. Female beneficiaries of Taiwan’s foreign assistance in Latin America and the Caribbean were also invited to Taiwan for the first time to share their successful stories with Taiwan’s general public.

At the opening ceremony, President Tsai stated “Our Latin America and the Caribbean allies here today have substantial experience of cooperating with Taiwan and have promoted various projects with us, accumulating rich results. I hope this Forum can let us share experiences and think about how to promote women’s economic empowerment through international cooperation and promote global post pandemic economy revitalization and recovery against the backdrop of the current world economic situation”.

In his speech, President Abdo of Paraguay said that women shares 49% of the Paraguay population. These women are the force that drives national economic development. Empowering these women makes their dreams come true. Taiwan’s project to empower women in Paraguay has achieved impressive results, raising the level of employment skills of disadvantaged women, providing guidance to women for setting up micro-enterprises as well as providing credit guarantees allowing women to obtain the loans they need to operate their businesses. These results are the product of Taiwan’s support, he said with sincere gratitude.

In addition to inviting the leaders of Taiwan and Paraguay, the Forum also invited the First Lady of Paraguay Silvana Abdo, Special Envoy for the Development of Families and Children of Belize Rossana Briceño, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade of St. Vincent and the Grenadines Keisal Peters, Presidential Delegate of Women City Program Tatiana Lara, PADF Executive Director Katherine Taylor  and other important international friends and representatives. It was a grand occasion bringing together guests from many countries in Taiwan, in which everyone witnessed the results of Taiwan’s promotion of international women’s empowerment. 

To date, the “Assisting the Economic Empowerment of Women in Latin America and the Caribbean in the Post COVID-19 Era Project” the TaiwanICDF was commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to implement from 2021 has achieved satisfactory results and earned affirmation from allies. This project is the first one ever targeted on women’s empowerment, and TaiwanICDF integrated various assistance tools including “Technical Assistance”, “Education and Training” and “Financial Credit Guarantee”. It provides women with vocational training to enhance their employment skills and provides entrepreneurship and business operation guidance to assist women set up their own micro-enterprises. It also provides credit guarantee together with local financial institutions such as the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), building complete women’s economic empowerment integrated measures.

The First Lady of Paraguay Silvana Abdo, Special Envoy for the Development of Families and Children and the First Lady of Belize Rossana Briceño also shared the successful results of promoting women’s empowerment in their countries with Taiwan. Also, female entrepreneurs from allies proudly displayed their products and spoke at the parallel panel “Empowering Women through Technology”, “Empowering Women through Education” and “Empowering Women through Finance”, elaborating the positive change for themselves and their families by Taiwan’s assistance.

The opening ceremony and high-level forum of this activity were livestreamed in full and the three parallel forums were open to the public. Anyone interested can view the recordings on the TaiwanICDF YouTube channel to witness the concrete results of “Taiwan Can Help, Taiwan is Helping”.

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• Update: 2023/02/22
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