We have already celebrated one year after the elections in Cairo congress and it is my real pleasure to share with you several of our efforts across the whole year for expanding our BPW family across the world, visiting our affiliates across the world, raising the visibility of BPW International and strengthening the ties with our Partners, stakeholders and the UN Agencies.

As we have celebrated the 88^th Anniversary of our great organization BPW International on 26 August. This celebration was extraordinary as it showed the unity of all our members and the joy and smile on the faces of our sisters and the pride they feel to be BPW members.

If our founder Dr. Lena Madesin Phillips were here today, she would be very proud to see BPW growing and continuing to advocate for gender equality, as well as empowering women on all platforms. It brings me great pleasure to see BPW sisters celebrating our 88^th Anniversary with pride, embracing diversity and inclusion, uniting the world through our strength and committing to achieve a global agenda under our 2017-2020 triennium theme: "Empowering Women to realize the Sustainable Development Goals". 

Since I was honored to be elected as International President in October 2017, I have visited my BPW sisters across the world in about 20 countries, such as Bahrain, Morocco, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, Thailand, Tunisia, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Kenya, Australia, UK, Jordan, Canada, Russia, USA, Hungary and Cyprus   among others.  I also had the privilege of visiting other countries and opening channels of communication to start BPW Clubs in Namibia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mauritania, Djibouti, Portugal and Zambia.

I have also attended and given talks at several International Conferences to raise the visibility of BPW International and strengthen the ties with our partners, such as International Trade Center, UN Women, UNIDO and other Regional and International Institutions and Organizations.

As we are preparing now for the Leaders' Summit next March on the 8-9 March 2019 during the CSW, we would like to mention the great success of the 2018 BPW Leaders’ Summit in New York that focused on our International Theme "Empowering Women to realize the Sustainable Development Goals " but with great emphasis on Goal 18: Sustainability of BPW International.

BPW affiliates’ projects presentation under the theme of 62^nd Session of UN Commission on Status of Women, “Empowering Rural Women and Girls” gave a great illustration of how the great work of our BPW affiliates contributes to the realization of the SDGs and has a real impact on the daily lives of women across the world. We have seen how this work is related to our BPW International Advocacy Pillars of Women’s Entrepreneurship, Women in Trade and Access to Markets, Women on Boards, Women’s Financial inclusion, Equal Pay, Women Empowerment Principles (WEPs) and Government and Corporate Procurement Policies. Also, how these advocacy pillars and the activities and projects of our BPW affiliates are interlinked with the SDGs as follows:

• To achieve SDG 1 on “Ending poverty”, BPW’s role is not to give charity, but to promote economic growth through entrepreneurship, training and capacity building so that women will gain financial independence. The financial inclusion of women and access to land and property for women are the keys to ending poverty. 
• To achieve SDG2 on “Zero Hunger”, BPW projects often empower women at all levels and also to strengthen their capacity in agriculture and agribusiness for grassroots and rural women.
• It is amazing that so many BPW affiliates are working on the SDG3 on Health and wellbeing by organizing health awareness campaigns.  Good health is a true wealth!
• SDG4 on “Quality Education”is embedded in the roots of BPW projects and enforced by our Advocacy Pillar of promoting women in STEM Education and I have witnessed many affiliates working on this pillar from all over the world.
• SDG 5 on “Gender Equality”and Women’s Empowerment is   the core of all our BPW activities and projects.

Our BPW affiliates across the world are also working to eliminate any form of discrimination against women, to prevent violence against women, to empower women and girls with special needs, to combat child marriage, etc.

Since these activities enable women to have better opportunities to work full time and to their full potential, they also contribute towards SDG 8 on “Decent Work and Economic Growth”.

It is also great to know that BPW International affiliates are also working towards SDGs that are related to the environment, realizing the sectorial Advocacy Pillars of empowering women in Agriculture and Agribusiness, Green Economy, Clean Energy, Climate Change and to have access to Water and Sanitation.

It is crucial for all the affiliates across the world to register their projects and send us information about their great work and how they link in to the Global Agenda of SDGs.

I have also established Task Forces that respond to the SDGs and to the main priorities of our advocacy pillars to address the needs of driving the agenda of Gender Equality and Women Empowerment and based on the fact of leaving no woman behind to include all women at all levels.

Our real goal is to work together in harmony to advance the agenda of women’s empowerment economically, socially and politically.  It is time for all of us to unite our efforts to spread BPW International’s wings and embrace our diversity and richness across the world in collaboration with all our partners. 

I want to thank all my executive team for all their great efforts, energy and enthusiasm to work as a team to realize our objectives for women’s empowerment and gender equality. And, as always, I end my messages with our African proverb: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

With all my very warm regards to all of you my great sisters across the world.

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