1 June 2011
OECD Ministerial Discusses Women’s Economic Empowerment, Green Growth
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The Chair's Summary reviews discussions on green growth and women's economic empowerment, among other topics.

On green growth, it notes that ministers provided guidance on future OECD green growth work, and especially that innovation and associated intellectual property rights are critical to realizing green economic growth and environmental protection.

27 May 2011: The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has posted the Chair’s Summary of the OECD Ministerial Council Meeting 2011, which took place at the OECD Conference Centre in Paris, France, on 25-26 May 2011. Among other topics, the Ministers discussed green growth and women’s economic empowerment.

The United States chaired the Ministerial Council Meeting, and Germany served as Vice-Chair. In addition to representatives from OECD member States, participants included representatives from Brazil, India, Indonesia, the People’s Republic of China, and South Africa, as well as the Russian Federation.

On green growth, the summary notes that ministers provided guidance on future OECD green growth work, and especially that innovation and associated intellectual property rights (IPR) are critical to realizing green economic growth and environmental protection. Ministers highlighted that these two goals are not part of a zero sum game, and that this fact and green growth generally must resonate with countries at all stages of development, and accordingly that green growth policies must be understood as something that should be defined within national contexts.

On women’s economic empowerment, the summary indicates that Ministers welcomed the Interim Report of the OECD Gender Initiative, urging its completion by the next Ministerial Council meeting. Ministers also confirmed recognition that “women’s economic empowerment is critical to stronger, fairer, economic growth” and called for the OECD to help make existing data on gender more comparable and useful. [Chair’s Summary]

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