Ankara: World's 20 largest economies, including India, on Sunday launched W20, an engagement grouping of women leaders, to push for gender inclusive global economic growth.
The W20 group -- having 20 women leaders from G20 nations -- would host its first summit next month in Istanbul after all member countries appoint their nominees.
At the official launch event here, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the prosperity of a country can be best understood by the smile of women from that country and it is very important to empower them in the economic growth process.
W20's newly appointed President Gulden Turktan said it would work as an outreach group and seek to promote gender inclusiveness in economic growth process by empowering women.
She asked all G20 countries to nominate their members.
The launch event was also addressed by IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde, OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) Secretary-General Angel Gurria, Deputy Executive Director of UN Women Lakshmi Puri, International Trade Center's Executive Director Arancha Gonz?lez, among others.
The G20 members are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union.
The Group of Twenty (G20) is the premier forum for global economic and financial cooperation that brings together the world's major advanced and emerging economies, representing around 85 per cent of global GDP.
The G20 started in 1999 as a meeting of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis.
In 2008, the first G20 Leaders' Summit was held, and the group played a key role in responding to the global financial crisis. G20 leaders have met nine times since 2008, continuing to focus on achieving strong, sustainable and balanced growth, promoting job creation and financial regulations that reduce risks and prevent future financial crises and modernising international financial architecture.
The presidency of the G20 rotates annually among its members and this year it is with Turkey.
Speaking at the event, Lakshmi Puri, Deputy Executive Director of UN Women, said that the government leaders including ministers should also become part of this grouping going ahead.
"This is a historic moment for G20 to launch Women-20 to push for greater participation of women in overall economic process," said Puri who is also Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations.
Puri, who had a 28-year career with the Indian Foreign Service, said the W20 group comprises of mostly business women, civil society members and academic leaders and hopefully the government leaders and women ministers would also become pat of this group.
