REMARKS

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
At The Pathways to Prosperity Women Entrepreneurs Conference

October 9, 2009
Washington, D.C.

SECRETARY CLINTON: (In progress.) – this conference for women entrepreneurs, to bring you all together and not only to have you meet one another, but also to meet people here in the State Department, because we want to promote more social inclusion, justice, and shared prosperity. So we have, I believe, more than 80 women from 14 countries in our hemisphere. And I am very honored and proud to see all of you. I want to thank everyone who is on our team in the State Department for the hard work making this happen. And I want to thank our envoys, the four of them, raising their hands indeed. (Applause.)

Part of what we are trying to do here in the State Department with all of you is to make the case that empowering women is a key to progress and prosperity and peace. Bringing together the mentors and the entrepreneurs is one way of creating even more support for all of you in business to be able to spread the benefits of women taking leadership roles. I’ve heard about some of the work that you are doing in your own lives, and I am very touched by the courage and the commitment that so many of you have already shown.

I really believe that we need women’s voices to become more prominent in all of the debates throughout the world. We are not all the same with all of the same dreams and experiences, but I do believe that we have a shared vision of what our world should be. And I am very committed to working throughout our hemisphere to create better understanding and closer cooperation.

So I look forward to hearing even more stories from all of you and about you. And we stand ready to provide this Pathway to Prosperity. I think it is a great start from all that I have heard about this conference, and I can’t wait to see what more we can do together. So leave here knowing that you have not only friends, but partners in creating a better future, and think of ways that each of us can reach out to others who can benefit from our own mentoring and our own support.

What can I say except you are a sight that I absolutely love seeing? (Applause.)

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