Jakarta, 22 February 2022. PT XL Axiata Tbk (XL Axiata) provides active support for the organization of the G20 forum in Indonesia. The involvement is not limited to the provision of adequate telecommunications networks and services at each event location related to the G20, but also the discussion of one of the issues, namely women's empowerment and gender equality. President Director & CEO of XL Axiata, Dian Siswarini, has been trusted to serve as one of the leaders of the Women20 forum that will fight for issues related to women, among others, by advancing the women-owned MSMEs sector.
Dian Siswarini said, "The Covid-19 pandemic has created new obstacles in our efforts to fight for women's empowerment and gender equality in various economic fields. In fact, these two things are one of the keys to supporting economic growth globally. According to the World Economic Forum's calculation in 2021, in 2019 before Covid-19, it would take 100 years to close the global gender gap. Now, it will take 136 years to achieve gender equality. Therefore, the assumption is that it will be even harder for us to build the world economy.”
By serving as one of the Co-Chairs at the Women20 Forum, Dian will have the opportunity to encourage state and government leaders to put women at the center of economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. As the highest leadership figure in one of the leading telecommunication companies in Indonesia, Dian Siswarini will also convince all parties in the G20 forum about the need to utilize digital technology facilities to empower women, including in the small and medium business sector or MSMEs.
Seizing economic and social benefits through increasing women's access to digital technology is one way that can be done to achieve gender equality, according to McKinsey data, 2018. Dian Siswarini believes that technology is an important factor to increase women's inclusiveness in realizing a stronger economic recovery. It is in line with the focus on economic inclusion as one of the priority issues for Women20 in 2022.
Within the focus of this issue, Women20 will look for ways for G20 countries to broadly support women-run MSMEs as part of a recovery strategy and inclusive economic growth now and in the future. In addition, G20 countries will also be encouraged to build a strong ecosystem to support women's MSMEs. Finally, how to maximize the use of digital platforms to support women-owned MSMEs will also be discussed.
XL Axiata itself has a corporate social responsibility program called “Sisternet” which aims to improve the welfare of Indonesian women. Starting in 2015, Dian Siswarini initiated the Sisternet program that has organized various digital literacy programs to empower women.
The Sisternet program has held more than 300 self-development classes for women. A total of more than 400 thousand women small business owners participated in the educational classes on the use of these digital facilities. To date, more than 40 thousand women-owned MSMEs have received support from XL Axiata through the Sisternet application that can be downloaded via the Apple App Store & Google Playstore.
Women20 raises four priority issues, namely: First, Discrimination & Equality, that is promoting equality, safety, and welfare by eradicating discriminatory policies that interfere with women's participation in the economy. Second, Economic Inclusion, that is achieving economic inclusion by supporting MSMEs owned and run by women. Third, Marginalized Women, that is empowering rural women and women with disabilities. Fourth, Health, that is gender-equal health response.
During previous G20 Presidencies, the gender focus in the overall declaration had not been that great. With this background, the main mission of the Women20 Presidency of Indonesia is to influence the high-level commitments to be issued at the G20 Summit (Communique) to include an agenda for women's empowerment and gender equality in G20 countries.