Women, Business and the Law 2023: Findings and Reform Efforts in the Middle East

Tuesday, May 9 // 12–1:30 pm (ET)

The World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law 2023 report is the ninth annual report that analyzes laws and regulations affecting women’s economic opportunity in 190 economies. The Women, Business and the Law report measures explicit discrimination in the law, legal rights, and the provision of certain benefits that affect women as they move through their professional lives. It covers eight related areas: Mobility, Workplace, Pay, Marriage, Parenthood, Entrepreneurship, Assets, and Pension. Whether a 25-year-old starting her first job, a mother balancing work with caring for her children, or a woman preparing for retirement, the eight indicators show the ways in which laws affect women throughout their working lives.

This year, the report also includes research on 52 years of reforms for women’s rights and economic empowerment. The event aims at facilitating knowledge exchange on the report’s findings and discussing how to address existing barriers to women’s economic empowerment.

Still To Come This Week

The Sassoons: The Great Global Merchants and the Making of an Empire

Monday, May 8 // 4–5:30 pm (ET)

A spectacular generational saga of the making (and undoing) of a family dynasty: the riveting untold story of the gilded Jewish Bagdadi Sassoons, who built a vast empire through global finance and trade—cotton, opium, shipping, banking—that reached across three continents and ultimately changed the destinies of nations. With full access to rare family photographs and archives.

Ukrainian Wartime Art: A Decolonial Perspective

Tuesday, May 9 // 11:00 am–12:00 pm (ET)

Artistic documentation of war and anti-colonial resistance reflects Ukraine's tectonic change in response to Russia's ongoing invasion of the country. In this lecture, George F. Kennan Fellow Svitlana Biedarieva will examine Ukrainian wartime art from 2014-2023 to demonstrate how a generation of Ukrainian artists has produced new cultural narratives and critically dismantled prior conceptions of Ukrainian identity as a postcolonial state entangled with Russian cultural influences.

Tackling Climate Super Pollutants in China

Tuesday, May 9 // 2:30–4:15 pm (ET)

Climate super pollutants, like methane, nitrous oxide, and HFCs, heat the earth faster than carbon dioxide. At the COP 26 climate talks in Glasgow, climate envoy Xie Zhenhua announced that China’s 2060 carbon neutrality target also included reductions in these pollutants. Nitrous oxides, generated by industrial processes, agriculture, and wastewater management, are 300 times more potent than carbon. More stringent regulation of these pollutants could reduce the short-term climate warming trend by more than half over the next few decades.

Reigning in the Methane Hoofprint of Cows in California

Wednesday, May 10 // 12–1:15 pm (ET)

California has long been a leader in tackling climate change, from technology-pushing policies for clean vehicles and major clean energy investments to spearheading the country’s largest carbon trading system. At this talk speakers from California will highlight how the state has accelerated climate action around methane from cows.