does their bidding, that is who put them in office. that is really what the story is about. here is your next book -- you've got a group of people who prosper and after they have that, it is power, and then it is control. they have control obama from start to finish, that is who is keeping him in office but you keep up the good work because you are really exceptional and thank you. host: all right, al. sharyl attkisson. guest: i don't think there was a question there but i hear his opinion. host: what you think about the relationship between the media and the media executives? you wrote about it in your book and the obama administration, the ties there. guest: i didn't really talk about it in the book but i'm aware in washington, d.c., many in the media have ties to government. i don't see that as the primary problem. exist andthose ties can be problematic and should be disclosed when they are

relevant, but the reason i didn't write much about it is i don't think that is the issue. i don't see it as the biggest problem. host: tucson, arizona, john, independent caller. caller: hi. the biggest problem i think you guys have is right here, right now, the amount of time you get people like me. you are willing to ask good ask why --willing to [indiscernible] ask of are going to operation mockingbird for the the 1960's --nce look at the symbol of hearst corporation -- host: john, what is your point? caller: let me finish, let me finish. there is a lot more to talk about that you won't talk about because you won't let me come on your show because you are afraid. host: phil in maryland.

caller: hi, thanks for being on the show, ms. attkisson. i do follow you or can i organize that you have had stories on both sides and that is helpful, but i think the recent writings and comments about and ghazi illustrated benghazi- about illustrate a problem. benghazi was heavily adjudicated by house republicans and an extensive report came out which more or less exonerated the obama administration. i think it speaks to the fact that these sorts of witnesses and folks that you were havealing in your writings not represented the general truths about that matter and i think it intensifies why some like me on the democratic side are skeptical of some of your work. guest: thank you. i have an entirely different interpretation of the report, as do the republican -- host: which report are we talking about? guest: house report on

benghazi -- he is talking about the intelligence committee report that came out recently, which the lead republican acknowledged is not any sort of exoneration or final word, that they look at a very tiny slice of the benghazi affair, confirming much of which i and others have reported, that there were some warning signs from all of not a specific time and date, but they were either ignored or not seen properly and more should have been done. he did not attempt to close the final word on many other issues come even though it has been mr. it is such -- misreported as such. in some cases it contradicted other witnesses that have testified behind closed doors -- for example, to the house armed services committee. in some cases it upheld other witnesses who have already testified that it is yet another report among many that sheds some light on the benghazi affair but as been spun propaganda-wise as some sort of exoneration or final word, and at least the republicans you oted say that is not the

case, but there has been a lot of misreporting about it and i understand why you might think that. piece of the a puzzle that the house selected benghazi committee that tries to put all this information together -- it will be a piece of the puzzle that they consider as they try to take all the contradictory, conflicting information. as far as i know, none of the information that has been me, by my sources, has been proven anything other than completely accurate, and usually was reported by those sources first before it was confirmed, sometimes months if not years later by others. and many of my sources are within the obama administration, so these certainly are not partisan republicans. in some cases they are lifelong democrats who felt really awful about the things that they saw and heard that night and step forward come sometimes at great peril to themselves and their careers, to tell what they saw as the truth. i reported a lot of that. as far as i know, all of my reporting stands 100%, and as you may know was nominated for

an investigative and the award and i'm very proud of it, so i will continue on the track. host: "the washington post" after the report came out had this editorial, "benghazi debunked." they point to this part of the report -- "there was neither a standdown order nor a denial of available air support and no american was left behind." asked mike rogers was about that, the republican, and he agreed there was contradictory information on that, and he says they went with the narrow slice of the people that they spoke to. we know from witnesses who were there that some say firsthand that they were told not to go -- whether the words "standdown" were sent or not, some people say yes, some people say no. there were several instances of people not allowed to do the job they were to do that night. again, they don't claim it is the final word but the press worked very hard to take this one report that is like many that have come about about

benghazi and tried to make it the final word. i'm not sure what it means, "benghazi debunked." the city of benghazi has been debunked? the idea that there was a controversy has been debunked? is true.hat this report confirmed that the spirit issues and problems that we previously knew that the administration had it denied initially. i think there is been a lot of spin about the report that is not quite accurate. special committee on benghazi, do you think that will be the final word? guest: i think that maybe the most complete picture. the problem with saying anything is the final word, to me, so many documents are being withheld by the government, so many areas of investigation have been been looked into. the intelligence committee, in veryew, these minis work hard in some cases to protect the interests of their committee, meaning the intelligence committee wants to

preferably make the intelligence community look as though they did their job. the house armed services committee, when they issued their findings and reports, they tend to make it look like the military did their job. everybody has got their own interests. the select committee will be a more well-rounded review of the conflicting information that is come out over the past couple of years, but with so much information missing, and so much time having lapsed between these attacks initially and the time of this investigation, i'm not sure anything will fairly be the final word. host: brenda is a republican in tallahassee, florida. caller: oh, yes, i just wanted to thank sharyl attkisson former boldness -- for her boldness and journalism. we appreciate people who can get out there and tell the truth. in her opinion, why is it that so many people that study journalism or graduate from up gettings end

into the news and becoming so far left? it is obvious in the media that they dominate right now. and that is my question. again, thank you very much for your boldness. guest: thank you. well, i'm not sure i see it quite the same way as you do. yes, i do think probably our more was liberals and conservatives, but most of my colleagues over time in my expense have worked very hard and successfully to keep their opinions and viewpoints out of their stories. but there are key gatekeepers who can work at any news organization in editorial positions that through their a publication or broadcast regardless of what reporters and producers on the ground produce and want to report. that has happened, in some cases perhaps increasingly so in the last couple years.

i think there are some managers and journalists in the business that either went to journalism school that didn't train about the importance of keeping your own viewpoints or preconceived notions out of your story or they didn't train through journalism at all. maybe they came up in politics or majored in things such as politics or current events and government and they got into the business, some of them, with the idea that they wanted to change people or make them think like they do. there are some reporters who believe they have the key to the right opinion on certain issues, and go about trying to prove that were to convince other people of their viewpoint, which is really not what journalists, news journalists should be doing. advocacy journalists, i suppose, can be doing that sort of thing. but most of the people i work with over the years at cbs and cnn and other places did not do that and did a very good job of keeping the personal opinions out of their stories. host: long beach, california. darrell is an independent. hi, darrell.

good morning. caller: i know, cheryl, your skills and abilities to reveal information probably our next to none. have you worked on about going into the propaganda station and what mr. kerry calls rt? you would be working with larry king, abby martin, and you would have been in road to doing an interview with mr. snowden. that is my comment. keep up the good work. guest: i have not talked to that particular news station but i have found a number that have allowed me to work on orphaned stories, and i'm seeking those outlets. fox: you were recently on talking about the cdc and ebola

numbers. what did you find out? when ebola dropped off the face of news coverage, it -- ande to suspect should not fall off altogether. i rely on sources to deal with infectious disease and some deal directly with the ebola crisis. they remain very much concerned. i spoke to cdc a couple of weeks ago and asked them how many were being people monitored when they come back from a country that is infected to make sure they do not have ebola, and at the time there cdc said cases the they were actively monitoring, but that seemed to me to be an important story, and when i asked where is the update on the website because cdc often will have a page for emerging and developing diseases and problems

and they will update that periodically, they said we're not putting this on the website. whenan call back and ask you want that update, and that said to me there has been a decision not to put up updates. panicking felt it was the public or it would be a better way to manage the news if the information was not so easily accessible. host: this is in "the washington post" this morning. there are sobering challenges to stop in the epidemic. thecdc director went to african countries & world of difference from his visit in august and september. saw a world of difference from his visit in august and september. people that are

very much concerned concerns are poorly how well or things are going in africa. as long as the epidemic is out bad, itol, surging, or puts us at increased risk, and they do not feel markedly safer today from that standpoint as to what is going on in west africa and they did a month or two ago. they are still very much on alert and it should be are no plates. the media should not hype the story, not scare people to death, but there is information that should be reported. host: indianapolis. our line for democrats. freddie. good morning. caller: good morning. please give me an opportunity to express what i have to say. it is very important. -- thathe word what your guest said. advocacy journalism. is an advocacys

journalism station. the reason i say that -- take a look at the demonstrations. fox news has their watchers believing al sharpton is the problem, or that black people follow al sharpton. community haslack said i am going out there because al sharpton directed me to. we asked sharpton to come and speak on our behalf and the reason being is because we know he has a big microphone. people will listen to him whether they believe him or not. people that are accusing sharpton and the followers of ,ox news or making statements black folks do not follow sharpton. we respond on our own.

that is 1.i wanted to make. there is a second point i wanted to make. are you still there? host: can you make it quick? caller: the second thing is regarding killing in black neighborhoods. black people are fully aware that black youth are killing one another in our neighborhoods. we are still not going to give the policeman the right to kill innocent black youth based on what troubled lack youth are doing. host: all right. i will leave it. cheryl atkinson, is there something there you want to ?eigh in on >> i cannot argue with his --guest: i cannot argue with his point. fox news certainly has advocacy on its network from time to time. it is not monolithic. i was on the media critic show

and the fox news reporter specifically said he did not , and i saidrpton the same thing, so not everything they say it along those lines, but he is probably right if he has heard some people expressed that, and i take his point about what he neighborhoodsck and i have not really been reporting on that. host: dd on twitter wants to know as investigative journalism and replaced by four-profit, salacious journalism? guest: in some instances, but those are separate things. there is some for profit journalism and some journalism that is designed as it might help and in florence -- it might interest in organization might have to please.

then there is journalism that is done just because it appeals to people's interests or it is something that might grab attention, not necessarily for the right reasons, but sometimes that is the case. host: in the book you write about some in the administration pleading with you to be reasonable. what is a reasonable journalist? guest: well, it depends on who you ask. the administration, in my view, based on my experience, thanks you are reasonable and a call and tell you a story is not a story and you agree with them, which is something they did quite often. they spent a lot of time, you can see from internal e-mails they tried to withhold, they spent a lot of time -- a lot of time trying to stop with a view as damaging reporting that because of incorrect or wrong, but because they do not want it

out. reasonable reporters are those that when they call and say this is not a story and hear his wife and they agree with them. reasonable -- what do reasonable reporters get in return? get a phone call and will be told about an initiative the government wants publicized or a viewpoint the government wants. i call that often propaganda. i do not think that is a great get, as we call it in the news, so i do not care if i am on the list or not, but i will tell you managers care. they want to get that phone call. and that is very limited news. a story the government would put out for free if nobody would reported, but they handed and it out like candy.

much of ahink it is reward because that is not the kind of reporting that i care to do anyway, putting out the line of a press release that the corporation of a government wants out. host: our line for republicans. gary. texas. you are on with sharyl attkisson . caller: i wondered if you learned anything more about the government hacking into your computer, and the mainstream media reports on north korea corporation, a big but they did not talk about you being hacked by our own government. finally, when the new congress takes over, will any of the investigative committees look into our own government hacking into your computer? i will listen to your thoughts. the first question is

have we learned anything new -- yes. i have new information, but i'm not prepared to talk about that today, but we have learned quite a bit through three forensic exams and a lot of hard work by people who have wanted to help out. hopefully more information about that for people that are interested will be forthcoming. there were people inside of cbs when i worked there that were in communication with me and were asking why weren't we as cbs doing this as a major story and a couple of them said it was bigger than watergate, wired we reporting on this -- why aren't we reporting on this ourselves that i do not have the answer. let's say whoever did the intrusion -- we do not even know who did it -- isn't it significant and outrageous that a journalist's personal and professional commuter were -- byed remotely that

people that looked through the benghazi file, the fast and furious photographs? i cannot explain why more people are not outraged but i agree that it seems to me there should be and should have been a bigger response from the press. long was the hacking or infiltration going on -- it was not just your computer, but your phone system as well -- your home phone? it is hard to tell. we know certain points where things were done, but we cannot necessarily tell where the first thing was done. date where we knew things happened, dates and times where we knew these remote intrusions were refreshed using a satellite terminal or a wi-fi from a ritz-carlton. we know the intruders, after i became aware of this, came in and try to erase their tracks. we have come to see this because

erasing tracks lee's tracks that can be -- leaves tracks that can be analyzed. are you paying for this out of your own pocket? the first examination was done by a confidential source as a favorite and the second was done by cbs news. the third is someone that i hired, a computer forensic expert that has continued to work to build on the debt of the other two have gotten. to releaseo you plan this information, what you discovered? to my i am deferring attorney. i am sure you -- sure he will have a plan. host: pursuing legal actions? guest: we are looking at legal

actions, yes. host: what are they? guest: i have to defer to him. host: timeline? guest: i do not have a timeline, but in the not-too-distant future there will be information he can release publicly or will want to release publicly. host: linda. virginia. caller: thank you, c-span. sharyl attkisson, i think you are wonderful. i do not know if she saw the press conference held by the president before he left for hawaii, and he began to address the news people this way. he said "i have a list of nice," and he said he would call on this person and then said you are naughty, i am not going to call on you. to me, this is the meaning to

the press -- demeaning to the press and i would take that and run with it because it not only shows is the integration of the press, but the arrogance he has adopted in the presidency. -- nancy nancy poulos pelosi said let's pass this bill , then read it, but i have not seen nsa or statement in "the wall street journal" or anything essay oren an statement in "the wall street journal" or anything that said let's look at nancy pelosi. she stood up in front of immigrants and said do not listen to them, you are welcome into this country. bring more. thing -- congress has criticized obama because he has not sat down with congressman and did what president johnson

did, have a meeting, may be have age rink together, and really understand -- drink together, and really understand where these people are coming from. he has not put himself in the place where he can get give and take. he is an arrogant man. i also want to say something about the two black men that served in congress. the gentleman that said the policeman that shot brown, more or less he should not be innocent-- hitting people. brown was not innocent. we have tapes of him running into a store and assaulting the owner. i would not call that a person who was not a criminal. host: a lot there. she did not mean to do men that served in congress. -- thank you for your

opinions. i do not have comments on two of your three points. i am not a political reporter. as far as the press conference, it is interesting as what i'm sure the president intended as a lighthearted exchange in a way revealed that illustrated how they view things and how they administer favors and information at the white house, probably not just this administration, but handing out goodies, as i have said in the past, to those that are nice, and retaliating against those who are naughty. and compton said the president had called reporters in, including her on two occasions, and used obscene language to discuss his displeasure with things the press was doing, and i feel that was inappropriate, not the language, per se, because i'm not naive enough to

think that talk does not go on all the time, but to act in a way where the reporters are subordinate to the whims and wishes of the administration, when in fact, my view is we are watchdogs of the federal government and administration and we are on equal footing in some respects. not in terms of stature, of course, we're not elected officials, but in terms of our goal to protect the public's interest, and watch out for that sort of thing. it strikes me when we have written letters to the white house in the past couple of years and pointed out that they have made things that raise constitutional concerns in their behavior toward the press. we have rejected many things i have done, but it is almost as though we the press are asking for a favor by the administration -- please abide by the constitution, do not treat us this way, but instead we should be treating ourselves as if we are on equal footing

and demanding we reserve our rights and be treated the way the constitution intends. we have made ourselves somewhat subordinate unnecessarily to the administration. host: you write about having a back-and-forth with one administration official where "he replied to me he has no intention of giving the answers you want guest: he was basically saying ati believe that was tommy the white house. i was insisting on answers to questions about public information, and i was

continually stonewalled, so at some point when i rewrote the questions and sent them, and reminded him they were outstanding, he said he would not answer them unless i took certain actions and i said i'm not required to take actions, you are required to give us information and i said we pay your salary. he wrote back and said "thank you for my paycheck." i said that is not the point. we expect information that is public to be turned over on request. in the past, officials have tried to control information -- in other words, we do not want to give this to you because we do not like how you will use it. they do not have that power and control. the law says so. that is what some freedom of information laws and state laws specifically say. it is not up to the entity to ask how it will be used. public information is public information and we should resist

all the attempts to try to control how we are going to use it or whether it is released based on what we plan to report. sarah in host: sterling, virginia. democratic calling. her on i wanted to ask if she has done investigative reporting on congress withholding funds for the upgrade of embassies around the world. this has been going on for the past 20, 30 years. we only have marine security guards inside of the embassy to protect it. rent-a-cop on the outside and that is something the state department has to deal with with the host country. every time people have gone from the state department, they have to go down to -- begging, and it started with helms asking for money to upgrade the security and that was a big story nobody

bothered to investigate and thus you have something like benghazi. on embassy in tel aviv sits a main street. it has no protection whatsoever, but they do not have the funds to move the embassy or upgrade anything at all. host: ok, sarah. we will have sharyl attkisson jump in. guest: i have seen reporting on that. it has been well-covered by some outlets. she is right about that as far as i can tell, but in benghazi it has been well established and administration officials have acknowledged it was not a matter of funding. in fact, some of the measures rejected by headquarters would not have caused the government anything, such as retaining the special military team, the security team that was offered at no expense to the state department for as long as they needed it. specialists, basically swat team terrorists specialist would have been there had they been allowed

to stay. it was no cost to the state department. they rejected that. in the case of benghazi, while she is correct that there have been shortfalls and our embassies that are not well protected and there have been complaints, i am not sure that was a key factor in benghazi. interestingly, it was a similar situation years ago in bombing that occurred in west africa, and some of the same people were in charge of the state department. patrick kennedy, others that were there at the time. some of the same mistakes were made about financial problems, and yet again, some offers of help had come from the military but were rejected at the time when one of the ambassadors said we are not well-protected. we need a new building. there are always funding questions and there will probably never be enough money to suit and satisfy every single diplomatic post around the

world, so decisions have to be made and resources have to be meted out. there were so many red flags about terrorism, including rights that occurred before the u.s. attack with specific warnings that the benghazi compound would be attacked and al qaeda was in town. it was common knowledge. the idea was not more money needed to be spent, but how did we miss warning signals? host: arizona. andy is watching. republican. caller: good morning. sharyl attkisson, i just finished your book. i think it is outstanding. everything you have done -- i think it is a shame what this administration has done to suffocate you. other point, the book out, hasdead in benghazi," why

n't anyone asked who this gentleman was that told him to stand down? we love you. keep up the great work. guest: i do not know about the bob person. do you? host: i do not. i do not know the reference either. you know the book? host: --guest: i may have, but i have not read that one. host: you write in your book the questions that you had. do many of those questions still remain and when the special committee finishes the work, it what questions do you hope they -- what questions do you hope they answer? guest: some of the questions remain, but new questions have arisen as more information comes out that conflicts previous information. i still would like to know what president obama did that night.

we do not need to know every step he took and every little word he uttered, but the lack of to tell us of them anything that happened overnight, the decisions the commander-in-chief made while americans were under attack on foreign soil -- there can be nothing i can think of that is more in the public interest, yet it has been shrouded in secrecy. it is an important request to answer. you made a request to white house photography to get pictures of where he was that night. was that granted? guest: no. we requested white house photos taken that night because if you know how the white house works, a photographer is omnipresent. he would have been there taking photographs of the president that night, so we asked for the pictures, and they are paid for with tax dollars, and they

release them when they want the middle east. when theyoffice -- want them released. the photo office suddenly started referring us to a deputy press secretary, josh earnest, who is now press secretary, and they said he would have to approve it, and he would never return a call or e-mail. we would try to maintain communication with him or try to make munication with him over a long period of time, and you would not answer. we would go to the press office and say you have given us an impossible task, talking to someone who will not talk to us. you need to give us another route, and they would say you have to talk to josh earnest. that was a dead-end road. it is unacceptable. press officers work for the public. they are publicly paid to be responsive. those white house photos belong to the public in my view to the extent that they would not

reveal national secrets. to this day, they remain secret. i will be just insane whatever they shall. host: any other answers? guest: we still do not know they answers to the question about who decided to put out the anecdote about the youtube video knowing that they had concluded it was an act of terrorism and the video was not to blame. at one meeting was the idea distributed? whose brainchild was it? we know jay carney, the white house secretary, hillary clinton, president obama, they were all on the same page. there had to be some meeting where this idea was disseminated, and we still have little information about that. matt in michigan. independent color. caller: thank you for taking my call. a brief follow-up on the

benghazi investigation you did. there isn't a point once you discovered that your communications and computer had been monitored and hacked, that you thought seriously about dropping your investigation, and to this day do you ever fear what may happen to you in the future based on uncovering very sensitive information? thanks for taking my call. guest: no. i never thought about changing course. in fact, if anything, it makes me more determined, and i do not worry about my future or fate based on what i am doing. host: do you know if the hacking of your computers and tapping of your phone continues? guest: i have not had analysis done. i have not bothered to do it because what my forensics experts taught me was if people that are the sophisticated who did what they already did, if

they want to get into your computer system, there's nothing you can do to get them out. in the end, it is pointless, so i do not waste my time trying to figure all of that out. i just assume, kind of as i always did, that someone could get into your computer. i think most of us know that, whether it is your corporate bosses who have the right to get into your computer, or hackers -- you have to operate as if it is being watched. nevada.no, republican caller. caller: hello. thank you for taking my call. -- her views on the lack of vetting obama when he first ran for president. the mainstream media, when sarah palin was announced as a vice president nominee, they dug in her trash, but when obama was

announced, they did no vetting. he had no experience in management. he never had a job. why didn't the american -- mainstream media that into some him inble degree -- vet some reasonable degree? guest: i am not challenging what you are saying, but i do not personally know there was no vetting. if we look, i'm sure there are some stories that might have looked into controversies in depth, but i think what he means is there were not as widespread of media coverage of the controversies like there might have been if a republican had the same controversies in his past, and he is probably right about that. i call that substitution gain in my book, and i cannot explain why that is the case, but many times when you look at how a

topic or politician is treated by the media, and you substitute that person with someone from the opposing party, and you say to yourself would that have been treated the same way if this person had done the same thing, i think you will have to conclude the answer is the treatment is sometimes disparate, and there was a sense of the media in general, certainly not everyone, but rooting for this president. a lot of people were excited, including journalists, about having an african-american president, someone that promised more transparency than ever. the idea that a president will issue a directive that gives you more tools to do your job and try to reverse something that had been going wrong in recent years -- that is very exciting. healthcare.gov, we were a little bit asleep at the switch in some respects, we

in the media, perhaps we wanted to see something succeed and we saw a need for it and we did not dig with full vigor into some of the controversies that probably where there. roger in sanford, florida. you're on the air with sharyl attkisson. go ahead. caller: thank you for nonpartisan c-span and the work that you do. thank you, sharyl attkisson, for your courage and braves -- bravery. have you thought about collaborating with jayna davis, an investigative journalist to uncover the cover of by the clinton administration in oklahoma city on april 19, 1995? of that anniversary attack on our homeland will be next april. it will be of great value to the public interest for you to collaborate with geena davis to bring that truth out in which the clinton administration

covered up the involvement of al qaeda terrorists that collaborated with timothy mcveigh, and had the american and itknown that truth had not been covered up by the clinton administration, then the entire war on terror would have been recognized much earlier by the american people and 9/11 might not have happened, and the steps would have been taken to prevent future al qaeda attacks and 5000 soldiers dying in the iraq war. host: all right, roger. sharyl attkisson? guest: i am not familiar with that, but i will look it up and do some reading on it. host: oklahoma. democratic caller. ms. sharyld morning, attkisson. i love you on cbs.

i want to know on these network shows, when they have exclusive interviews -- does the network pay these people for it, and one more question, you would have been perfect on "60 minutes." guest: thank you. [laughter] what types of explosives. cbs had a policy, as far as i knew to not pay for interviews and exclusives, but that does not mean other favors might not take place. pay to flyight someone somewhere, of course, might pay to have their family fly in, have their hair and makeup done -- things like that, but generally paying for an interview or exclusive is heavily frowned upon in the news industry. there has been a blurring of lines. i talked about this in the book. now, notsee interviews

necessarily exclusive, on the so-called news, that look nothing more like nothing more more-- that look nothing than advertisements, like the ceo of taco bell getting an interview to talk about the new cool ranch doritos flavors. i think there might be some financial interest at play to explain why that apparent newstisement appears as a segment. there are many examples. soap had a news story at a time when i was seeing -- when nbc was seeking sponsorship. there are things taking place on the news that are not really direct payments. host: here is a question from twitter --viewers on

why was our ambassador in benghazi, or was he arranging with cia for weapons to transfer to syrian rebels, now known as issiis? guest: i do not know exactly what he was doing. there was a gap between principal officers serving in benghazi so you intended to be there for a couple of days during the gap. the state department knew about this despite the fact they implied they almost said they are not even sure they knew he was down there. that was part of communications. could find for sure was that he was there dealing with feed a principal officer at an important post between other principal officers serving their. host: one last phone call. leo from jacksonville, florida. an independent. forer: hello, and thank you

taking my call. from the broader perspective of what you have been discussing -- we, the public, we do not need, nor do we want, nor should the media be attempting to shape or direct public opinion. my question that i will to know your thoughts on, what can we do to bolster objectivity and transparency in what gets reported in the media? i believe in being informed and coming to my own conclusions. guest: good for you. i believe in that, too. even when i think i might have facts of a story, able to prove a corporation has provided false information, it is still up to you after that truth or those facts are reported as to how much you want to believe and what conclusions you draw from it. i agree that to often it seems -- and i did run into this at cbs, often, they want to shape whatever the public's conclusion

is going to be, and i found myself saying a couple of times it does not matter what the public concludes. we have to put the facts out there. wem not trying to tell them have to find the same conclusions i may have drawn based on evidence and documents. i wholeheartedly agree with him and i would just say i do not have the answer, but keep drawing attention when you see journalism that you think is unfair or trying to point you falsely in a direction that is overstepping its bounds. point it out and draw attention to it. host: where can people find your reporting now? guest: i try to cross-post anything i write on a website. host: also active on twitter. the book is "stonewalled -- my fight for truth against the forces of obstruction,

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>> up next, former secretary of state hillary clinton talks about women and business and their potential impact on the global economy. this event was held at georgetown university. >> well, good afternoon, everyone. it's a pleasure to welcome all of you for joining us for this very special event. today we celebrate the international council on women's business leadership previously established at the state department and now

relaunched here at georgetown's institute for women, peace, and security. now, on this occasion we have the privilege of hearing reflections on the power of women's economic participation from the founder of the council , the honorable hillary clinton . it's always a pleasure welcoming secretary clinton to our campus. and i will have the honor of introducing her in just a moment. but first, i wish to say just a few words about the council. the international council on women's business leadership was found bid secretary clinton during her tenure as the 67th united states secretary of state. the mission of the council is to examine the most pressing issues as they pertain to women's economic participation. members of the council include prominent global women leaders from the private sector, government, and civil society. we will have the chance to hear

from four distinguished members a little later in the program. the issues that the council will focus on are deeply rezznant with the mission of this university. the economic empowerment of women, the promotion of gender equality, equal access to capital and markets, and the building of capacity and skills all reflect our tradition of social justice, our commitment to equal opportunity, and our dedication to the common good. these issues are at the very heart of how we at georgetown conceive of our place and our global family. i wish to express my gratitude to ambassador for her ongoing leadership of the georgetown institute for women peace and security, and for her vision in welcoming the council to georgetown. at this moment in time, we recognize that no nation can achieve its fullest potential

economic or otherwise if any segment of its population is abused, neglected, oppressed, or disenfranchised. if their voices and talents are ignored, their promise and possibility remain unrealized. it is in this context that we are greatly honored to how's the international council on women's business leadership and believe deeply in the impact that it can make throughout our world. in the words of secretary clinton, including more women at the top of organizations, businesses, and the public sector is not just the right thing to do. it's the smart thing to do. it's good for business, it's good for results. so it is now my honor to introduce our speaker today for nearly four decades and in various rolls secretary clinton has championed women's issues.

she has strengthened opportunities for women's political, economic, and social engagement ch. and has long been a voice for the disenfranchised. in her speech in beijing in 1995 she declared that human rights are women's rights, and women's rights are human rights. in a defining moment for the global women's rights movement. throughout her career of service and advocacy, then as first lady, next as united states senator, and most recently as secretary of state, she has worked not only to highlight women's contributions but to create and institutionalize new policies. her efforts continue to ensure greater recognition of the rolls of women in economic development, peace building, and political systems around the world. here at georgetown we are honored by her dedication as the honorary founding chair of

our institute for women peace and security. now, ladies and gentlemen, it is my deep privilege to introduce to you and welcome to he stage the honorable hillary odham clinton. >> hello, georgetown. oh, my goodness. hello. thank you al very, very much. and it is always great to be back at georgetown. ajoya to thank president not only for those kind remarks

but for his real understanding and commitment to the issue that we are here to discuss today, and that is the empowerment and participation of women and girls, and in particular in the economy. before i turn to that subject, i want to express my personal eelings about the loss of dean carol lancaster. carol was a great colleague over the last years, i traveled with her, worked with her, and when i was secretary we looked for and created a lot of partnerships with the school of foreign service. and so my thoughts and prayers are with carol's family and friends, and the entire university community. she would really love to have been here because she would have heartly approved of this

gathering and she was instrumental in the creation of the first ever anywhere in the world georgetown institute for women peace and security. so for me this is yet another wonderful opportunity to talk about the work that georgetown is doing in partnership with so many others. and the model that georgetown is providing through the institute which is on the brink of being replicated in other places around the world who recognize the significance of taking the subject of women peace and security and integrating them within a world-class academic institution like georgetown. one of the partners, one of the new partners for the institute

is the international council on women's business leadership. this is a council that i started with ambassador brevir when i served as secretary of state because we understood from the data that we were able to gather and what we saw as the challenges confronting women here at home and around the world that economic participation needed much more attention. and i was very pleased that so many women business leaders from around the globe were willing to join this council and the council has now moved to establish its permanent home from the state department to georgetown. and leaders have traveled from across the world from every hemisphere, every continent, to

participate. and i want to particularly to hank the cochairs sherry blare nd beth broom marcianic who is traveling in asia. i am deeply grateful to my friend, the first ambassador for global women's issues for spear heading much of this work. when we first convened this council at the state department in january of 2012, there may have been a at the state departt in january 2012, there may have been a few foreign policy traditionalists thinking, is it really worth a secretary of state's time to start a program on women's economic participation? is this related kind of -- is this really the kind of issue that demands sustained and high-level attention?

as i wrote about in my book, "hard choices come cut which describes the four years that i was privileged to service secretary, the answer for me is very clearly yes. when you are in a position in a world that we have around us today, you are of course have to deal with the immediate crises, with the brewing crises, with the crises over the horizon, but you also have to look for ways of leveraging the kind of outcomes that you hope are achievable here in our country . and more importantly, around the world, that will lead to greater peace, prosperity, and progress. of course there is a very compelling moral case to be made. we should never shy away from or quit saying that women's rights are human rights. and human rights are women's rights.

there's also a pragmatic economic case that undergirds that moral imperative. aremember in the 1990's as first lady traveling across africa, everywhere i looked i saw women working. i saw them working in their fields, in their market stalls, water, fire work, selling crafts. i asked some of the economist we were meeting with, how you evaluate the contributions that women make to the economy? i will never forget. one reply, we don't. because they don't participate. now, what he meant was classic economic analysis -- he meant the formal economy. the economy of the jobs one does in offices or factories. the work that sustained families, that created opportunities for these women to gather some income in the markets or to produce enough food to feed their families with

maybe a little left over, it was just not counted. that got me thinking. what would happen if women stopped working in the informal economy? i said to the economist, wouldn't your analysis mean that you would not be counting what they were doing in the informal economy, but the economy would stop? he said, yes, that is a point. [laughter] it is a point we are finally beginning to grapple with. it is true that if more women have the opportunity to participate fully in the formal economy, they, their families and their communities, will prosper. for example, we know that in india, where women spend an average of six hours a day performing unpaid labor, the

gross domestic product would grow by $1.7 trillion if women participated in the formal labor force at the same level as men, or even if the work they were now doing, like in those market stalls -- if their activities were more respected, they would be included in the calculation of the formal economy. i know there must be some economics students here. i hope you will think about this issue. how do you evaluate the work in the so-called informal economy? yes, we do want more women to move from the informal economy to the formal economy. that is what the council is focused on. we also want, insofar as it is possible, to evaluate the contributions from the informal economy. unfortunately, a new global report released this week confirms that despite some small improvement, the gender gap in

economic participation and opportunity remains high around the world. the consequences are significant. if we closed that gap in workforce participation between men and women around the world, gdp would grow by nearly 12% by 2030. at the state department, as we began to try to integrate women's participation, opportunities, and rights into our foreign-policy objectives, we began to look for and ask for the creation of more data. if you present this kind of data about what it would mean for the gross domestic product of nations and regions, and even of the world that is accessible and compelling, heads start nodding, even among skeptical leaders in

the public and private sectors. that is why at the clinton foundation, my daughter chelsea and i are heading up an initiative called no ceilings. we are collecting and analyzing a vast amount of data to map out the gains women and girls have made in the past 20 years since the conference in beijing, but also to highlight the gaps that remain. nearly two decades after the united nations' fourth world conference on women in beijing called for in the platform for action full participation it in every aspect of society, a growing number of leaders have come to understand how important this is. they see that we cannot afford to leave talent on the sidelines or money on the table. we began rolling out our thinking behind this agenda at the conference concerning the

asia pacific economic community .he u.s. was sponsoring in 2011 aipac san francisco -- apec san francisco is an example of the momentum building. it focuses on the obstacles women face in business, access to capital, access to markets, skills training, capacity building, and leadership. these challenges have guided the work of this council as well. let's look at two, access to capital and leadership. globally, researchers estimate that the financing gap for women-owned businesses where the greatest acceleration of growth occurs -- that is where most of the jobs come from -- that gap between financing women's businesses and men's businesses is around $285 billion. yet, we know that if more women have access to credit, more businesses would get off the

ground, more jobs will be created, more revenue generated. similarly, women still face fewer opportunities to rise up the corporate ladder and hold leadership positions. only 5% of the ceos of fortune global companies are women. this is despite the fact that it has now been very convincingly shown that when women have a seat at the corporate board table, their perspectives often improve corporate governance and performance. through our council's partnership and our programs, we have made some encouraging progress in these areas, but we know there is more to be done. laws and regulations are still on the books in more than 100 countries that limit women's economic participation. there is a substantial gender gap in internet connectivity and

mobile use. that limits women's abilities to take advantage of new opportunities. and, as our economies evolve and women enter the workforce, new challenges emerge. when prime minister abe was elected in japan, he said one of the best things he could do to get the economy moving again would be to get more educated innovative women into the , workforce he called it womeneconomics. i talked with him about what he meant by this and what his government was trying to do about it. he spoke about the obstacles discouraging japanese women, educated women in a highly developed country, from entering the workplace and the cultural

shift needed to break down those barriers and expanding flexibility in the workplace, access to child care and elder care would boost productivity and allow more parents, men as well as women to work full days. is a difficult problem. as prime minister abe explained, japanese women are primarily responsible for both childcare and elder care. there are not the kind of alternatives that exist in many other societies. there is a very low rate of immigrant labor coming into the country. there is not a workforce that can be put to work. when he talks about trying to get women into the formal economy, he is opening the door to the whole debate around work-family balance and around the care that is necessary to be provided. there is nothing more important

than caring for one's family members. how is that accomplished in a way that will benefit individual families and the entire country? we face obstacles here in the united states as well. four in 10 primary breadwinners are now women. yet american women still make less than men for doing the same job. the lack of flexible and predictable scheduling, affordable childcare, paid sick leave and paid leave, we are one of the few countries without it. it keeps too many women on the sidelines. a few weeks ago, while we were in the hospital waiting for our granddaughter to make her grand entrance, one of the nurses came up to me and said thank you for fighting for paid leave. she went on to tell me that she sees families every day who struggle to balance work and parenthood. in fact, she does it herself

even while she is taking care of someone else's baby, her thoughts are with her own. who is watching her child? what if her child gets sick? how will she be in two places at once? this is the constant interior dialogue that goes on for the vast majority of women, mothers in our country. so we know that we have made progress. the women on this council are are clear evidence of that. and some of the brightest minds in the world are gathered here. business leaders, diplomats, heads of multilateral organizations, senior government officials, issue experts -- and they are helping us think through how we solve these challenges. i will give you a great example we just heard about from our council. one of our councilmembers from indonesia said she had done a

study of markets because most of the people, 90% of the people working in markets, which is still the place where most of the people in the world, not supermarkets but real, on the ground local markets, get their food, get their goods that they need to run their households -- she did a study. 90% of the people working in the markets are women. there are no toilets available for women in the numbers that they represent. think about it. it is such a simple thing. there is certainly no childcare. so is there a safe place you can leave your child while you are bustling around trying to sell in the marketplace? and maybe your hours are going to be severely restricted because there is no place to use

a restroom. i recently met with my husband with the new prime minister of india, prime minister modi. he is very focused on basics like sanitation. girls, as they get older, cannot go to school if there is no sanitation. women can't get very far from home because there is no toilet. so we in this council are looking at everything from truly the most basic barriers that enable girls and women to go on to higher education, enable them to be in the workforce away from their homes for some period during the day, all the way to how do we get more women on corporate boards and into executive positions. we are really here today to invite the students of georgetown to help us problem solve, to think through ideas

that you might be either aware of or thinking about and share with the institute for women peace and security as we continue this work. in a few minutes, there will be a panel discussion with leaders from the united kingdom, israel, indonesia, and the united states. so we can get into more depth on some of these issues. but this is finally on the global agenda. we have come a long way since i had those discussions back in africa in the 1990's where it just didn't register that there was a problem. they were in the informal economy. everybody knew that but it did not count for anything. there was no real effort made to open the doors to try to help more women get into the formal economy. so we need to be looking at what has worked in communities around the world. we need to scale and sustain past ideas, collaborate, bring

more models that have a great partnership between the public and the private sector and civil society because, if you look at the data that has been generated by the world bank, by the imf, by the oecd, by private sector analysts, we, in a time where the global growth rate is not yet what it needs to be, it is not fully fully recovered from the great recession and crisis of 2007, 2008, 2009, we have made more progress comparatively in the united states but we still have millions of americans who have not recovered their income, who don't have job security, who are long-term unemployed. so why would we ignore any solution that might work?

and if you look at the data, and i invite you all to do that and we are going to be producing more data through the clinton foundation no ceilings initiative, it is very clear that the more women we can get to participate fully and get paid equal pay for equal work, the faster our economy will recover and economies across the world likewise. the gdp projections that have been calculated, if we could get women's labor force participation to equal men's are really staggering. in developed countries, it could be eight percent, 9%, 10%. us in a increase in gdp over the next 15 or 20 years. in less developed countries coming to be 30% to 40% so this issue about how we create jobs in the global economy today, for men and for women, have we

-- how we really help prepare young people for the jobs that are going to be available through education and training. this is going to be one of the most significant questions for public policy and for private-sector decision-makers. as those of you who are students here graduate and go into the world of work, we need more entrepreneurship. we need to encourage more young people to start businesses. we need more seed capital. we need more crowdfunding. we need more access. we need more mentoring. and teaching about business plans and how you deal with the economy and the stresses you will face. we have a whole menu of issues that will be relevant to men and women. but if we pay some extra attention to getting women into the formal economy, it will be good for everybody. we cannot get ahead in the united states or anywhere by

doing what we used to do. because that is not the world in which we live today. we have to unlock the potential of every person and grow the economies of every nation. it is the only way we are going to be able to grow together and create a middle-class that is dynamic and strong and creating jobs and opportunities for generations to come. with this new grandchild of ours, we spent a lot of time looking at her -- [laughter] and a lot of time thinking about what we want to do for her and there certainly is no doubt that her parents and her grandparents and her extended family will do all that we can to make sure she has every opportunity to fulfill her own god-given potential. but we also worry about the world that she will inherit as an adult.

what will be the opportunity available to her and to others in 20 to 25 years as they enter adulthood? here in our country, we call it the american dream. others have different variations on that, but we have always believed that every generation, by working hard, can do better than the last. we have been confident and optimistic through hard times. we have rebounded. we have shown resilience. but we need to make some adjustments. our system has to be better prepared to deal with the realities of the world we are in today. you are getting great preparation here at georgetown, one of the premier places for your education. but you should not have to be someone who goes to georgetown or, in our case, the granddaughter of a former

president who also happened to go to georgetown. [laughter] to be given the tools and to have the support of your community as well as your family. bill and i talk a lot. we came from different backgrounds. but boy, did we have extraordinary opportunities. he, from arkansas, me, from outside of chicago. in addition to the public schools and the public parks, and the stable economic opportunities that were patched together by our respective families over time, the hard work that went into that, we believed that there was this unlimited potential out there. that is what i want you to believe. but not just you. people your age not very far from here who maybe didn't finish high school, maybe are in

the workforce, could not dream of being in this magnificent gaston hall, but who are part of our larger community, our web of responsibility. we will do so much better if we remember that we should find a way to help everybody. and this council is looking specifically about how we help girls and women to fulfill their own economic potential. thank you all very much. [applause] >> so now to

>> so now to expand on what secretary clinton said about doing what every country wants to see, grow its economies, create jobs, ensure inclusive prosperity for its people, we are going to have a conversation among four remarkable women who, as you heard, come from four parts of the world. and they comprise the sectors that need to work together. the so-called golden triangle, the private sector, government, and nonprofit/civil society philanthropy. after we have a conversation among ourselves, we will open this to the students for questions. so think about what you might want to ask them. i will ask the panelists, as i introduce you, if you would please come forward and take your seats.

i want to welcome back cherie blaire. blair heads the cherie foundation for women which supports entrepreneurs in developing countries, providing them with skills, technology, networks, and access to capital so they can better contribute to their economies. she has had a distinguished legal career and is well known for her work in human rights law. today, she also chairs on the strategy, a law firm. she is married to the former prime minister of the u.k. tony blair. cherie, happy to have you. [applause] anne finucane is the global

strategy and marketing officer for bank of america. and a member of the company's executive management. she also leads bank of america's corporate social responsibility program which uses the capabilities of the company and its global platform to work with a range of partners. she has repeatedly been on every list as one of the most powerful women in banking. anne, we want to welcome you back to georgetown. pangestu is the former minister of trade and later the minister for tourism and the creative economy in indonesia. she is a powerful leader who has been called the woman behind indonesia's economic growth. she is regarded as a well-known economic expert on trade and she has also been on the faculty of economics in the university of indonesia and is widely published as a professional economist. bear in mind that indonesia is southeast asia's most populous country and its largest economy. [applause]

ofra strauss is the chairperson of the board of the strauss group. an international corporation with a portfolio of five companies and thousands of employees around the world. she, too, has been ranked among the top business women in the world from "forbes" to "financial times. she is also the president of jasmine, a program that works with jewish and arab women who are engaged in small and medium-sized businesses in israel. an example of effectively combining free enterprise and social responsibility. we welcome her with us today. [applause]

so thank you all for being here. cherie, we heard secretary clinton talk about the importance of women's participation in the economy and certainly the role that women entrepreneurs have in starting small businesses and growing them. their potential is largely untapped around the world. you have a foundation now that has been doing extraordinary work in training and mentoring women in entrepreneurship. give us a sense of what difference that makes and how you partner with others in a collaborative way to ensure that this work can go on. ifthe difference it makes you can get women to participate in the formal economy is vast. both for the economy itself and its growth, but also for the impact it has on their families and their communities.

research shows time and time again that women reinvest all the money that they make back into the home and into the wider community. so it makes good business sense to help women participate. as for the foundation, we have tried to work with small and medium-sized entrepreneurs in developing countries, in particular africa, the middle east and asia, to help them expand and grow their business, partly by giving them capacity training, partly by giving them opportunities for mentoring and particularly by harnessing the power of technology. i think one of the ways that we have done that most successfully is by not trying to do it all ourselves but by partnering with others. that is other nonprofit associations working in this area and also with the private

sector and with government. a great example of that is our mentoring platform which was highlighted in the international council of women business last report. in addition, we team up -- thanks to google, we now have a global mentoring platform that operates in 25 different -- and 55 different countries. and we have reached now nearly 1500 women mentees. we have match them with men and women mentors across the world . so how do we find our mentees? by partnering with other organizations, such as the u.s. state department and ngos that are already working in this area, asking them do they have women on their programs who would benefit from a consistent year-long support of two hours a month over the internet from somebody who tries to help them

grow and expand their business? where do we find our mentors? people come along and apply to join but we also have great business partnerships. for example, the partnership we have with anne and bank of america. 125 mentors from bank of america. as well as the individual partnerships on the platform, we also support the women so they can talk to each other. we have a network of information and advice. we recently entered into a great partnership with facebook where facebook now has a special area on facebook where they are giving our women mentees training on how to use facebook to expand and grow the marketing of their businesses. beenwill agree that it has very interesting to us, not only to see the impact this has made on the women themselves. overwhelmingly, 99% of the women

mentees in this last intake and increased their confidence. 94% of them gained in their business knowledge. 84% of them got new business opportunities because of the mentoring platform. what was interesting in bank of america is that 100% of the bank of america mentors also found that they grew in their own knowledge and confidence and experience of the world. which i think may bank of america rather happy. interestingly, we heard this today, too, in the council. often many women set up businesses and many of those is businesses do fail. 27% of our mentees with bank of america said, had it not been for the advice from their mentor, their business may have gone under. so i think we need to support women in this way. the great thing about the

internet is that it means i can be sitting in london or new york or in mumbai and i could be supporting a woman in kenya or in israel or in indonesia. so really, it is a resource for the world. >> thank you, cherie. mentoring and training are extremely important. i remember meeting with some young entrepreneurs and they all had developed a terrific business strategy and they wanted to really start their businesses and access to capital is not so easy. anne, you run a very big bank -- or you close to run that big bank. i am wondering how can financial institutions be more creative in responding to this need?

it is not just the world over without the united states. it includes the united states as well. i remember traveling with hillary clinton once when a woman in desperation said to her we have a terrific business plan. we know this is going to work. we have a niche, but we can't get that first loan. and then she said the best ideas die in bank parking lots. so how do we create a way to is enormousof thes challenge? certainly do not want people to die in bank parking lots. let me see if i can resurrect that a little bit. banks, at their best, are like a financial transportation system. they should be helping economies move forward through the

movement of money. it is true that for the most part you are giving small business loans or commercial loans to people that have a track record. when you don't have a track record, what do you do? that is true inside the u.s. and outside the u.s. one mechanism, a couple that we have tried to use and we are not alone, i think the financial services industry is getting more savvy about this. that would be through the use of cdfis. are community development financial institutions. they don't require the same amount of history in terms of making money or a game plan, but they do require a sort of hands-on approach. cdfis.ive money to the banks in turn give money to those with a lower credit rating

or no credit rating with some education. the banks are fueling this. they provide a below market lending rate to the cdfi's along with grant dollars. the cdfi can give to these early stage small companies, very small companies, from micro-finance up to $50,000, $60,000, even $200,000. it can be for housing but more specifically it is usually for small business. we have done a billion dollars of this kind of lending over the last several years. but we haven't focused our attention on women's small businesses, very small businesses, as much as we could have. in the last year or two, we have in the u.s. taken a very specific amount of money, $10 million worth of lending, and worked with elizabeth street capital tory burch in trying to find these women and get the movement going. we are beginning to work with cherie outside the u.s. through the calvert foundation.

it is a partnership. it is not one thing. it is a bank, a nonprofit and a third party. a government sort of exercise to get some money flowing's -- into these businesses, very small businesses. >> ofra, let's move to another kind of challenge. creating small and medium-sized businesses, the accelerator of growth in the economy. a couple of years ago, i visited the jasmine project in tel aviv which was working to support arab and jewish small and medium-sized businesses run by women in israel. i later learned -- i did not know in my first visit, but i later learned you were instrumental in its leadership. and it was a project that was

indeed making a difference. so why did you get involved? you are a top businesswoman. why did you get involved in being so catalytic in making this project succeed? and you you think that business women and others in business, because we need all the good men in this, can contribute to efforts of peace and security? >> well, i have a few minutes to talk about my most important subjects, to talk about israel small businesses and peace. excuse me if i will not cover all of this in three minutes. >> you can go a little longer -- it is a very important topic. >> it starts really with the fact that i realize, like all of you in many ways, i was privileged.

i was privileged and really given the chance to be part of a great business which my grandmother, by the way, started. i thought it obvious. i thought, it's obvious i would get the chance. i thought, it's obvious that i was asked to work really, really hard. and if i prove myself, i will get any job i want in the world, by the way. the first opportunity was here in the u.s. i was accepted to work at estee lauder. it really starts with giving a chance to others and to me especially. when i became the chair of our business, i thought it's obvious that, if you work hard and you do everything you can, you get what you thrive. the first interview i gave as a chair, i was asked how is it to be a woman in the business world? i said, what do you mean?

and then i really realized, when i looked at the numbers, i was the only chairperson in tel aviv out of a hundred companies. so in the beginning was really nice to be by myself. really. but then i really realized it is not a case. and i really decided to use the fact that i am influential and, yes, it is not always that nice . really to help other women be part of the business world. for us in the business world, it is all about the bottom line so it is a business case. look at the numbers. you are all students here. there are articles. it is a great business case. it makes sense to invest in women. but still, i am involved in this issue for the last five years. and to move the needle it is difficult. like every business that we start, entrepreneurship, you

need a vision. you need a very detailed program to make it happen. so i am in this journey. i will share with you some of my experience and a lot of it is really not yet shown in numbers. so within our business, any business. in the p&l, we have expenses. one of them is really salaries or how much we pay. this is what we ask in any board meeting. and the other is how much we can spend on buying. two parts of the p&l, we can influence how much we pay but who do we pay for. so how many women do we have in our workforce? i started to measure it. i want 50-50 women in management and 50-50 women on everything we did and it will move and it will happen. no, it doesn't. so it is about education.

it is about students. it is about the next generation. it is about doing it together, the whole management, men and women. so this is within the organization. so then, it's about, ok, how much do we spend on procurement and buying. that is only the question i knew how to answer until i became one of the women council and and then i learned diversity in suppliers is an issue. so it's a long answer to how did i get to this thing which is called small businesses and actually, when i came back from our meeting, i asked a procurement manager in our company who do we buy from. he said, what do you mean? how many women-owned businesses? how many men?

he said, you never asked it. i said, ok, i started to ask. actually you know what? , it's about that. is about those questions. that is what it means, that it matters. it took us a year and a half to know exactly who are the owners of the businesses we buy from. that is how i actually said yes when i was asked to be the head of jasmine, which is a women-owned business. small, of course. what made a difference for me is that it is about jewish and arab-owned businesses. in every country, when you look at the diversity, women is not one color, one shape. no, it is about the same diversity. it's in the u.s. it is in every country. i had the privilege to be a chair for an organization that speaks in three languages, arabic, english and hebrew, because the women who are a part

of our organization do not speak one language. so inclusiveness is that. especially after the summer if , you open the news, it is about the war, aggression, all the things that we in the middle east suffer from. is an island. we are jewish and arab women sitting together. it is about our business. it is about empowerment it is , about making money, feeding family. it is about business. but it is also really talking about or looking at what does it mean when we share the same goals. the thing of peace, if you need an optimistic voice here, it can be done just because i can see it in jasmine. and we have this dream that one

day in every arab country, you and we willmines collaborate. at the moment, we really cannot because of the situation in the middle east. so women empowerment and women owned businesses is a movement. if we work together, and the u.s. is a vital voice. if you ask yourself, you americans, if it is important that you express your opinion, that you will influence, i can say very clearly yes. democracy matters. thank you all. [applause] >> so minister, we have gone from nonprofit area to business. you have been in government for many years with portfolios that are extremely important to the economy of indonesia.

how important is the partnership with government in all of this? and what are some of the challenges you had to confront in terms of -- and indonesia still confronts because this is still a continuing process, but in terms of moving women from informal economy to the formal economy and growing their role in the formal economy? >> thank you. i'm very pleased to be here today to share the experiences from an developing country and a viewpoint.'s to transform yourself from thinking about it and implementing policy is an interesting journey for me in the last 10 years in government. i was just reflecting just then where did the switch come from.

the switch came before i became the minister when i was working on the u.n. millennium goals on poverty alleviation. we were in africa and we were talking about village empowerment and how important it was to have decision-making done by the villagers, what the money would be used for to help the village. it turned out that, when you had en decide what they wanted the money to be used for, they wanted it to be used for a parabola so they could watch football. and the women wanted the money to be used for having a piping system so they didn't have to spend three hours a day getting water. that was kind of the light switch and me and said, ok, it's not just about women participation in the economy. it is even more basic than that. it is about the decision-making from the beginning as to what the money should be allocated to and that was an important lesson for me going into government, as to how important it was to involve the women in the

decision-making. we are not even talking about informal to formal. it is even more basic than that. so when we went into government, we had very much that in the back of our minds so that, when we were implementing policy, when you say mainstreaming gender, it sounds so good and so easy to do on paper. but when you actually try to implement it on the ground, it is not always that easy. so we tried very hard to think about it. and we always tried to influence the men, of course, because we were still -- even though we had doubled the number of women in the cabinet at the time from two to 4 -- [laughter] and our president was actually very open-minded and he gave important portfolios to women. i was in charge of trade and she was in charge of finance. we were relatively able to

influence the policy making. i will give you a few examples as to how in practice, if you actually have to think about it. secretary clinton mentioned the example of the traditional markets. as minister of trade, one of my first jobs was to revitalize traditional markets. that is all informal sector. 90% of the traders are women. 90% of the people who shop are women. when i went into the market, i was aghast because the toilets were not designed for women. because it was the men who were designing the markets during the construction. and then i was seeing women working in the markets and they had babies and they had children running around in the mess of the market and i said this is not right. and that is when i started to introduce, you have to redesign the market because it is the women who are working there,

etc. we managed to make sure there are childcare centers and toilets that were poorly designed. and guess what? you know what the profit centers were? the childcare center and the toilet became profit centers. it is more business. when we had to deliver the cash transfer program after the rays of the fuel price. all of the empiricals, i am a great believer in the data, it goes back to my parabola and water example. if you give the women the money for the cash transfer because you are talking about giving it to the poor, more likely, it will be used to put food on the table and save a little bit for the education. all of the empirics show that. so we wanted to give the money to the women and our president supported it. but unfortunately because of the

regulation, because of the family cart it is the men who are the head of the family. we couldn't do it. eventually, we started to develop programs where we could actually give the money to women. cash for work during a crisis is not just for men. it has to be for women, too. you cannot just give it only for making roads. it has to also be for women. you have to really think about it and show the economic value for women. we used a lot of the arguments and i think we really appreciate what secretary clinton did in 2011 to put it on the table that it's about the economics. it is about the business. women have that value. it is not just about equality or human rights. it is about economics. that really helped us a lot in pushing forth the argument as a policymaker as well as including the men in the policymaking table.

again, then we transformed it into the business side, including the access to capital and the micro financing where we found that women -- i will give you just one more example. i am giving you real examples of how we try to deal with the issues. when you look at the micro enterprises, i think our number nhows that only 23% of smes i indonesia are being run by women. it turns out it is because of -- and they are smaller businesses than the men-owned businesses and they have less access to capital. so there are institutional and cultural constraints. when they did the survey, they women lessre confident to go to the bank to go get a loan. one of the reasons given is, well, i am afraid i cannot pay

back my loan. the moment somebody gets sick in my family, i am the one who has to take care of that sick person. then i cannot pay my debt and i don't want to be in the position to not be able to pay my debt. so some of our banks -- and it became good business -- they bundled the financing package with insurance and savings because they also worry about the education saving, saving enough for the education of the kids. so a number of our banks came up with microcredit that bundled the banking services with the insurance and the savings and taught the women and gave them confidence. don't worry, if somebody falls sick, there is insurance here. and that really worked. and the government supported that in the financial inclusion agenda that we developed later on. so these are real life examples where it's not just -- we are not just talking about going from informal to formal.

we are just taking care of the formal. and giving financial literacy and confidence for women, to be able to just go into a bank and the banks have also figured out that this is very psychologically -- they don't even have the confidence to enter into a nice-looking office. so they bring the banks to the villages. whether it is mobile banking or creating a more comfortable situation for the women to be given just the financial literacy to begin with. so those are just some of the challenges that i faced and i really look forward to working more on these issues. >> you are actually far ahead in some ways because we are starting to catch up understanding that credit and savings and insurance all matter in these propositions. we are going to go one quick round here and then open it up to questions.

so be ready for that. cherie, you have made a big footprint on showing us that we have a gender gap in mobile technology. and we have with us on the council a representative from intel. they have done a big study on the gender gap in the internet. why is it critical to close this gender gap? what will happen to women in the 21st century economy if we don't address this? >> it is definitely true that knowledge is key on this. in today's world, the mobile phone in particular i think is the poor person's computer and the poor person's access to knowledge. so going back to what we just heard about in indonesia, we did a program called the business women's app. which was based -- we had it in indonesia tanzania, and in , nigeria.

i'm sure there are students here from the economics department and they will probably agree with me that sometimes the business concepts aren't necessarily natural. i met many women with businesses who think, so long as i produce things and keep churning them out, surely, i will have a successful business. where in fact, it is all about, andou said, ofra, the p&l what is the difference between capital and income. there are all sorts of concepts you deal with when you take on other employees. so we tried to put together using text messaging, a nano mba. basic tips for business women using the mobile phone. they get four text messages a week with some information that was worked on with local universities so it was properly specific information they needed to know for their countries. it was in the local language.

and we had that course. just today, thanks to the exxon mobil foundation, we were able to publish the results. it shows quite clearly, if you can give targeted information to the women, like the women in the market that you were talking about, they will take that information and use it in their business and actually turn those businesses into even more of a success. or sometimes stop them becoming a failure. and we believe that we can use that even more. what we want to do now, because that was with exxon mobil foundation and nokia. nokia was only on handsets. we want to take it to businesswomen and make it more widely available. believe that while it is great for people to come to university and do mba's there

are people out there already doing business they do not have access to the formal education system that we all take for granted. but that doesn't mean they can't learn and benefit from business training delivered using the poor person's computer, which is the mobile phone. so that is something that we want to see. i know the council will be involved in how we can work with the big companies in the tech field to actually show how mobile can be a force for good. >> there are so many good examples today from the kind of information that can come to people who would ordinarily not get it in terms of health information, vital health information, to knowing where the market is on a given day. instead of walking for miles and miles. >> exactly. gujarat a mobile app that was for rural women who

were selling agricultural goods and who used to after work walk a day at a time to get the wholesalers to actually get the goods. when they get there, they did not necessarily have the ones they wanted. we transferred that through the wholesalers onto a computer on the wholesaler and the mobile phone for the women sellers and they saw 200% to 300% turnover. one of the women said to me, she was a widow, she and her two children were getting one meal a day. now they were getting two meals a day and the children were going to school. this is a life transforming thing. there is so much we can do with mobile value-added services. and that is just only starting. >> anne, let's go to the other end of the spectrum. a lot of talk today about women in corporate boards and women bumping against the ceiling in management, women with all kinds of degrees and yet they seem stuck in some ways. i have a friend who says it's not a glass ceiling or a sticky floor.

it is just a thick layer of men. [laughter] so how do we and how do you at bank of america -- i know you have been very much focused on what you can do to move women within your company, the kind of internal prospects. how do you do some of that and what you think we need to do generally? >> i think we need to do more, period. and that thick layer of men, we need to thin out. we are in an industry that has gone through a sea change, the financial services industry. generally, when there is chaos, there is opportunity. i would say that in your personal life and i think it is true also in a very large company. the women's voices at a table have made a real difference in our company in recent years. one third of our board, our board of directors, are women. half the management of the

company, vp and above, are women. i do think that has made a huge difference in terms of just the conversation, let alone the progress we've made. so it isn't what was wrong with the men. it is simply that women need to be at the table in the same way in economic terms. if the women aren't in business, then we are tying one hand behind our back no matter what country you are from. so that has been a big thing for us. the other thing is, in just having the relationship with cherie or the vital voices or with the tory burch foundation, we find our own women very enthused by this opportunity. we now have men that are participating in the cherie blair foundation, mentoring, because they feel just as much satisfaction. it gets everybody thinking about let's be a little more entrepreneurial. let's think a little more progressively. in our case, we are a huge company but we have 15 million

people that mostly do their banking on mobile banking in a completely developed world. yet they have some of the very same questions about financial literacy.questions about financl literacy. we did a big program of financial literacy for years. is likepeople think it paint drying. they do not love it. when we became a partner with silicon -- he is the best i doing this. we interviewed our own people, let alone the marketplace. we read it everything and we got very basic. it was in these digestible bites of, before you tell me how to create a nest day, can you hold up a paycheck and tell me why i am only taking home half of what i made? when you get practical, it makes a difference and it makes the company -- the people in your company feel better about you.