Washington, – Ivanka Trump, the daughter and adviser to President Donald Trump, announced today that she will travel to Ethiopia and Cote d’Ivoire next week to promote her initiative to support women in developing countries, a plan that has generated criticism for its scarce initial budget.
“I’m looking forward to visiting Africa next week,” Trump’s daughter wrote on her official Twitter account.
The State Department specified that Ivanka will visit Ethiopia and Cote d’Ivoire between April 14 and 17, along with the director of the Agency for International Development (USAID), Mark Green.
The goal of the trip is to promote the Global Initiative for the Development and Prosperity of Women, announced by Ivanka in February, which aims to help 50 million women in developing countries improve their economic prospects by 2025.
The program aims to promote new projects to promote the training of women, facilitate financial support and promote reforms in their countries that break down potential barriers.
The plan will be financed with public and private resources, with an initial fund of US $ 50 million managed by Usaid, which generated some criticism for giving the impression that it barely allocated a dollar to each of the women it intended to help.
However, the White House has assured that it expects these funds to be expanded through the mobilization of private companies such as WalMart, UPS, Deloitte and Procter & Gamble, which have already committed to support the initiative.
Ivanka’s first stop will be Ethiopia, where she will “announce a new initiative” from the Corporation for Private Investment Abroad in the United States (Opic, in English) and participate in “a dialogue on the economic empowerment of women,” according to a spokesman for the State Department, Robert Palladino.
“The leaders of Ethiopia have led crucial democratic reforms and are seeking to boost the empowerment of women, half of the Cabinet in Ethiopia is composed of women and President Sahlework Zewde is the only female head of state in Africa,” Palladino recalled. Press conference.
The delegation will hold meetings with representatives of the UN and the African Union in Ethiopia before traveling to Côte d’Ivoire, where they will announce “a new initiative by USAID to catalyze the support of the private sector for women entrepreneurs in the cocoa industry,” he said. the spokesperson.
Ivanka Trump will also participate in the Initiative for the Financing of Women Entrepreneurs, a regional summit on the subject in West Africa (EFEUSA).
