Colombia participated in Trump’s initiative for women’s entrepreneurship that the US government described as a fiasco

The United States Government Accounting Office (GAO) described the program for women’s entrepreneurship that Ivanka Trump promoted in various countries of the world and in Colombia, as ‘Fiasco’ .

In the television newscast Noticias Uno, they indicated that this initiative was called by the then Trump administration as Women’s World Prosperity and Development (W-GDP) and it sought to support female entrepreneurships and micro-enterprises in the world with resources.

The objective of the program, indicated in Noticias Uno, was to reach 50 million vulnerable women in the world, with an annual budget of 265 million dollars, an item that would also benefit Colombian women with ventures.

But this week, they reported on the news, GAO conducted an audit in which it was determined that the program had no evidence of to whom and how the money was disbursed for the support of women.

In Noticias Uno they recalled that Ivanka Trump was in the country in September 2019 promoting the initiative at an event in which the women who would benefit participated with the same.

“This program leads these amazing and entrepreneurial women to build and sustain their businesses. They are all equally committed to this joint collaboration to empower women here in Colombia,” said Ivanka Trump on her official visit at that time.

The host, on that occasion, was the Vice President of Colombia, Marta Lucía Ramírez, who thanked to the daughter of the then president of the United States for her management with that program in the country.

“I want to welcome Mrs. Ivanka Trump to say thank you very much for being here, not only by supporting our efforts for the economic empowerment of women, but also by ensuring that there are more and more businesswomen,” said Ramírez on that occasion.

The GAO audit, however, found that this initiative had major flaws, not only in monitoring the destination of resources, but also in the impact it generated, despite the fact that it was executed through entities such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which operates in the country, according to the information obtained by Noticias Uno.

“Usaid has also not developed a definition of women-owned or controlled businesses and does not collect data by business size, which would make it possible to ensure that it meets its specific targeting requirements,” the newscast quoted the GAO report as saying.

In that entity in the United States, they indicated that the resources of the program were not only used to support female business ventures in Colombia, but also to help in the financing of plans to consolidate the peace process between the State and the extinct FARC guerrilla, as well as to support indigenous communities.