The event, hosted and moderated by Arancha González, Executive Director, International Trade Centre and Amanda Ellis, Special Advisor for International Programs and Partnerships, East-West Center (EWC) and former Ambassador of New Zealand to the United Nations, brought together global business leaders, UN Ambassadors, heads of business associations, UN agencies and civil society organizations to discuss opportunities to spur economic development, propel business growth and advance the Sustainable Development Goals by removing legal barriers to women’s economic empowerment. Augusto Lopez-Claros more particularly presented the many barriers to economic empowerment using the recent WBG report “Women, Business and the Law 2016”. He stressed that, almost 90 percent of 173 countries researched have at least one legal barrier restricting women’s empowerment. Bringing down these barriers is an economic and business imperative and critical to achieving a range of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), most notably, SDG5 and SDG16.