United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today announced the first-ever High-Level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment to provide leadership and mobilize concrete actions aimed at closing economic gender gaps that persist around the world. “The empowerment of the world’s women is a global imperative,” said Mr. Ban in a press release, issued while he attends dozens of events at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “Yet despite important progress in promoting gender equality, there remains an urgent need to address structural barriers to women’s economic empowe