Women are emerging as a major force for change. Countries that have invested in girls' education and removed legal barriers that prevent women from achieving their potential are now seeing the benefits.
Financial inclusion helps lift people out of poverty and can help speed economic development. It can draw more women into the mainstream of economic activity, harnessing their contributions to society.
If managed well, urbanization can create enormous opportunities: allowing innovation and new ideas to emerge, saving energy, land and natural resources, managing climate and the risk of disasters.
Sometimes our definitions fall short. Take, for example, the way we view income and labor. It simply doesn't cover enough of the work that women, and in particular poor women, are doing - especially in their own households and the vast 'informal' economy in which most of the world's poorest people work.
Everyone with all those good intentions came to help Indonesia rebuild from the tsunami; but the co-ordination problem was very big, because they came with their own way of doing business; they came with the inflexibility of their own governance.
I have my own experience in Indonesia, of course. Sometimes in these transition situations, the new governments are still clumsy and awkward in responding to this new environment in which they operate. The only thing in their DNA is the old regime.
The confidence is really driven by the woman - whether she can have the confidence that there will be enough earning or income to finance all the domestic spending - but also by the middle-income class, which for many Asian countries has become the growth power for the economy.
Many developing countries are enjoying demographic changes. They have a younger demographic composition so they're not burdened by legacy policy. Now, if you combine this with a good macro policy and ambitious structural policy, those countries are able to move more flexibly and be more agile.
People now, especially with the Internet, are connected. They have an expectation of behaviour, of accountability, avoiding conflict and fair and just competition.
The problem of the food price is structural. The growth of demand cannot be checked in that it is coming from middle income countries demanding more quality and more quantity of food. High demand is here to stay.
People feel they are not participating in the decision-making process. Decisions are exclusive to those at the very top. You have grown up with crony capitalism and it creates ever more resentment.
I am still an Indonesian citizen.
Being able to save, make non-cash payments, send or receive remittances, get credit, or get insurance can be instrumental in raising living standards and helping businesses prosper. It helps people to invest more in education or health care.
If women had better access to the financial system - even so much as a basic deposit account at a bank - it would be a major step in the direction of greater wealth and greater economic empowerment.
I remember my first meeting with my management team when I became Indonesia's Minister of Finance. I was the youngest person and the first woman ever to hold that job. Everybody else in the room was male. I knew then that I had to work harder than any man to prove to them that I was capable.
If women had equal access to fertilizer and modern farm machinery, developing countries would produce between 2.5-percent and 4-percent more food.
When millions of dollars and thousands of humanitarian workers poured into Indonesia, we quickly faced the challenge of coordinating our own bureaucracy with the multitudes of approaches and priorities the donor community wanted to pursue.
Although many people in Aceh are still poor and vulnerable, the province resembles nothing like the place I saw the day after the tsunami hit.
We know we cannot achieve our twin goals of ending poverty and boosting shared prosperity without ending poverty and creating equality for women and girls.
Until we know how many women own businesses, we may under-invest in them as entrepreneurs and economic drivers.
