Economic Empowerment

A rapidly growing number of businesses have launched programs specifically aimed at economically strengthening women, particularly those in developing and emerging economies. The private sector has come to recognize what the global development community has long known: investing in women pays dividends in social and economic progress.

Traditionally, the work of developing economic opportunities for poor women has been the role of governments, multilateral organizations such as the United Nations and charities both small and large. As the private sector enters this space, there is unprecedented opportunity for more of the world's women to participate equally in the global economy.

The International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) on March 7 will explore some of these private sector initiatives targeting women, during its fourth gathering in its Passports to Progress discussion series. To be held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., “The Bottom Line: How Big Business is Empowering Women and Girls,” will feature a panel with representatives from The Coca-Cola Company, Criterion Ventures, Ikatu International and Women’s World Banking. Judy Woodruff, PBS NewsHour’s senior correspondent, will moderate. The event is sponsored by Vestergaard Frandsen. 

Panelists are expected to briefly discuss their company’s efforts aimed at women as well as offer their take on the challenges and opportunities in this growing area of private sector investment in women’s economic empowerment.

ICRW marked its 35^th anniversary in 2011, and as the year draws to a close, we share some highlights. Thanks to all of our partners and donors for your contributions to our work. 

Passports to Progress

ICRW launched our Passports to Progress discussion series to spark rich conversation about issues likely to shape women’s lives in the coming years. We kicked off the series on International Women’s Day, with a top-notch panel that included Rajiv Shah, USAID administrator, Cherie Blair, former British first lady and founder of the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, Tim Hanstad, president and CEO of Landesa, and Bobbi Silten, chief foundation officer at Gap Inc.  Our debut Passports to Progress panel discussed how innovative technologies, ideas and approaches have the power to change the trajectory of women’s lives in developing countries. 

Subsequent panels in our anniversary discussion series addressed solutions for ending violence against women and how to economically empower women worldwide. We plan to continue the discussions in 2012, so stay tuned. 

Champions for Change Award for Innovation

We recognized Gap Inc. for its P.A.C.E. (Personal Advancement & Career Enhancement) program this year with our annual Champions for Change Award for Innovation. The award honors an organization working to advance the health, well-being and economic progress of women and girls through their policies, programs and partnerships. Gap’s P.A.C.E. program was developed in 2006 to provide life and technical skills education to women who work in garment factories. The program aims to help them progress in the workplace and in their personal lives.  

ICRW is the global evaluation partner on P.A.C.E., which operates in Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.

Gap Inc.’s chief foundation officer, Bobbi Silten, accepted the award on International Women’s Day, saying that the women with whom P.A.C.E. works “are not only changing their lives, but they’re bringing change to the lives of their families and communities. We really believe at Gap Inc. that if we can advance women, we can change the world.”

At the annual Clinton Global Initiative in September, former President Bill Clinton also recognized P.A.C.E. as an exemplary example of economically advancing women worldwide. 

Ending Child Marriage

ICRW’s long-standing work on preventing child marriage – and the issue itself – gained much attention in 2011. We released “Solutions to End Child Marriage: What the Evidence Shows,” which summarizes child marriage prevention approaches that work and recommends a way forward. We saw the issue – and our efforts and experts – featured in major news outlets, including National Geographic, The Daily Beast and Thomson Reuters Foundation’s TrustLaw, as well as at the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. We also were invited to share our insights with our partners at The Elders, who this year launched “Girls Not Brides,” a global campaign to end child marriage.

More than ever, we believe it’s critical that we capitalize on this unprecedented global attention on child marriage. Now is the time to harness this collective will to make sure that no girl is forced to wed and give up her dreams.

Want to keep up with our work to prevent child marriage? Sign up to receive our monthly newsletters to hear about our latest efforts.

Strengthening Women Economically

One of the ways that ICRW helped advance the gender and global development this year was with the release of our new guide to help evaluate whether programs to strengthen women economically are working. We found that a growing number of organizations – from government bodies to private companies – are committed to helping the world’s women succeed economically. But few know exactly how to get there. And that’s what our “Understanding and Measuring Women’s Economic Empowerment” essentially covers.

Read more about what one of the report’s authors had to say about the guide and download a copy of the report.

Teenagers and Gender Equality

Our program in Mumbai, India, that promotes more equitable roles between boys and girls and less violence grew significantly in 2011. Called Gender Equity Movement in Schools (GEMS), the program and research study  took place in 30 schools, targeting 12-14 year old students. All told, GEMS reached 8,000 youth.

Now, the principles of GEMS are being integrated into more school lessons – specifically, 250 additional Mumbai schools are taking on the program, which will reach upwards of 80,000 girls and boys by 2014. The program also has been adopted in Vietnam’s Da Nang province. 

Working with Men and Boys

In January 2011, we released the International Men and Gender Equality Survey (IMAGES), a three-year, multi-country household survey that gave a window into men’s attitudes and behaviors on topics related to gender equality. IMAGES offered one of the most comprehensive analyses to date of how men feel and act about everything from changing diapers to using violence. 

Overall, the results demonstrated the complex – and at times contradictory – nature of men’s behavior. And they suggested that while most men accept the notion of gender equality and understand it intellectually, they don’t necessarily change their behaviors – at least not quickly. 

Data from IMAGES provides a blueprint for how to shape or revise policies and improve existing programs that work with men to empower women and promote gender equality.

The business case for investing in the world’s women is strong, and data illustrate the powerful market potential of women living in low- and middle-income countries. Yet despite such evidence, women still are not seen as producers that can drive global economic growth, said panelists at an International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) discussion Oct. 19 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

“We’re still at a point where in the economic picture you still have discussions that say, ‘Here’s our economic strategy, and we should do this and this ... and we should do something with women,’” said Gayle Smith, special assistant to President Obama and senior director of the National Security Council. “I don’t think we’re quite where we need to be yet.”  

Smith was joined by Nemat Shafik, deputy director of the International Monetary Fund and ICRW’s Anju Malhotra, a leading expert on women’s empowerment, for “Women: An Emerging Market,” the third discussion in ICRW’s Passports to Progress 35^th anniversary series. BBC World News Anchor Katty Kay moderated the discussion, which focused on women’s economic progress and potential as well as the roadblocks they continue to face. 

While there have been notable accomplishments for women in the past three decades – such as ensuring that girls are educated – the panel said that much of the progress has been uneven. For instance, although more women are entering the labor force, wage disparities persist. In some parts of the world, life expectancy has increased; in others, women still die in childbirth. And in many developing countries women are heads of state, but that doesn’t necessarily “translate into higher status for the mass of women in those societies,” Shafik noted. 

In the midst of these paradoxical landscapes, significant changes are currently underway that hold promise for women in poverty: Global development and private sector priorities are shifting to tap more into women’s economic power – not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because research shows that it’s also good for the collective bottom line, panelists said. Discussions about policies and international aid to support women’s economic growth also are shifting to focus more on designing efforts based on evidence of impact. 

Meanwhile, the world is more connected than ever through technology and it’s also churning with transformative events such as the economic downturn and revolutions in the Middle East. Women, the panel said, have a role to play in fueling stability and prosperity. 

“In an economic moment globally that is something of the likes of which we’ve really never seen, I think there’s potentially an opportunity,” Smith said. “(We) have working out there a group of (women) that, in the aggregate, are in fact an emerging market. Think of the power of that market.” 

Malhotra agreed. “You can’t have human progress without a majority of human beings being part of ... the economic growth, the economic equity,” she said of the world’s women.

The challenge for policy-makers and decision-makers, however, is to view women – and invest in them – as producers of economic growth, not just consumers of goods and services. “It’s getting that kind of thinking into the bloodstream,” Smith said, “as opposed to still having it as an ‘add-on,’” when designing economic development strategies. 

“We’re only just beginning to understand the role women can play in the macro economy,” Shafik added about women’s economic potential. “And there’s now some evidence on how investing in women policy contributes to higher economic growth.” 

Looking ahead, the panel was generally hopeful about the future. 

“I’d be willing to venture that in about half the world we’ll be in a place where gender equity will be pretty close in education and employment outcomes,” Shafik said. “But I think there will still be big parts of the world where we’ll have quite a lot to do particularly on political rights, employment, and in the productive sectors.” 

Malhotra was more optimistic. She said she believes the world is on the cusp of "exponential change."

“The global world is so connected…none of the business of the world is going to be able to run unless women are part of that process,” Malhotra said. “Thirty-five years ago, we plotted towards this change, and in the last five years we’ve leapfrogged.” 

“And frankly, I think we’re going to (continue to) leapfrog.” 

MORE: Read excerpts from the conversation and view a video of the full discussion.

Gillian Gaynair is ICRW’s senior writer and editor.