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Economic Empowerment

USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah to Speak on ICRW Panel

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Shah to Speak March 8 about Innovative Approaches to Global Development Concerns
Mon, 02/28/2011

WASHINGTON, Feb. 28, 2011 - USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah on March 8 will participate in an International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) panel discussion on breakthrough innovations that have the potential to transform the lives of women in developing countries.

Shah will be joined by Cherie Blair, founder of the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, Tim Hanstad, president and CEO of Landesa, and Bobbi Silten, chief foundation officer at Gap Inc. The discussion will be moderated by Andrea Mitchell, NBC chief foreign affairs correspondent.

The event, to be held on International Women’s Day, will kick off ICRW’s year-long 35th anniversary discussion series, Passports to Progress. Subsequent gatherings will address investments in ending violence against women, how to advance women’s economic potential and how to measure global progress on gender equality.

Event details:

March 8, 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
National Press Club
259 14th Street N.W., 13th Floor
Washington, D.C. 20045

Media Contacts:

ICRW: Jeannie Bunton, Vice President, External Relations
Tel: 202-742-1316, BB: 202-384-0679, jbunton@icrw.org

USAID: Press Office
Tel:202-712-4320, usaidpressofficers@usaid.gov 

Cherie Blair Foundation for Women: Jillian Convey, Business and Communications Manager
Tel: +44 (0)20 7563 5059, jc@cherieblairfoundation.org

Gap Inc.: Renate Geerlings, Gap Inc. Corporate Communications
Tel: 415-427-4695, renate_geerlings@gap.com

Landesa: Amy Low,Chief Communications Officer
Tel: 206-257-6141, amyl@landesa.org

Mission Statement: 

  

   

 

 ICRW's mission is to empower women, advance gender equality and fight poverty in the developing world. To accomplish this, ICRW works with partners to conduct empirical research, build capacity and advocate for evidence-based, practical ways to change policies and programs. 

About USAID
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is the lead U.S. government agency providing economic development and humanitarian assistance to people around the world for nearly 50 years. For more information about USAID please go to www.usaid.gov.

About the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women
The Cherie Blair Foundation for Women helps women entrepreneurs to build businesses by offering access to technology, networks, finance and business development support. Programs are in Africa, South Asia and the Middle East, where there is potential for women in business to become self-sustaining in the longer term. By supporting women entrepreneurs, we not only help the women themselves to improve their quality of life, but also their families, communities and economies who benefit from their success. For more, visit www.cherieblairfoundation.org.

About Gap Inc.
Gap Inc. is a leading global specialty retailer offering clothing, accessories and personal care products for men, women, children and babies under the Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Piperlime and Athleta brands. For more than 40 years, Gap Inc. has supported communities where we live and work through grants, in-kind donations, community outreach and employee volunteer programs. Gap Inc. strives to make a long-term impact in communities by focusing on creating opportunities for underserved youth and women through innovative social solutions. One example is Gap Inc.’s P.A.C.E. (Personal Advancement and Career Enhancement) program, which provides life and technical skills training to advance the careers and lives of women factory workers. For more information on Gap Inc. community investment, please visit www.gapinc.com/socialresponsibility.

About Landesa
Grounded in the knowledge that having legal rights to land is a foundation for prosperity and opportunity, Landesa partners with governments and local organizations to ensure that the world’s poorest families have secure rights over the land they till. Founded as the Rural Development Institute in 1967, Landesa has helped more than 100 million poor families gain legal control over their land. With secure land rights, these families can eat better, earn more, educate their children, practice conservation and achieve dignity for generations. For more, visit www.landesa.org.

100 Pairs of Hands

Submitted by Priya Nanda on Tuesday, February 15, 2011
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Researcher Inspired by Career Program for Women Garment Workers

A few years ago, I learned a little-known nugget about my Gap jeans that amazed me. I wore the denim to one of my initial meetings with Gap Inc., with whom ICRW has been collaborating on Gap Inc.’s “Personal Advancement and Career Enhancement (P.A.C.E.)” program. The effort helps female garment workers in developing countries advance beyond entry-level positions.

Evaluating a Media Campaign to Encourage Savings

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Savings can be a powerful tool for poor women to escape poverty. But low-income women often are unaware of formal savings methods and their advantages. And women feel the need to secretly manage their finances because of gender power imbalances over the control of household income.

Can a television drama encourage low-income women to establish sound savings habits with formal financial institutions? ICRW is working with a consortium of partners in the Dominican Republic, including Women’s World Banking and Puntos de Encuentro, to launch and evaluate an innovative mass media campaign to improve perceptions about formal saving mechanisms and to encourage open dialogue between women and men about their financial habits. The project’s centerpiece is a 20-episode telenovela that will focus on the financial behaviors of couples and how they work toward more cooperative financial management. The television program will be complemented by an advertising campaign for specific savings products geared toward low-income women.

ICRW will conduct a rigorous evaluation of the program, measuring women’s awareness and opinions of formal saving methods and whether men and women discuss household finances before, during and after the campaign in order to determine what changes the program has caused.

Duration: 
2010-2013
Location(s): 
Dominican Republic

Property Rights and Gender: A Training Toolkit

Property Rights and Gender: A Training Toolkit

International Center for Research on Women and Uganda Land Alliance
2010

Property rights economically empower women by creating opportunities for earning income, securing their place in the community and ensuring their livelihoods. This toolkit seeks to strengthen understanding of property rights for women and men as equal citizens. In Uganda, where this toolkit was piloted, women often are not treated as equal citizens, and the toolkit addresses what rights women have, how to communicate women’s rights and the issues preventing women from exercising their rights.

The overarching goals of the training are to:

  • Increase knowledge of legal rights to property in Uganda
  • Understand and recognize women’s and men’s equality before Ugandan law
  • Allow women and men to exercise and protect their own property rights while respecting others’ rights

The toolkit has five modules:

Rights and Gender in Uganda
Land Law and Gender
Property Rights in Marriage and Family
Inheritance Law, Wills and Women
Monitoring Skills for the Community Rights Worker

(9.68 MB)

We encourage the use and dissemination of our publications for non-commercial, educational purposes. Portions may be reproduced with acknowledgment to the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW). For questions, please contact publications@icrw.org; or (202) 797-0007.

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Roadside Beads

Submitted by Meredith Saggers on Tuesday, October 12, 2010
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Maasai Women Create Their Own Market

My favorite part of traveling is seeing the impact of ICRW’s work first hand. Sometimes, the determination of the women we serve is profoundly impressive. This was the case on my recent trip to Kenya.

Can Economic Empowerment Reduce Vulnerability of Girls and Young Women to HIV?

Can Economic Empowerment Reduce Vulnerability of Girls and Young Women to HIV?
Emerging Insights

Kim Ashburn and Ann Warner
2010

In April 2010, the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), with support from the Nike Foundation, convened an expert meeting of researchers, program implementers, policymakers and donors to explore emerging insights into the linkages between economic empowerment and HIV outcomes for girls and young women. This report synthesizes the key insights, questions, challenges and recommendations that emerged from the meeting.

It addresses two key questions:

  • What are the links between economic status and HIV vulnerability of girls and young women?
  • What is the role of economic empowerment in preventing and mitigating HIV among girls and young women?

The report also summarizes general principles that should apply to programs and policies aiming to address the vulnerability of girls in a context of poverty and HIV.

(121.63 KB)

We encourage the use and dissemination of our publications for non-commercial, educational purposes. Portions may be reproduced with acknowledgment to the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW). For questions, please contact publications@icrw.org; or (202) 797-0007.

Terms and Conditions »

ExxonMobil Expands Support for Technologies that Help Women in Developing Countries

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$1 Million Commitment Announced at Clinton Global Initiative
Tue, 09/21/2010

NEW YORK, September 21, 2010 – Exxon Mobil Corporation today announced a $1 million commitment at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) to invest in the expansion of high impact, sustainable technologies that advance women economically in the developing world.

The program is expected to directly benefit more than 13,500 people, with indirect benefits reaching more than 475,000 in the next two years.

The new commitment will help innovators in scaling up technologies that benefit women economically and were identified through ExxonMobil’s partnership with Ashoka’s Changemakers in the Women | Tools | Technology: Building Opportunities & Economic PowerChallenge, launched at last year’s CGI. The new financial support from ExxonMobil will help provide consulting support; facilitate the innovators’ connections with other social entrepreneurs, business and technical experts; and identify best practices.

“The programs identified through the 2009 commitment use technology to improve the lives of women in developing countries,” said Suzanne M. McCarron, general manager, ExxonMobil public and government affairs. “By further supporting these programs, we will be advancing technologies that are proven to create more economic opportunities for women and, as a result, strengthen their communities.”

A significant barrier to economic advancement is a lack of access to energy. An estimated 1.6 billion people in the world have no access to electricity and approximately 2.4 billion rely on biomass fuels like wood, charcoal, or dung for cooking and heating. This undermines the productivity, education, health and safety of these people - 70 percent of whom are women and girls.

ExxonMobil grants will be provided to select innovators who advance technologies to increase access to energy through innovative sources to address the energy gap. These technologies help women increase their productivity and effective participation in the economy. The grant recipients include Kopernik, Solar Electric Light Fund, Solar Sister, Productive Agricultural Linkages and Marketing Systems (P.A.L.M.S) and smallsolutions.

“My country will be a better place when more women have access to technologies,” said Leticia Brenyah, an ExxonMobil-supported innovator from Ghana who spoke at CGI as part of the meeting’s Empowering Girls and Women focus area. “When women thrive economically they improve their lives, families and country.”

As part of its support for the programs identified through the Women | Tools | Technology program, ExxonMobil will work with partners Ashoka’s Changemakers, the International Center for Research on Women and the Thunderbird Emerging Markets Laboratory (TEM Lab) to support the further development of a number of concepts involving the use of innovative technologies to enable women’s access to energy in a sustainable and scalable manner.

TEM Lab will deploy on the ground consulting teams to help diagnose business problems and opportunities with the goal of strengthening program effectiveness.

“We are excited to enter into this meaningful partnership which leverages business and technology expertise to enable innovators to improve their capacity,” said Angel Cabrera, president of Thunderbird School of Global Management.

Innovators will have the opportunity to engage with experts at CGI and utilize the Ashoka’s Changemakers Discovery Framework to better understand the challenges and opportunities in bringing their concepts to scale.

“The passion and new ideas represented by the solutions sourced through last year’s commitment and the subsequent Women | Tools | Technology: Building Opportunities & Economic PowerChallenge represent a powerful new force for advancing women’s economic opportunities globally,” said Bill Drayton, chairman and CEO of Ashoka. “I look forward to not only the deep and lasting impact these leaders will create, but also the future generations of changemakers they will inspire along the way.” 

As part of the 2009 CGI Commitment, ICRW’s research report,“Bridging the Technology Divide,” provided insights into how technology can help advance women economically.  ICRW will continue to provide monitoring and evaluation support for the commitment activities.

“A year later, it is great to see how innovators have turned good intentions into actions that effectively integrate women in various stages of the technology lifecycle to give them the tools they need to thrive,” said Sarah Degnan Kambou, president of ICRW.

Media Contact: 
Jeannie Bunton, 202.742.1316, Jbunton@icrw.org
Mission Statement: 

ICRW's mission is to empower women, advance gender equality and fight poverty in the developing world. To accomplish this, ICRW works with partners to conduct empirical research, build capacity and advocate for evidence-based, practical ways to change policies and programs.

About Exxon Mobil Corporation
ExxonMobil, the largest publicly traded international oil and gas company, uses technology and innovation to help meet the world’s growing energy needs. ExxonMobil holds an industry-leading inventory of resources, is the largest refiner and marketer of petroleum products and its chemical company is one of the largest in the world. Globally, ExxonMobil provides funding to improve basic education, promote women as catalysts for development, and combat malaria and other infectious diseases in developing countries. In 2008, together with its employees and retirees, ExxonMobil Corporation, its divisions and affiliates, and ExxonMobil Foundation provided $225 million in contributions worldwide, of which more than $98 million was dedicated to education. Additional information on ExxonMobil's community partnerships and contributions programs is available at www.exxonmobil.com/community.

About Thunderbird School of Global Management
Thunderbird is the world’s No. 1-ranked school of international business with more than 60 years of experience in developing leaders with the global mindset, business skills and social responsibility necessary to create real, sustainable value for their organizations, communities and the world. The Thunderbird Emerging Markets Laboratory (TEM Lab) is a capstone course in which second year, honors students apply the full range of skills acquired in their course work and experience. TEM Lab MBA consulting teams work on-site with client systems in emerging markets all over the world. www.thunderbird.edu

About Ashoka and Ashoka’s Changemakers
Ashoka is the global association of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs – men and women with system-changing solutions for the world’s most urgent social problems. Ashoka’s Changemakers creates opportunities for organizations and individuals to drive meaningful and measurable social change. Through collaborative competitions, Changemakers connects Ashoka’s elite fellowship, an online community of social innovators, and pioneering investors to inspire and drive innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges. By focusing on how leading social entrepreneurs, government agencies, corporations, and citizens solve vital problems and build their communities, Changemakers and its partners spark promising ideas for further development and investment. Learn more at www.changemakers.org.

About the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI)
Established in 2005 by President Bill Clinton, the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) convenes global leaders to devise and implement innovative solutions to some of the world's most pressing challenges. Since 2005, CGI Annual Meetings have brought together more than 125 current and former heads of state, 15 Nobel Peace Prize laureates, hundreds of leading CEOs, heads of foundations, major philanthropists, directors of the most effective nongovernmental organizations, and prominent members of the media. These CGI members have made more than 1,700 commitments valued at $57 billion, which have already improved the lives of 220 million people in more than 170 countries. The CGI community also includes CGI University (CGI U), a forum to engage college students in global citizenship, MyCommitment.org, an online portal where anybody can make a Commitment to Action, and CGI Lead, which engages a select group of young leaders from business, government, and civil society. For more information, visit www.clintonglobalinitiative.org

Ringing Potential

Submitted by Charles Ashbaugh on Friday, September 17, 2010
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What Cell Phones Can Do for Women

Out in a rural village in Western Kenya, two hours from the nearest large town, and all I could think about were cell phones.

Evaluating a Factory-Based Education Program for Garment Workers

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Women play a crucial role in the apparel industry, comprising a majority of the world’s garment workers. ICRW and Gap, Inc. are collaborating to help female garment workers fulfill their potential through education. Gap, Inc.’s Personal Advancement and Career Enhancement (P.A.C.E.) is an innovative, factory-based education program that provides training for life skills, such as problem-solving and financial literacy, as well as workplace skills to help women advance beyond entry-level positions. ICRW partnered with Gap, Inc. on the initial development and implementation of the program, which was piloted in India, one of Gap, Inc.’s largest sourcing markets.

ICRW evaluates the program’s impact on participants in all countries where the program is being implemented. Initial results are promising. Women demonstrate more willingness to take on responsibilities and assume leadership roles; communicate better and more effectively at work and in their homes; show improved ability to solve workplace problems; and are better able to support their peers. In addition to gaining more respect from their family members, women also value themselves more.

Based on the success of the initial pilot programs, Gap, Inc. has expanded P.A.C.E. to additional factories in India and Cambodia. Development and implementation strategies for additional countries are currently underway.

Duration: 
2006 - 2012
Location(s): 
Cambodia
Location(s): 
India

A Smart Investment

Submitted by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon on Monday, August 16, 2010
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The Promise of Afghan Women

I spent several hours this morning at a shooting range interviewing recruits for the Afghan National Police at an old Soviet military training ground. The unusual part about the assignment: all the aspiring police officers are women.  

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