Browse by Theme: Women's Economic Empowerment

Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) have been a cornerstone of CARE International’s programmes for over 25 years, and we have plenty of evidence of their ability to impact women’s lives positively. However, we have also learned that gender norms and power dynamics can reduce the impact on women unless we tackle them directly.

A CARE Nepal project helped women find a way out of poverty using training and ID cards. One woman in the project got her first citizenship card at age 21 even though she had been married for 8 years already. She told us that, before the project she wasn’t allowed to say her husband’s name. Now, she’s running a business that can pull her out of poverty. Find out more about what this project achieved for women's ecomomic empowerment in Nepal.

The DFID-flagship Work and Opportunities for Women programme (WOW) has recently completed its inception phase and is now beginning implementation. The programme was originally conceived as a response to the UN High-Level panel report on women’s economic empowerment, which CARE broadly welcomed at the time. The programme is being run by an alliance of CARE, PwC, BSR, Social Development Direct and the University of Manchester, and aims to enhance the economic empowerment of 300,000 women by 2022.

The SEEP Network’s SG2018: The Power of Savings Groups conference has ended and now the real work begins for the sector. More than 400 policy makers, company and development sector representatives came together in Kigali in May to step up the scale and impact of Savings Groups globally. One of the key learning events at SG2018 was provided by CARE’s POWER Africa project (Promoting Opportunities for Women’s Economic Empowerment in Rural Africa), and here we talk to two members of the POWER Africa team about what they took away from SG2018, and how they believe Savings Groups can be taken forward to empower more women in the future.

Gender equality is high on the corporate agenda, from sales of feminist merchandise, to gender pay gap reporting, to celebrities and politicians forming coalitions; confronting institutional norms and behaviour. It feels like we are in a moment in history where putting gender equity firmly on the table and creating positive change could achieve lasting equality. But behind the hashtags, the empowering t-shirts and glossy photographs, are we really creating change and tackling the barriers to gender equity and inclusive business?

Women in Malawi say that being able to open their own bank account or save with a VSLA has caused their husbands to be more engaged.

In Egypt’s VSLAs, the number of women who have worried about money in the last 30 days has been cut nearly in half. Why? Because women are saving $58 a year now—2.7 times more than they used to. They are also able to take out loans, and are more than 6 times more likely to be involved in a business where they make money. 77% say their incomes have gone up.