Browse by Theme: Women's Economic Empowerment

We often talk about providing people with skills, knowledge and tools so they can improve their lives – but sometimes the impact is hard to quantify. So how does the fact that more than 90% of women’s businesses grew over the course of the Skilling for Change programme sound?

Thursday 22nd September at the United Nations General Assembly was a tremendous moment for the global women’s economic empowerment agenda. Not only did Ban Ki Moon become the first Secretary General to declare himself a feminist (for which he received a rousing standing ovation), it was also the launch of the first report by the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment.

Unless women have more empowerment, autonomy, and access to resources, we are not going to achieve change. Those are the words of Luis Guillermo Solís, President of Costa Rica and women’s economic empowerment advocate, speaking at an event on financial inclusion co-hosted by CARE and Women’s World Banking at the UN (21 September 2016). Our event was followed by the release of the report of the UN High Level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment – so what actually needs to happen for a radical step change in accelerating women’s economic empowerment?

CARE has welcomed the first report from the UN High-Level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment, Leave no-one behind - particularly since it draws on a lot of CARE’s work as a model for the way forward for accelerating women’s economic empowerment.

The current UN High Level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment is highlighting the major attention being paid by governments, the development community and others to the importance of women’s economic empowerment to tackling poverty and ensuring women achieve the target of gender equality which the world has agreed to as Sustainable Development Goal 5.

CARE’s focus on women’s economic empowerment is based on our belief in women’s rights and the key role that economic empowerment plays in the achievement of those rights, some of them inherent in economic empowerment itself and others to which economic empowerment provides a bridge. But we know that as we engage with government, donors and the private sector, it always helps to have a strong economic argument on our side, and once again the IMF have provided one.

Are financial institutions in emerging economies adapting their business models fast enough to tap into the market of the currently unbanked? And if not, why not?