Browse by Theme: Women's Economic Empowerment

Increasing gender gaps in the world of work demonstrate the deep and persistent barriers that women face to realise their economic rights and opportunities. COVID-19 has further deepened gender inequalities, and climate change is threatening women’s and girls’ lives, livelihoods and economic opportunities. At the same time, an inclusive green transition holds break-through potential for unlocking women’s economic opportunities. This report provides evidence on how sustainable approaches to women’s entrepreneurship, formal and informal work, and redefining the concept of green jobs, can lead to a green, inclusive and gender-just future.

The report recommends that all actors must prioritise gender equality in the transition to green economies, by integrating a gender lens in green work policies, proactively addressing the barriers to women’s economic justice and generating new and decent green work opportunities for women. It also means broadening the current definition of green jobs to include low-carbon and sustainable forms of work such as care work, working with the private sector to complement public action, and fostering women’s leadership both, in the response to the climate crisis and in the green transition.

Women on the Move (WOM) is a CARE regional strategy to mobilize existing savings groups (previously referred to as Village Savings & Loan Associations, or VSLA) in West Africa to serve as a platform for women and girls to assert their rights. These savings groups have been a foundational CARE approach to women’s economic justice. This report looks at the evolution of WOM from 2016 to 2021 and how Women's Collective Voice has become a powerful, impactful tool to drive gender equality in West Africa.

As a leader in the Generation Equality Forum (GEF), CARE is making bold commitments to invest $100 million in supporting 10 million women and girls as leaders through savings and solidarity groups. We will also invest an additional $30 million in humanitarian funding to organizations women and girls lead and that focus on women’s and girls’ rights. We are convinced that is the best way the world can deliver on our commitment to achieve gender equality by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals.

In the run-up to the Paris Generation Equality Forum 2021, the Economic Justice and Rights (EJR) Action Coalition CSO and youth organizations leaders have run a number of regional consultations to gather local civil society inputs on women’s and girls’ needs and priorities when it comes to unpaid care work. 

The Made by Women strategy seeks to ensure women in the garment industry have access to decent jobs, are free from violence and harassment and can give voice to their rights at work. Engaging with women, businesses, governments and civil society partners across the supply chain, this area of work focuses on addressing some of the most fundamental barriers to women accessing their rights in the garment industry. Learn more about Made by Women's impact to date in 2020 and our focus for the future. 

By 2030, the number of people living in poverty in fragile settings could rise to 620 million, or more than 80% of the world’s poorest people. CARE’s Resilient Market System work aims to make crisis-affected market systems more resilient, inclusive, and profitable, in particular to enable women to better absorb the shocks brought on by conflict or by natural disasters. This report aims to provide thought leaders and practitioners – from humanitarian and development programming – with insights and guidance for a strong market system approach, customised for fragile and conflict affected settings and targeting women and girls.

COVID-19 has become an unprecedented and unpredictable global crisis. It is “a defining moment in human history”.  COVID-19 has affected everyone, but not equally so. The pandemic is exploiting and exposing deep structural inequalities in economies, health care systems, and societies around the world, with devastating and disproportionate effects on the most vulnerable people, particularly those who live in development and humanitarian settings. Single mothers working in garment factories have lost their jobs and households’ only income, while the pandemic is exacerbating other families’ food insecurity. For those living in areas where conflict has destroyed healthcare facilities, COVID-19 poses a uniquely terrible and acute danger.