Browse by Theme: Women's Economic Empowerment

COVID-19 has become an unprecedented and unpredictable global crisis. It 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.

This paper provides findings and recommendations about how Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) can be a platform to challenge patriarchal structures that discriminate against and normalise violence against women and girls.

When women are able to come together in safe spaces, they can use their collective power and voice to bring about change for a more equitable world. Women on the Move (WOM) is a CARE regional strategy launched in 2016 that mobilises savings groups in West Africa, so that women and girls can assert their basic rights. This report assesses CARE’s progress on this Impact Growth Strategy to date and shares success stories and challenges going forward.

CARE has been working with Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLA) since we first launched the model in Niger in 1991. Over the years, VSLAs have reached more 7.6 million members, 81% of them women. The economic impacts of the VSLA groups are well documented. Less formally documented is the impact that VSLAs have on women themselves and on the social fabric of their communities.

This report, based on research into CARE humanitarian interventions in Niger, analyses whether community-led savings groups and income-generation activities can represent a way not only to respond to crises, but also to increase women’s economic empowerment, even in highly fluid contexts.

Women still have fewer economic rights, less access to economic opportunities and less control over economic resources than men due to a range of social, legal and political inequalities. Women’s economic empowerment (WEE) is one of four priority areas for CARE’s work, as set out in the CARE 2020 Programme Strategy. This report articulates why and how we work to drive women’s economic empowerment, our reach and impact to date and some lessons we have learned along the way.

Women on the Move is a CARE regional strategy to mobilise savings groups in West Africa, so that women and girls can assert their basic economic and social rights. Evidence has shown that women-led savings groups are a powerful platform for promoting women’s economic empowerment, women’s voices and gender equality. Our aim is that 8 million women and girls between the age of 15 and 64 will be economically and socially empowered through savings groups by 2020. This report examines our progress in reaching that goal and shares some lessons learned so far.