Working with the Private Sector to Empower Women: How YOU Can Build a Business Case for Change
- Partner: Arab Women’s Enterprise Fund (AWEF), DAI, UK Department for International Development (DFID)
- Publication Type: Blog
- Date: July 18, 2019
- Team: Julia Hakspiel
- Recommended Citation: Hakspiel, Julia (MarketShare Associates). "Working with the Private Sector to Empower Women: How YOU Can Build a Business Case for Change," The SEEP Network (blog), July 18, 2019. https://seepnetwork.org/Blog-Post/Working-with-the-Private-Sector-to-Empower-Women-How-YOU-can-Build-a-Business-Case-for-Change.
The private sector is an essential partner in advancing the process of women’s economic empowerment. By adopting business practices that include and support women as workers, consumers, producers and suppliers, firms can not only contribute towards women’s economic empowerment, but also expand their own market, achieve greater business efficiency, and improve their bottom line.
This blog post builds on MarketShare Associates’ (MSA) work as part of the Arab Women’s Enterprise Fund (AWEF) to stimulate increased women’s economic empowerment through a market systems approach.
Drawing from the AWEF Practitioner Learning Brief, Working with the Private Sector to Empower Women: How You Can Build a Business Case for Change (2019), the MSA team outlines a practical framework for development actors to develop a robust business case for private sector companies around both the social and commercial value of empowering women. A compelling business case can help firms to understand why women’s inclusion and empowerment is important for their mission and values, business model and stakeholders. These benefits can be financial (for example, represented by revenue growth or cost savings), but they can also be non-financial (for example, brand or community reputation).
