Promoting Women’s Economic Empowerment Beyond Production in Market Systems Programs

  • Partner: Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO)
  • Publication Type: Brief
  • Date: 2016

This brief examines how and why practitioners are achieving women's economic empowerment (WEE) outcomes through interventions that seek to promote and empower women in agricultural roles beyond production. More specifically, this brief presents a survey of promising strategies and recommendations for further investigation.

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Measuring Women’s Economic Empowerment in Market Systems

  • Partner: The SEEP Network, UN Women, and Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO)
  • Publication Type: Webinar
  • Date: August 28, 2015

Gender inequality and the process of empowerment are dynamic and complex, as are the market systems in which women work. This webinar explored practices in measuring women's economic empowerment such as innovations in measuring agency, gender norms, and gendered behavior changes at the firm and household level, as well as insights from implementing these practices when working with the private sector.

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Workforce Development Programming: Economic Strengthening and Adolescent Girls

  • Partner: The SEEP Network
  • Publication Type: Webinar
  • Date: August 4, 2015

This webinar focuses on understanding what type of programming works in reaching and engaging adolescents in economic and financial activity, with a special interest in those programs that focus on girls and young women. The webinar explores experiences from the World Bank's Adolescent Girls Initiative (AGI), a public-private partnership that was launched in 2008 and now spans eight countries, as well as the CYFI School Bank program.

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Six Ways Women Add Value to Business

  • Partner: Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO)
  • Publication Type: Blog Post
  • Date: July 7, 2015

Through research under the USAID-funded Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO) project, we have found that implementers who successfully persuade businesses to adopt inclusive business practices to empower women often focus on “making the business case.” They also stress the importance of being able to speak the language of the private sector.

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Making the Business Case: Women’s Economic Empowerment in Market Systems Development

  • Partner: Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO)
  • Publication Type: Report
  • Date: March 2015

This paper, based on extensive research and interviews, provides the rationale that market systems facilitation practitioners can use to engage private sector firms in efforts to empower women. From identifying partners to articulating the mutually beneficial value of women's inclusion, the paper offers guidance and real-world examples to help companies empower women working at every level of the economy.

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Women’s Economic Empowerment: Pushing the Frontiers of Inclusive Market Development

  • Partner: Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO)
  • Publication Type: Report
  • Date: November 2014

The framework presented in this paper identifies gender considerations and provides examples for facilitating women’s economic empowerment in inclusive market systems. By explicitly taking gender dynamics into account, inclusive market systems can empower women, leading to wide-ranging development dividends for both women and men, their families, and wider society.

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AKF’s Women-only Markets: A Promising Model

  • Partner: Aga Khan Development Network
  • Publication Type: Brief
  • Date: April 2014

Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) realized a catalytic intervention was needed to support women’s access to public spaces, demonstrating that women can run businesses. In 2007, the first women-only markets were opened as part of a wider women’s poverty reduction initiative. A total of 29 markets were launched over the next three years. This report presents the results of this intervention and the lessons learned from the operational issues encountered.

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Measuring the Results of Women’s Economic Empowerment in Private Sector Development: Guidelines for Practitioners

  • Partner: Donor Committee for Enterprise Development (DCED) Women’s Entrepreneurship Development Working Group
  • Publication Type: Toolkit
  • Date: July 2014

Most guidelines on women’s economic empowerment focus on theory of guiding implementation practices but not on measurement practices tailored to private sector development (PSD) programs. Moreover, more PSD programs focus on measuring enterprise-level results instead of household level results. This document presents the key findings on measurement practices of women’s economic empowerment specifically.

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Breaking Barriers to Youth Entrepreneurship & Employment through Savings Groups

  • Partner: The SEEP Network
  • Publication Type: Webinar
  • Date: June 24, 2014

Can youth savings groups help foster entrepreneurship and employment among young people, supporting them in their search for decent work and their struggle against poverty? This webinar presented key findings from a paper on the topic commissioned by Plan UK; programmatic considerations on what is working and what is not from the Banking on Change partnership; and learnings from Freedom from Hunger's AIM youth initiative.

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DCED Webinar: Measuring Women’s Economic Empowerment

  • Partner: Donor Committee for Enterprise Development (DCED)
  • Publication Type: Webinar
  • Date: June 17, 2014

Why measure women’s economic empowerment? Why are household level indicators important for measuring changes in women’s economic empowerment? In this webinar, Erin Markel presents guidelines, good practices, and lessons learned for Measuring Results of Women’s Economic Empowerment in Private Sector Development.

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