Working with the Private Sector to Empower Women: What to Measure and How to Build the Business Case for Change
- Partner: Arab Women’s Enterprise Fund (AWEF), DAI, UK Department for International Development (DFID)
- Publication Type: Practitioner Learning Brief
- Date: July 2019
- Team: Julia Hakspiel
- Recommended Citation:
As part of the Arab Women’s Enterprise Fund (AWEF) project, MarketShare Associates produced a Practitioner Learning Brief on using a market systems and private sector development approach to stimulate increased women’s economic empowerment. This Brief provides a practical framework for development actors to develop a robust business case for private sector companies around both the commercial and social 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).
Building on the direct experience from implementing AWEF over four years, as well as case studies from the wider practitioner community, the Brief presents a range of business frameworks, approaches, tools, data and metrics that can be used to build a compelling business case to the private sector.
