乐鱼 体育

In principle, development organizations and donors have known that gender dynamics affect the success or failure of their efforts for some time. In practice, overturning cultural mores while at the same time improving health outcomes, incomes, or food security can be difficult.

The Millennium Development Goals, agreed to by governments in 2000, were  for insufficiently addressing gender inequality, referring to women鈥檚 empowerment in only one of the eight goals. Their successors, the Sustainable Development Goals, do so more comprehensively, including sub-targets that touch on gender in every one of the major goals.

鈥淲ith women鈥檚 empowerment embedded into all 17 of the Sustainable Development Goals, we鈥檙e well on our way to a path to make an even bigger impact in ending global poverty by 2030,鈥� said Richard Parker, vice president of marketing and communications at Project Concern International, a non-profit working to promote social and economic empowerment of women, at the 乐鱼 体育 on May 19.

Women are 鈥渟tarting businesses, investing back in their families and communities, and ensuring that their children have nutritious meals and access to health care,鈥� said Parker.

But giving every woman and girl the opportunity for a fully productive life requires closer cooperation between governments, the private sector, and NGOs than we鈥檝e seen so far, according to a panel of representatives from these sectors.

鈥淭here is better chance for innovation when you have all the voices around the table,鈥� said Gwen Young, director of the 乐鱼 体育鈥檚 , which aims to ensure that by 2050 at least 50 percent of all public service leadership positions are held by women.

Getting Entrepreneurs on Their Feet

Partnerships with the private sector are an under-utilized avenue for change, said Young. Businesses are sometimes more likely to 鈥渋nvest a large amount of money in risks and innovation.鈥�

鈥淲e can鈥檛 have continued and sustained success without working to improve the status of women, the engagement and connection of women in society and within our business,鈥� said Curtis Etherly, director of federal affairs and international stakeholder relations for The Coca-Cola Company.

鈥淲omen are decision-makers economically,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey are often times carrying the lion鈥檚 share of the work but they do not bring home the lion鈥檚 share of income.鈥�

The  project is a commitment by Coca-Cola to empower 5 million women by 2020 by engaging them throughout the company鈥檚 value chain and helping them become distributors, retailers, and business owners, Etherly said.

Coca-Cola identified three major areas in their business where women could play a significant part: supply, production, and distribution. In  with the non-profit TechnoServe and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the company is helping more than 50,000 mango and passion fruit framers in Kenya and Uganda. Project Nurture trains women and their families on quality improvement, increasing production, and agricultural best practices, allowing smallholder farmers, who were previously unable to access market opportunities, to double their incomes, said Etherly.

Coca-Cola has also created micro-distribution centers that are run by women, he said. Using their expertise and capital to provide mentoring and interest-free loans, they are helping eliminate barriers to entering the market, getting 鈥渨omen entrepreneurs on their feet.鈥�

Empowerment Doesn鈥檛 Happen One Time

Susan Reichle, counselor at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), said partnership with 鈥渢he private sector, with think tanks, with foundations, and with NGOs鈥� is key at the agency, as explicitly stated in their  to 鈥減artner to end extreme poverty and build resilient democratic societies in order to achieve a more prosperous and secure world.鈥�

Gender equity is 鈥渁t the core鈥� of many of these partnerships, Reichle said. The  program, for example, is a public-private partnership with the Nike Foundation and the UK Department for International Development to provide capital, technical assistance, mentoring, and networking to businesses working with adolescent girls in Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda.

One of the businesses funded by the SPRING Accelerator is , which is developing decentralized safe water systems in Kenya through a network of shops in rural areas, shortening the amount of time girls spend collecting water.

, another venture supported by SPRING Accelerator, provides low-cost sanitary pads made from agricultural waste materials (bananas). Women in local communities produce the sanitary pads and young female entrepreneurs market and distribute them.

鈥淭here鈥檚 a tremendous opportunity鈥o support girls to develop the skills and confidence to be leaders,鈥� Reichle said.

Another project funded in part by USAID is PCI鈥檚 , which establishes self-sustaining women鈥檚 savings groups. Its director, Sarah Emerson, said what sets it apart is a focus not just on access to capital but building up the self-worth and a sense of what鈥檚 possible for its members.

Increasing access to capital is 鈥渇airly simple,鈥� said Emerson. But women don鈥檛 necessarily have ownership of productive assets or decision-making authority about investments.

鈥淲e want to change their trajectory鈥�

WE builds leadership skills by pushing women into new roles. 鈥淓veryone takes turns being a leader,鈥� Emerson said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 usually very scary and usually the first time that they are in such a position, but we do find it very impactful.鈥� Each women鈥檚 group is also trained on goal setting and action planning. 鈥淥ur sustainability model is that the women know how to run their own groups,鈥� said Emerson.

鈥淩ather than having a one-time bump in the well-being of the women we work with, we want to change their trajectory,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e can鈥檛 view empowerment as something that happens one time.鈥�

鈥淲hat we don鈥檛 want to do,鈥� said Emerson, 鈥渋s try to be all things to all people.鈥� WE works with 18 local partners in 19 programs across 12 countries, according to its . WE groups around the world, comprising more than 438,000 members, have surpassed.

Collaborating with other organizations has also allowed PCI to develop more effective metrics to measure impact. In concert with the International Center for Research on Women, PCI is building the second iteration of its , which measures indicators across seven sectors: poverty, education, food security, social capital, household economics, health, and gender equity. It鈥檚 鈥渁 multi-dimensional survey tool that is typically administered at the beginning of our engagement with women, and then toward the end of the engagement,鈥� Emerson said.

The indices allow PCI to benchmark those 鈥渕ore difficult or hard to measure components, such as social capital,鈥� said Emerson.

鈥淓veryone鈥檚 Issue鈥�

Although these projects illustrate some of the various efforts underway to fully integrate women into the global economy, 鈥渨e鈥檙e still stagnated in terms of labor, earnings, work conditions, advancement, entrepreneurship, and digital inclusion,鈥� said Greta Schettler, vice president of , an organization working to ensure at least 51 percent of businesses outside the United States are owned, managed, or controlled by women, and can succeed in global markets.

鈥淭here鈥檚 a tremendous amount of economic gains that could be made by empowering women,鈥� said Schettler. 鈥淲e found that the [United Arab Emirates] could gain 12 percent in their GDP. In Egypt it could be 34 percent.鈥�

鈥淚t is crucial that we really start to look at how we鈥檙e collecting our data and measuring where we currently stand,鈥� Schettler said. There have been improvements in women鈥檚 health and education, but 鈥渢here鈥檚 been a little less progress in economic and political participation as we haven鈥檛 been collecting the data as intensively as we have in other sectors.鈥�

Doing so will require combining data on gender in many different contexts, said Diana Harbison, director of program monitoring and evaluation at the  (USTDA). The agency, which aims to produce American jobs by helping to find markets for U.S. goods and services, has more than 4,000 programs and activities ranging from expanding energy grids to building water treatment plants. 鈥淎s you can imagine,鈥� Harbison said, 鈥渁n energy project is different than a transportation one.鈥�

Harbison said they recently redesigned their impact evaluations to better capture qualitative metrics. They identified project-specific indicators along with higher-level indicators, like the participation of women, which could apply to all projects at the agency. Harbison said the addition of qualitative data has helped USTDA 鈥渄etermine the impact power has on gender鈥� and, in doing so, justify the importance of electricity projects such as  that explicitly involve women.

Such public-private partnerships can 鈥渞eally move women鈥檚 empowerment forward,鈥� said Schettler.

鈥淲omen鈥檚 empowerment isn鈥檛 just a part of development,鈥� said Reichle, 鈥渋t鈥檚 really the core of development. Gender is now everyone鈥檚 issue.鈥�

Event Resources:

Written by Sreya Panuganti, edited by Schuyler Null.