The World Bank’s Accelerating Equality Initiative aims to end world poverty by encouraging and enabling women’s participation in more formal economic activity. According to World Bank calculations, if women were to achieve parity with men in this regard, it would boost global GDP by around 20%. That would be the equivalent of adding a second American economy to the world’s overall economic activity. This gives an idea of the extent to which the sidelining of women in terms of formal economic participation is limiting humankind’s progress towards the goal of zero poverty.
However, that target is still some way off, and it is clear that the current situation is unsustainable. At Fondation-LAB, we are committed to empowering women’s economic participation through providing them with the kind of opportunities and access that men typically have.
Targets for 2030
The World Bank has set targets for women’s economic participation that, when achieved, will radically transform the economic landscape in developing countries. These objectives include providing an additional 300 million women with broadband internet access (a key factor in enabling access to resources and information); ensuring that 250 million more women are covered by social protection programs that guarantee their income and employment status; and ensuring that an extra 80 million women-led businesses have access to the capital they need to grow and succeed.
Achieving these targets will drive progress towards the UNDP’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and have enormous positive consequences for not only women’s wellbeing, but also for the wellbeing of their families and communities. All that is required is that the untapped potential of the world’s women be unleashed.
One major obstacle is that for many women, their time and energy is currently taken up by informal, unpaid work such as domestic chores and childcare. Traditional patriarchal social structures have tended to emphasis a male hegemony that assigns roles (and consequently, constrains earning potential) along gender lines.
Due to the roles that many women find themselves shouldering, they have had to develop individual and collective resilience in the face of both everyday challenges and macro issues ranging from climate change to civil wars. Addressing the root causes of poverty will increase the resilience of individuals, families and communities, and increase their ability to withstand shocks like these.
Practical measures to increase women’s participation
Enabling more women to participate in the formal, paid economy is often simply a matter of making it feasible and safe for them to travel to work. Improved street lighting and the increased provision of reliable public transport means that going to and from a workplace no longer involves running the gauntlet of crime.
Better policing and a more effective justice system can also contribute to a reduction in crimes against women, by acting as a deterrent to potential aggressors.
In the same way, access to childcare support can free women from what has traditionally been one of their main traditional roles – and one of the biggest single factors keeping mothers out of the workforce. When they are able to place their young children in crèche or preschool facilities, they can go to work without having to worry about the welfare of their children.
The precarious position of women’s rights
Recent years have unfortunately seen significant rollbacks in women’s rights in a number of countries. Access to services such as healthcare and education, and participation in democratic processes, is in some nations now more restricted than it has been in a generation. Removal or erosion of these rights can severely constrain women’s ability to participate economically, and this makes addressing norms around gender power dynamics more important and urgent than ever.
The moral and political arguments in favor of enhancing and protecting women’s rights are unanswerable; as we have seen, economic logic strongly supports this position also. Where women have entrenched rights to education, healthcare and democracy, they are much more likely to be involved in the formal economy, and their countries’ GDPs will receive a sustained boost as a result.
The need for leadership changes
At Fondation-LAB, we are committed to implementing grassroots change. However, we also recognize that having more women in leadership roles (in government, business and representative forums) is essential in order to facilitate change.
It’s important to note that in achieving better representation at senior levels is merely a case of giving women an opportunity to show what they can do, rather than doing them any form of favor. At every level of seniority in any organization, women’s attributes offer tremendous value. They bring determination, talent, ambition and energy to the table – in each case, at least as much as men.
Women in leadership roles are well placed to assist their peers. Studies have shown that female entrepreneurs employ more women. This means that facilitating social entrepreneurship can initiate a ‘trickle-down’ effect that benefits more women and their dependents.
When women are involved in drawing up and implementing policies and regulations, they are more likely to consider the impact of their decisions on other women, and to evaluate these consequences in the context of the overall goal of increased economic participation by women.
Actionable insights
Research into the scope and nature of the challenge is essential. Identifying trends and anomalies can highlight areas where initiatives have been successful, and where further efforts need to be concentrated. Acquiring relevant, accurate data can also show the extent of the changes resulting from interventions, and successful approaches can then be flagged as best practices and replicated more widely.
Research that has been done to date has highlighted a ‘shopping list’ of requirements for increasing women’s participation (and, consequently, reducing poverty). This list includes:
· Increasing access to education
· Improved legal protections
· Enhanced access to startup capital for SMEs
· Better broadband connectivity
· Access to training and mentorship
The importance of technology
Improving access to broadband internet offers multiple advantages. However, in remote rural areas, more imaginative approaches may be required. These could include using satellite internet technology, which is uniquely applicable to areas where terrestrial infrastructure cannot feasibly be installed or maintained. In this way, many more women can be brought into contact with each other, and with the information resources they need.
Having affordable, reliable internet access will enable women to network with other social entrepreneurs, and engage with providers of finance, skills training and mentoring. Social media has a role to play here, too, by allowing women to connect beyond their immediate region, and benefit from the experience and successes of women in other locations.
Broader social media campaigns – such as the World Bank’s #AccelerateEquality movement –remind women in developing countries that they are not alone. Instead, they are part of a global pivot towards recognizing the necessity of having more women in meaningful, paid employment.
Connecting with capital
One especially important technological development is digital funds transfers. Bypassing traditional money movement channels allows funds to be delivered to the intended recipients without the risk of these being commandeered by others.
Access to business start-up capital has the potential to close financial gaps, and empower women to launch their own enterprises without needing permission (expressed in the form of funding) from their husbands or male relatives.
Accelerating Equality with Fondation-LAB
As a grassroots African organization, we are bringing women together in the spirit of collaborative social development. We believe that promoting and enabling social entrepreneurship can play a major role in uplifting women – and in combating global poverty.
Our activities are designed to enable women’s economic participation. We connect female-led startups with mentorship resources and provide business consulting services to existing entrepreneurs.
We are also upskilling women and female learners to give them the confidence and ability to start their own enterprises as they work towards financial independence. In turn, they can then assist other women to do the same.
By building capacity, we’re empowering women to fulfil their potential at the same time as effecting positive social change. Once women become social entrepreneurs, they are better positioned to overcome future obstacles.
Our specific solutions
Welcome to the Fondation-LAB Entrepreneurship Centre – the home of successful start-ups in the social entrepreneurship space. By providing female entrepreneurs with the services and support they need to launch their businesses, we are enabling women to assist themselves in climbing out of poverty – and in inspiring and motivating others to do the same.
In our experience, mentorship has proven to be a particularly effective tool, as it gives women access to highly relatable role models, and the chance to learn from social entrepreneurs who have already walked the path they are about to embark upon.
Through our Fondation-LAB programs in Burundi and beyond, we facilitate capacity building and entrepreneurial upskilling through connecting mentors and mentees. Our training programs focus on providing women with the aptitudes and abilities they need to reach their goals and transform their dreams into reality.
Our support for research
The lack of access for women to, and participation in, formal economic structures is clearly an issue, but only through dedicated research can we establish the scope and scale of the challenge, and identify factors that contribute to it as we search for answers.
At Fondation-LAB, we design, implement and evaluate research programs that focus on the current status of women’s economic participation and on finding ways to augment this.
Rise and Shine House
Rise and Shine House provides business consultancy services to women-led enterprises that unlock their potential for growth through assisting with business strategy and compliance issues, and facilitating connections between start-ups and potential investors.
While many entrepreneurs have the necessary imagination and passion, they often lack the business skills needed to secure funding, enter new markets and grow their organizations. That’s where Rise and Shine House can help.
By working with young African companies, we help them grow in confidence and spot opportunities that they might otherwise have missed. As this growth is achieved, we advise on tactics and approaches that ensure that all stakeholders benefit – this is the essence of social entrepreneurship.
We believe that compassionate capitalism is both feasible and essential – when social enterprises are profitable, they are in a much stronger position to effect positive change in the world around them.
Our network of contacts across Africa and beyond is constantly growing and strengthening as we put business owners and funders in contact with each other.
The power of thought leadership
We believe wholeheartedly in the power of our message, and that our collective experience and expertise can benefit women everywhere. For this reason, we regularly share our ideas and inspiration in thought leadership content like this article, shared online via our website (https://fondationlancedafriqueburundi.org/) and my LinkedIn profile (https://www.linkedin.com/in/nisabwe-florence-phd-057037144/).