An estimated $28 trillion could be added to the global annual GDP by 2025 by advancing women’s equality. Women’s economic empowerment (WEE) refers to a process by which women expand their ability to succeed and advance economically, and where they have the power to make and act on strategic life decisions in a context where this power was previously denied.
SEEP is dedicated to addressing systemic barriers that limit women’s empowerment through knowledge mobilization, cross organizational learning, and strengthening partnerships and alliances among diverse market actors. Our learning initiatives are designed to address common challenges amongst practitioners and create tangible opportunities to share promising practices, co-create technical resources, and to promote a collective voice for improving policy and practice.
The SEEP Network, in collaboration with forum partners, hosted an international conference on women’s economic empowerment with the theme “Creating Systems Change for Scale and Sustainability.” Over 350 participants from 60 countries convened to share promising practices for enterprise growth and job creation, financial inclusion, and women in agricultural systems.
The goal of the Women’s Economic Empowerment Working Group (WEEWG) is to improve the ability practitioners to integrate and empower women in market systems.
In collaboration with Oxfam, The SEEP Network facilitates a Peer Learning Group focused on shifting social norms in the economy at scale.
This learning series is part of the AWEF project and will engage diverse stakeholders to examine practical lessons and solutions in women’s economic empowerment.
2021 | Arab Women’s Enterprise Fund (AWEF)
This Practitioner Brief presents key findings of research conducted in partnership by Egyptian investment fund, Mezzan Investments, and the FCDO funded Arab Women’s Enterprise Fund (AWEF…
2021 | MEDA
Katika ulimwengu wetu, watu wa jinsia zote wanaathiriwa na majukumu, matarajio, na tabia zilizowekwa juu yao na jamii. Jinsia, tofauti na jinsi ya kike/kiume, hufunzwa, na inaelezea njia am…
2021 | MEDA
In our world, people of all genders are impacted by the roles, expectations, and behaviors placed upon them by society. Gender, as opposed to sex, is learned, and describes the ways that pe…
2021 | MEDA
MEDA’s Strengthening Small Business Value Chains (SSBVC) project aims to contribute to Tanzania’s economic growth and increase job creation by sustainably improving the busines…
2021 | MEDA
Makala hii ya mafunzo inachunguza upatikanaji wa teknolojia za kilimo kwa wanawake katika kanda tatu za Tanzania ambazo ni Arusha, Morogoro na Mtwara. Mradi wa SSBVC ulitekeleza shughuli ya…
2021 | MEDA
This learning paper explores women’s access to agricultural technology in three corridors in Tanzania; Arusha, Morogoro and Mtwara. The SSBVC project implemented an eVoucher activity…
2021 | MEDA
This learning paper provides an update to the case study, “Developing Asset-Financing Products for Women Smallholders with a Community Bank in Tanzania,” included in the Experience…
2021 | International Finance Corporation- IFC
Women make up half the world's population, and half of its economic potential. Yet they are far less likely than men to own a home. That's because women work in informal jobs, are unfamiliar w…
2021 | MEDA
Focusing on Savings and Loan Groups, this paper explores what factors contribute to social and financial impact on group members. Group continuity is also examined, to understand what motivate…
2021 | ELAN RDC
This brief summarizes the early findings of the research conducted with one renewable energy company and their sales ambassadors in North and South Kivu, one of the four different responden…
2021 | ELAN RDC
The representation of women working in the private sector in the DRC, regardless of role and sector, is important because it ensures that diverse perspectives are brought to the table, con…
2021 | ELAN DRC
ELAN DRC helped raised awareness of businesses and financial institutions of the commercial benefits of integrating considerations for women as employees, customers, suppliers and cooperati…
2021 | Itad
The Savings Evidence Map is an interactive tool that provides consolidated access to 354 studies related to savings-focused financial inclusion. The map organizes the evidence into a matrix st…
2021 | International Finance Corporation
The report Women and E-commerce in Southeast Asia is the first large-scale use of platform data in the region to inform the extent of women’s participation on e-commerce and how online p…
2021 | International Finance Corporation
The report Women and E-commerce in Africa is the first large-scale use of platform data in the region to inform the extent of women’s participation on e-commerce and how online platforms…
2021 | ÉLAN RDC
ÉLAN RDC is a DFID-funded market systems programme working across ten highly differentiated and geographically dispersed provinces in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The pro…
2021 | FinEquity
This brief is a FinEquity community effort and it is meant to help the financial inclusion community understand digital financial literacy and better address this component of the digital fina…
2021 | Banyan Global
The Women's Economic Empowerment and Gender Equality (WEEGE) Wiki is a resource compendium home to: The Women’s Economic Empowerment and Gender Equality Technical Guide, developed to…
2021 | Evidence Consortium on Women’s Groups
Developed by the Evidence Consortium on Women’s Groups, this brief presents emerging evidence from studies in diverse African contexts— with a deep dive into Nigeria and Uganda&mda…
2021 | Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Local Communities MEAL Learning Hub
MEAL and faith in the development and humanitarian sector
Faith actors have long been involved in initiatives aimed at improving the wellbeing
and health of communities. While much of…
2021 | Roberta Pinamonti & Jeremy Prepscius (Business for Social Responsibility) and Grow Asia
Women are often invisible in the smallholder farming landscape in Southeast Asia, perceived as being “unproductive” compared to men while also being expected to provide unpaid farm…
2020 | Sandy Ruxton & Stephen Burrell (Promundo)
Masculinities and COVID-19: Making the Connections provides an evidence-based overview of key issues in relation to men, masculinities, and COVID-19, setting these within a gendered approach.…
2020 | Brian Heilman (Promundo-US), María Rosario Castro Bernardini & Kimberly Pfeifer (Oxfam America)
Caring Under COVID-19: How the Pandemic Is – and Is Not – Changing Unpaid Care and Domestic Work Responsibilities in the United States, a new report by Promundo and Oxfam as part o…
2020 | Li Li Chen (Oxfam)
This report presents findings on the impact of COVID-19 and the associated State of Emergency from March – June 2020 on women in agriculture in Timor-Leste. The findings were gathered fr…
2020 | MEDA
MEDA's Jordan Valley Links project has been implementing market systems programming using both private sector and civil society partners. This technical paper explores the value of working wit…
2020 | Aatif Somji (International Labour Organization)
The COVID-19 crisis and ensuing confinement has brought to the fore a key constraint to women’s economic empowerment: the unequal, gendered distribution of unpaid care work. Even before…
2020 | Chloe Gueguen, Reham Gharbiyeh, Julia Hakspiel & Sabal Majali (Arab Women's Enterprise Fund)
لا تزال منطقة الشرق الأوسط و شمال أفريقيا لديها أكبر فجوة بين الجنسين في العالم من حيث المشاركة الاقتصادية للمرأة ؛ و ذلك بالرغم من التقدم الذي تم إحرازه خلال السنوات القليلة الماضية. و تظهر ه…
2020 | Sara Seavey & Yasmin Ta'ba (MEDA)
MEDA piloted Gender Progress Markers (GPM) in Jordan to measure women’s economic empowerment. GPM are a set of statements, describing a progression of changed behaviors for a target grou…
2020 | MEDA
MEDA INNOVATE's new learning paper focuses on how decisions are made within agricultural households around production, including the adoption and uptake of new practices or inputs along with s…
2020 | Chloe Gueguen, Reham Gharbiyeh, Julia Hakspiel & Sabal Majali (Arab Women's Enterprise Fund)
Despite progress over the past few years, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region still has the largest gender gap in terms of women’s economic participation in the world. This ec…
2020 | Christina Haneef & Anushka Kalyanpur (CARE)
On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organisation classified COVID-19 as a pandemic. Disease outbreaks affect women, girls, men, boys, and persons of all genders differently, to say nothing of t…
2020 | CARE
For nearly 75 years, CARE has been working to address the root causes of suffering and to provide lifesaving humanitarian assistance to people in need. Operating in more than 100 countries, CA…
2020 | CARE
For nearly 75 years, CARE has been working to address the root causes of suffering and to provide lifesaving humanitarian assistance to people in need. Operating in more than 100 countries, CA…
2019 | Ashley Wheaton (SEEP Network)
Worldwide, about 80 percent of Savings Group members are women (SAVIX 2019). Gendered participation rates in Savings Groups mirror those of the microfinance sector, which set a precedent of em…
2019 | Caroline Rubin, Lis Meyers & Tess Perselay (Nathan Associates)
Policies and regulations can either serve as barriers to employment opportunities for women or help to ensure that women are able to access the same employment opportunities as men or mitigate…
2019 | CARE
In 2018, CARE launched a 12-year VSLA scaling strategy with a goal of supporting 50 million women and girls – 65 million people overall – to form savings groups by 2030. Our commit…
2019 | World Bank
This report was produced jointly by the World Bank’s Africa Region Gender Innovation Lab (GIL) and the Finance Competitiveness & Innovation (FCI) Global Practice. The World Bank&rsqu…
2019 | UN
WE EMPOWER places women’s economic empowerment at the heart of the future of work agenda. Through its guiding framework for private sector engagement, the Women’s Empowerment Princ…
2019 | Hiba Tibi & Anan Kittaneh (CARE)
This detailed learning and reflection product is intended to provide practical learning and present selected existing tools being applied by CARE Country Offices (COs) in the Middle East and N…
2019 | Meghann Jones (Ipsos)
To really understand whether a woman is able to realize her rights, exercise agency, and fully participate in economy and society requires us to understand how she feels about her ability to d…
2019 | Mansi Anand (Oxfam), Anna Mecagni (Women for Women International) & Maryam Piracha (PRISMA)
There is increasing interest from economic programs to better understand, measure and capture agency across interventions in order to more deliberately pursue women’s economic empowermen…
2019 |
Tres asuntos clave motivaron esta investigación: (1) La ambición de CARE es garantizar que su trabajo de PTM esté diseñado con y para mujeres y niñas, y que…
2019 |
Three key issues motivated this research: (1) CARE’s ambition is to ensure that its CVA work is designed with and for women and girls, addressing their needs, challenges, and opportuniti…
2019 |
Trois questions clés ont motivé cette recherche : (1) L’objectif de CARE est de s’assurer que son TM est conçu avec et pour les femmes et les filles, et r&eacu…
2019 | Elin Cohen & Caroline Rubin (Nathan Associates)
This report, prepared by Nathan Associates for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Policy Support Unit, examines the process of structural reforms in APEC economies to remove barriers…
2019 |
برنامج المساعدات النقدية والقسائم ) CVA ( هو أحد ا أ لدوات الشائعة حاليًا في العمل ا إ لنسا ني ، ويستخدم في تلبية الاحتياجات المتنوعة للنازحي ن نتيجة
ل أ لزمات والصراعات بشكل أك ث كرامة.…
2019 | Holly Lard Krueger, Giulia Salmaso, Dhita Larasati (PRISMA)
This case study adds new insights into existing guidance on WEE in MSD. It does by (1) examining widespread challenges to effective WEE mainstreaming in MSD programs, and (2) providing example…
2019 | Katherine Rickard (Nathan Associates)
As Savings Groups increasingly serve as a pillar of gender-focused programs, there is a need to better understand the pathways between Savings Groups and women’s empowerment. The purpose…
2019 | Julia Hakspiel (Arab Women's Enterprise Fund & MarketShare Associates)
This AWEF Practitioner Learning Brief provides a practical framework for development actors on how to develop a robust business case for private sector companies on the commercial value of emp…
2019 | MEDA
This technical brief will outline the JVL GPM process, domains, and preliminary data on women’s economic empowerment as defined by our clients, partners, and staff. It will conclude with…
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