Supporting women’s ability to succeed and advance economically leads to healthy and productive households, growing businesses, and the well-being of communities and nations.
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.
What We Aim to Achieve
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.
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.
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…
Developing and sustaining the vibrant ready-made garment (RMG) industry is vital to Bangladesh's economy. Bangladesh is the second largest exporter of ready-made garments in the world, and the…
2019 |Katherine Rickard and Amalia Johnsson (Nathan Associates)
This learning brief examines the pathways between Savings Groups and women’s empowerment, the evidence with respect to various outcome areas, and how women’s empowerment outcomes c…
In 2008, Saving for Change (SfC) began training savings and lending groups in a handful of villages in Chalatenango, El Salvador. Today there are 2,183 “Ahorro Comunitario” (&ldquo…
FAO and CARE have jointly developed this paper to help policymakers and practitioners meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the ambitious goals of Agenda 2030. The paper is intende…
Partnering organizations Opportunity International and iDE have launched an innovative agricultural action-research project in Mozambique to sustainably deliver agricultural support to women f…
Jordan Vision 2025 and Jordan’s Economic Growth Plan acknowledge the significant spillover effects that improved transportation options and increased female labor participation would hav…
Around the world, women consistently earn less than men and are trapped in the lowest paid and least secure jobs, which rarely provide formal workplace protections or social security. They als…
Qualitative research conducted in August 2017, by South Florida University, examined the relationship between economic growth and forms of political accountability in four locations in Mali th…
This technical note examines the role of the enabling environment in supporting women agri-entrepreneurs and agricultural wage workers. It begins with an assessment of the entrepreneurial and…
There is widespread recognition that unleashing women’s talent as entrepreneurs is an effective way to narrow the current gender gaps in the labor market, and thus contribute to inclusiv…
Women across the ASEAN region are confronted by regulations and policies restricting their labor force participation. These policies impact their ability to earn an income and have decision-ma…
2018 |Nisha Singh (The SEEP Network) and Anam Parvez Butt, Claudia Canepa (Oxfam)
Insights from a Practitioner Learning Group
This document is a summary of the process and insights from the participants of a 2017 Practitioner Learning Group (PLG) on “Shifting Social N…
2018 |Ariane Ryan, Amna Awan, Maryam Piracha, and Syeda Samira Saif (Market Development Facility)
This paper explores the effect of increased household income on women’s economic empowerment in the context of complex household dynamics, and seeks to understand how access to economic…
Women are confronted by regulations and policies restricting their labor force participation. These policies impact their ability to earn an income and have decision-making power, as well as i…
Research within the savings sector to date has produced mixed results on the impact of VSLA on women’s empowerment. This study examines if the more holistic approach to poverty alleviati…
The Gender Equality Mainstreaming (GEM) Framework is an approach that is presented here as a how-to manual – a practical guide and toolkit – for assessing gender equality, and iden…
The international community is increasingly aware of the negative impacts of child marriage on a wide range of development outcomes. Ending child marriage is nowpart of the Sustainable Develop…
The purpose of this study is to document changes in household decision-making among participants of BOMA’s gender-focused graduation model, specifically about household financial decisio…
