What we do

CWN strategy

We work to increase women’s economic opportunities and decision-making power at all spheres. An extensive body of research shows that when women earn an income and control their earnings, their children are more likely to attend school, their families are healthier, their self-worth improves; and their household incomes grow-along with the global economy.
The Women’s Economic Empowerment team focuses on increasing women’s power and influence by removing barriers to work, enabling decent work, and supporting women’s enterprises in order to help women and girls thrive in the economy.
We look for ways to reach large numbers of low-income women. We see women’s empowerment collectives, data-informed public policy, digital connectivity, and private-sector value chains as avenues for advancing women’s economic inclusion. We also design inclusive solutions that meet the needs of women where they are. For example, economic opportunities may look very different for older rural women than for younger urban women.
Our strategy focuses on generating opportunities for at least 80 million low-income women in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa that increase their incomes by more than 30% by 2030. Our strategy aims to:
⇒ Increase female labor force participation by attracting women into the workforce in places where female labor force participation is low
⇒ Increase women’s average income by helping them advance into higher-return occupations if they are already doing paid work.
⇒ Help retain women within the workforce in circumstances where they might normally drop out, such as after marriage or the birth of a child.

Our goal
To increase women’s economic opportunities by supporting efforts to help them generate and control their own revenues.

Areas of focus

Capital
Most women in emerging markets are self-employed by necessity. Access to capital is crucial to their ability to sustain and grow enterprises. We’re working to improve their access to capital and financial services, including cash and asset transfers, credit, savings, and assets for growth and resilience.

Data
This provides accurate information about women’s lives and experiences, is critical to designing and delivering products and services that work for women, whether they are provided by the government or the private sector.
Sex-disaggregated data makes women’s needs as well as gaps between men and women visible. We’re focusing on better decision-making and service delivery through sex-disaggregated data in both the public and private sectors.

Digital Tools
Digital inclusion is linked to improvements in women’s economic opportunities and outcomes. This includes access to and use of financial services and access to income-generating opportunities. We’re exploring how smart phones and other digital tools can help women obtain better services and improve their livelihoods.

Markets
Out of necessity, women in low- and middle-income countries are highly concentrated in the informal economy, with little to no social and labor protections. And when women work, they are often poorly paid. We’re connecting women with more lucrative sources of income and helping them compete in new, higher-profit markets

Child Care
Worldwide, 350 million children of primary-school age and younger—40% of that age group—lack access to child care, which leaves women with the burden of unpaid care and constrains their ability to take on paid work. We’re testing innovative approaches to reducing the child care burden on women through public, private, and community-based child care programs—while also identifying work opportunities for women in the care economy.

Benefits of economic empowerment

Women’s economic empowerment is central to realizing women’s rights and gender equality. Women’s economic empowerment includes women’s ability to participate equally in existing markets; their access to and control over productive resources, access to decent work, control over their own time, lives and bodies; and increased voice, agency and meaningful participation in economic decision-making at all levels from the household to international institutions.

Empowering women in the economy and closing gender gaps in the world of work are key to achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Goal 5, to achieve gender equality, and Goal 8, to promote full and productive employment and decent work for all; also Goal 1 on ending poverty, Goal 2 on food security, Goal 3 on ensuring health and Goal 10 on reducing inequalities.

When more women work, economies grow. Women’s economic empowerment boosts productivity, increases economic diversification and income equality in addition to other positive development outcomes. For example, increasing the female employment rates in OECD countries to match that of Sweden could boost GDP by over USD 6 trillion, recognizing, however, that growth does not automatically lead to a reduction in gender-based inequality. Conversely, it is estimated that gender gaps cost the economy some 15% of GDP.

Increasing women’s and girls’ educational attainment contributes to women’s economic empowerment and more inclusive economic growth. Education, up skilling and re-skilling over the life course – especially to keep pace with rapid technological and digital transformations affecting jobs—are critical for women’s and girl’s health and wellbeing, as well as their income-generation opportunities and participation in the formal labour market. Increased educational attainment accounts for about 50% of the economic growth in OECD countries over the past 50 years. But, for the majority of women, significant gains in education have not translated into better labour market outcomes.

Women’s economic equality is good for business. Companies greatly benefit from increasing employment and leadership opportunities for women, which is shown to increase organizational effectiveness and growth. It is estimated that companies with three or more women in senior management functions score higher in all dimensions of organizational performance.

The world of work

Gender differences in laws affect both developing and developed economies, and women in all regions. Globally, over 2.7 billion women are legally restricted from having the same choice of jobs as men. Of 189 economies assessed in 2018, 104 economies still have laws preventing women from working in specific jobs, 59 economies have no laws on sexual harassment in the workplace, and in 18 economies, and husbands can legally prevent their wives from working.

Women remain less likely to participate in the labour market than men around the world. Labour force participation rate for women aged 25-54 is 63% compared to 94% for men. When including younger (aged 15 years and up) and older women (aged 55 and up), in 2018 women’s global labour force participation rate is event lower at 48.5%, 26.5 percentage points below that of men.

Women are more likely to be unemployed than men. In 2017, global unemployment rates for men and women stood at 5.5% and 6.2% respectively. This is projected to remain relatively unchanged going into 2018 and through 2021.

Women are over-represented in informal and vulnerable employment. Women are more than twice more likely than men to be contributing family workers. From the latest available data, the share of women in informal employment in developing countries was 4.6 percentage points higher than that of men, when including agricultural workers, and 7.8 percentage points higher when excluding them.

Women’s economic equality is good for business. Companies greatly benefit from increasing employment and leadership opportunities for women, which is shown to increase organizational effectiveness and growth. It is estimated that companies with three or more women in senior management functions score higher in all dimensions of organizational performance.

Globally, women are paid less than men. The gender wage gap is estimated to be 23%. This means that women earn 77% of what men earn, though these figures understate the real extent of gender pay gaps, particularly in developing countries where informal self-employment is prevalent. Women also face the motherhood wage penalty, which increases as the number of children a woman has increases.

Women bear disproportionate responsibility for unpaid care and domestic work. Women tend to spend around 2.5 times more time on unpaid care and domestic work than men. The amount of time devoted to unpaid care work is negatively correlated with female labour force participation.

Unpaid care work is essential to the functioning of the economy, but often goes uncounted and unrecognized. It is estimated that if women’s unpaid work were assigned a monetary value, it would constitute between 10% and 39% of GDP.

Women are still less likely to have access to social protection. Gender inequalities in employment and job quality result in gender gaps in access to social protection acquired through employment, such as pensions, unemployment benefits or maternity protection. Globally, an estimated nearly 40% of women in wage employment do not have access to social protection.

Women are less likely than men to have access to financial institutions or have a bank account. While 65% of men report having an account at a formal financial institution, only 58% of women do worldwide.

The digital divide remains a gendered one: most of the 3.9 billion people who are offline are in rural areas, poorer, less educated and tend to be women and girls.

Women are less likely to be entrepreneurs and face more disadvantages starting businesses: In 40% of economies, women’s early stage entrepreneurial activity is half or less than half of that of men’s.

Women are constrained from achieving the highest leadership positions: Only 5% of Fortune 500 CEOs are Women.

Violence and harassment in the world of work affects women regardless of age, location, income or social status. The economic costs – a reflection of the human and social costs – to the global economy of discriminatory social institutions and violence against women is estimated to be approximately USD 12 trillion annually.

Sustainable Development

Almost a third of women’s employment globally is in in agriculture, including forestry and fishing but this may exclude self-employed and unpaid family workers. Yet, differences across countries and regions are striking. The share of women workers in agriculture is only 9.5% in upper-middle-income countries and 2.6% in high-income countries, while agriculture remains the most important employment sector for women in low-income and lower-middle-income countries.

Women farmers have significantly less access to, control over, and ownership of land and other productive assets compared to their male counterparts. Land is perhaps the most important economic asset; women account for only 12.8% of agricultural landholders in the world.

Women and girls suffer most from the dearth of safely managed water and sanitation. Women and girls are responsible for water collection in 80% of households without access to water on premises. Menstrual hygiene management is difficult in the absence of water, soap and gender-responsive sanitation facilities, whether at home, school or work.

Women and girls are more likely to carry the burden of energy poverty and experience the adverse effects of lack of safe, reliable, affordable and clean energy. Indoor air pollution from using combustible fuels for household energy caused 4.3 million deaths in 2012, with women and girls accounting for 6 out of every 10 deaths.

Environmental degradation and climate change have disproportionate impacts on women and children. Women often bear the brunt of coping with climate-related shocks and stresses or the health effects of indoor and urban pollution, which add to their care burden. As land, forest and water resources are increasingly compromised, privatized or “grabbed” for commercial investment, local communities and indigenous peoples, particularly women, whose livelihoods depend on them, are marginalized and displaced. Globally, women are 14 times more likely than men to die during a disaster.

Women migrant workers

Women constitute approximately half of the 258 million migrants who live and work outside their countries of birth. Migrant women and girls outnumber men and boys in all regions except Africa and Asia; in some countries of Asia, men migrants outnumber women by about three to one.

Despite gender inequalities in the labour market and gender wage gaps globally, women migrant workers were responsible for sending half of the estimated $601 billion in remittances worldwide in 2016.

Research has shown that women migrant workers are often more likely than men to remit on a regular basis owing to women’s stronger links to family members and self-insurance motives underlining the link between a woman’s gendered care giving role in the household and her increasing propensity to remit.

Although many migrant women are highly skilled and well-educated, they face challenges in accessing foreign labour markets. Employment restrictions for migrants coupled with the de-skilling prevalent in gendered labour markets and pervasive stereotypes associated with migrant women in countries of destination, can negatively impact their job prospects. Indeed, many migrant women participate in low-skilled and precarious jobs characterized by low wages, poor working conditions, limited labour and social protections, and exposure to physical and sexual violence.

Women migrant workers are often concentrated in informal, low paid and unregulated work. The main sectors in which women migrant workers are employed are: services and retail (18.8%), elementary occupations (17.3%), craft and related trades (15.2%), professionals (13.9%) and clerks (12.3%). Of the estimated 11.5 million international migrant domestic workers (in 2013), approximately 73.4% were women

Some 1 in 20 girls between the ages of 15 and 19 – around 13 million globally – have experienced forced sex in their lifetimes.
Harmful gender norms are perpetuated at the highest levels. In some countries, they become entrenched in laws and policies that fail to uphold – or that even violate – girls’ rights, like laws that restrict women from inheriting property. Boys also suffer from gender norms: Social conceptions of masculinity can fuel child labour, gang violence, disengagement from school, and recruitment into armed groups.

What progress has been made for girls and young women?

Proportion of female youth aged 20-24 who were married or in a union before age 18

Despite major hurdles that still deny them equal rights, girls refuse to limit their ambitions. Since the signing of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action in 1995 – the most comprehensive policy agenda for gender equality – the world has seen uneven progress.
More and more girls are attending and completing school, and fewer are getting married or becoming mothers while still children themselves. But discrimination and limiting stereotypes remain rife. Technological change and humanitarian emergencies are also confronting girls with new challenges, while old ones – violence, institutionalized biases, poor learning and life opportunities – persist.
That’s why girls from all walks of life are boldly raising their voices against inequality. Girl-led movements are stopping child marriage and female genital mutilation, demanding action on climate change, and trail-blazing in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) – asserting their power as global change-makers.

What is CWN doing to promote gender equality?
Reducing inequality strengthens economies and builds stable, resilient societies that give all individuals – including boys and men – the opportunity to fulfill their potential.
CWN builds partnerships across the global community to accelerate gender equality. In all areas of our work, we integrate strategies that address gender-specific discrimination and disadvantages.
This means partnering with national health sectors to expand quality maternal care and support the professionalization of the mostly female front-line community health workforce. It means promoting the role of women in the design and delivery of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) ecosystems. And it means working with the education sector to ensure girls and boys thrive in their learning and find pathways to meaningful employment.
For adolescent girls especially, CWN invests in skills building to further their economic empowerment – as entrepreneurs, innovators and leaders. As part of our Adolescent Girls Strategy, we focus on providing learning environments at a time and place that suit girls individual circumstances. We also work on assistive technologies for girls with disabilities, and on the expansion of digital platforms, vocational training and apprenticeships.

Supporting girls’ pathway from education to employment requires more than learning opportunities. It requires keeping girls safe from all forms of violence, in and out of school.
Our targeted initiatives to prevent and respond to gender-based violence help end child marriage, eliminate female genital mutilation, provide safe spaces, support menstrual health management, deliver HIV and AIDS care, meet psychosocial needs and more. We invest in innovative models that protect even the hardest-to-reach girls – like virtual safe spaces and apps that allow them to report violence and connect to local resources for support.
To guide investment and programming decisions at the national and global levels, we collect, quantify and share data critical for understanding ongoing and emerging challenges and solutions. What’s more, we tap into the power of youth to shape solutions for their own generation.

Are they other gender-related challenges?
Yes. Worldwide, nearly half of married women lack decision-making power over their sexual and reproductive health and rights. 35 per cent of women between 15-49 years of age have experienced physical and/ or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence.1 in 3 girls aged 15-19 have experienced some form of female genital mutilation/cutting in the 30 countries in Africa and the Middle East, where the harmful practice is most common with a high risk of prolonged bleeding, infection (including HIV), childbirth complications, infertility and death.
This type of violence doesn’t just harm individual women and girls; it also undermines their overall quality of life and hinders their active involvement in society.

What can we do?
If you are a girl, you can stay in school, help empower your female classmates to do the same and fight for your right to access sexual and reproductive health services. If you are a woman, you can address unconscious biases and implicit associations that form an unintended and often an invisible barrier to equal opportunity. If you are a man or a boy, you can work alongside women and girls to achieve gender equality and embrace healthy, respectful relationships.
You can fund education campaigns to curb cultural practices like female genital mutilation and change harmful laws that limit the rights of women and girls and prevent them from achieving their full potential.
CWN continues with the promotion of Commonwealth Gender Plan of Actions (POA) through webinars, seminars, events, news updates via media links, girls and women trainings, sensitizations, boychild programs and more. Sign up for updates.

Why should gender equality matter to me?
Regardless of where you live in, gender equality is a fundamental human right. Advancing gender equality is critical to all areas of a healthy society, from reducing poverty to promoting the health, education, protection and the well-being of girls and boys.

Accountability
Accountability is a key requirement of good governance. Not only governmental institutions but also the private sector and civil society organizations must be accountable to the public and to their institutional stakeholders. Who is accountable to whom varies depending on whether decisions or actions taken are internal or external to an organization or institution. In general an organization or an institution is accountable to those who will be affected by its decisions or actions. Accountability cannot be enforced without transparency and the rule of law.

Conclusion
From the above discussion it should be clear that good governance is an ideal which is difficult to achieve in its totality. Very few countries and societies have come close to achieving good governance in its totality. Effective and Efficient Equitable and Inclusive Figure 2: Characteristics of good governance However, to ensure sustainable human development, actions must be taken to work towards this ideal with the aim of making it a reality.