Women Mean Business: Supporting Enterprising Women
At Paper Craft Africa in the Bwebajja neighborhood of Kampala, Uganda, Harriet Nantale oversees a bustling workshop. Outside, employees soak and recycle paper, banana fiber and pineapple fiber, creating thick sheets of paper in vibrant colors. Inside, the team uses the paper and other recycled material to craft calendars, notebooks, cards, jewelry, soap and other […]
My Experience as a Mentor for the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women
I’m a mentor with the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, an international organisation that supports women by building their skills and businesses in developing nations. Mentors embark on year-long, one-to-one mentoring relationships. I am half-way through mine and wanted to take this chance to reflect on the experience. At first glance, my mentoring relationship was […]
The Empowerment of Women is Key to Tackling Poverty
The Bellagio Initiative caught my eye last year because of the organisations who had established it, and the mission they had set themselves – namely, the collective pursuit of answers to some of the world’s most pressing and current questions. The initiative has just published an inaugural report “Human Wellbeing in the 21st Century: Meeting […]
Girls’ Education: Can the global business community rise to the challenge?
Thirty-two million girls across the world have never been to school. A much larger number are dropping out and/or leaving school without basic literacy and numeracy skills. There are numerous reasons why girls are missing out. Education is expensive – girls and their families simply may not be able to afford uniforms, textbooks and travel. […]
Empowering Girls: International Inspiration using sport to tackle gender issues
One thing that gives me a buzz is that the significance of International Inspiration, London 2012’s international legacy programme, is not just about opening doors for children and young people to PE, sport and play. Of course this is important in its own right. But what is exciting is that International Inspiration is using sport […]
My Journey as a Woman Entrepreneur in India
As a woman who was married at a young age into a conservative family by arranged marriage, starting my own business felt like a miraculous life-time achievement. In my community, it is frowned upon in unwritten, bold lettering for a woman to do anything other than look after the home. After coming so far as […]
Putting women at the heart of Africa’s economic future
On April 7th, 2012, Malawi elected its first female president. Mrs. Joyce Banda is the daughter of a policeman and the eldest of five children; her rise to power took her swiftly up through the ranks of a mainly conservative and male-dominated society. Mrs. Banda is the second woman to lead a country in Africa. […]
Mobile Services for Women Entrepreneurs
In Indonesia, Amisha makes and sells made-to-measure wedding dresses. In Lagos, Elizabeth and three other employees make traditional Nigerian children’s toys. A world apart, both Amisha and Elizabeth are examples of thriving and enterprising women entrepreneurs who make their living producing valued local goods. They both also face limitations to their business growth due to […]
Cultivating Potential: iDE UK and the Rise of the Female Farming Entrepreneur
Since its founding iDE UK has watched its projects transform the livelihoods and income opportunities of poor rural farmers in the developing world. However it is the potential in women that iDE UK sees as the greatest game changer of rural poverty. At iDE UK we have long recognised the important role that women play […]
Oxfam – Gender Equality
Gender issues have long been key to Oxfam’s mission to fight poverty, but we have not previously given great prominence to the role of business in gender and development. Earlier in the month, to coincide with International Women’s Day, we rectified that by launching Gender Inequality: it’s your Business. We recognise that many companies do […]
Fashion: A Catalyst for Change
The potential of the private sector to reduce poverty is well recognized; however, this has not been evident in the fashion industry. Fashion is one of the most globalized sectors, providing employment to more than 60 million people, mainly women and unskilled workers from poor economies. And it is expanding. According to Datamonitor, 2010, the […]
Empowering Women Through Business
At a recent event in London organised by Business Action for Africa, UK Department for International Development and the Institute for Development Studies titled: “Advancing Gender Equality through Business and Partnerships”, we discussed the compelling economic and business case for investing in the economic empowerment of women. We know that improving the economic position of […]
Women Entrepreneurs in Mobile Retail Channels
Last week I launched my Foundation’s pioneering research study in partnership with STC and TNS on the inclusion of women entrepreneurs in the retail channels of mobile network operators. We consulted 14 leading mobile operators from 11 markets across Asia, Africa and the Middle East, in addition to stakeholders including NGOs, government representatives and select […]
Thoughts about women and gender equality
Last month we marked 100 years of International women’s day and the question everyone wanted an answer to and still does I suppose is, “How have things changed for women in that time?” For my part I have written several blog posts on the issue of women and gender equality to celebrate that milestone. This […]
Women entrepreneurs in the fight against poverty
The UK’s Department for International Development’s Africa Division has just launched its “Gender Equality Action Plan“, in which it says “DFID has long recognised that poverty will not come to an end until women have equal rights with men, and that promoting gender equality is an essential part of poverty reduction across the developing world”. […]
Fighting poverty by empowering women
It is widely recognised in the development community that it is women who suffer most the burden of poverty, and that it is women who offer the best route out poverty. Grameen, perhaps the best-known advocate and pioneer, uses micro loans, financial services and technology, to help the poor, mostly women, to start self-sustaining businesses […]