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This week only: Every $1 will be matched with $2 to empower women worldwide.
The constitution and statutory laws of Timor-Leste guarantee equal rights and duties for women and men. However, women continue to experience bias and discrimination in practice, driven by historically patriarchal social norms and customary laws. The highly patriarchal system in Timor-Leste predefines gender roles and power dynamics within households and communities and in the market economy. Men are generally viewed as the heads of households, main providers, and decision-makers, while women are in charge of child-rearing and household chores, which limits their capacity to engage in their own economic activities. Although the government of Timor-Leste considers female entrepreneurs, including women who own micro and small enterprises, as engines of growth, women face greater constraints in developing and scaling their businesses than men, including intertwined gendered business and social challenges. Additionally, women entrepreneurs are still expected to perform their usual tasks at home, and they struggle with profitability as they usually work in low-paying sectors such as handicraft production, kiosk operation, agriculture, and tourism. Timorese women also face a high level of gender-based violence (GBV), rooted in unequal gender norms, poverty, and the country’s history of violence connected to its emergence from Indonesian rule. Physical, sexual, emotional, and economic violence are often frequent and severe. Building on strategies and best practices of its local partners, and the existing policies and programs of the government and other stakeholders, the Business and Social Support for Female Entrepreneurs in Timor-Leste (BEST) program seeks to create linkages to address the barriers faced by female microentrepreneurs in starting, maintaining, and expanding businesses.
A year into the COVID-19 pandemic, overseas Filipinos who lost their job and were repatriated as a result of the pandemic were eager to find opportunities that would provide an alternative and sustainable livelihood for their families once they returned home. In response to this, Grameen Foundation implemented the Celo Social Dividend Campaign which focused on the plight of 800 Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) and their families.
With funding from Celo Foundation, Grameen partnered with Ekolife Marketing Cooperative (Ekolife) and local non-government organization (NGO) Atikha Overseas Workers and Communities Initiative (Atikha) to identify, onboard, and train beneficiaries who would each receive 200 Celo Dollars (cUSD - a digital cryptocurrency) as capital support to start their own business and contribute to an entrepreneurial ecosystem running on cUSD in their communities.
The pilot project created a digital currency ecosystem where the beneficiaries and cooperatives actively took part as producers, merchants, and consumers using cUSD.
WomenLink II, a program supported by Wells Fargo, was a three-year initiative implemented in India and the Philippines whose goal was to increase digital financial inclusion through female agent networks. Lessons gained from recruiting and supporting women to run mobile money businesses and testing various methods for improving digital and financial literacy and uptake of digital financial services include the importance of coupling digital technologies with human interaction for agents and customers alike and the need for ongoing support to agents, particularly effective complaints and customers support mechanisms.
Achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment is a major global priority. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the Building the Resilience of Vulnerable Communities in Burkina Faso (BRB) project, an agricultural development program, improved women’s empowerment, as measured by the project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI).
In partnership with graduate student researchers from Brigham Young University (BYU), and leveraging Grameen Foundation’s own literature review, this evidence review presents four different reports outlining the current research and evidence regarding the role of male engagement in women’s economic empowerment (WEE). The first report (Evidence Review Summary) seeks to summarize key findings found in exisiting literature as well as readings that are influencing the work of Grameen Foundation, and that of our technical and in-country partners. The final three reports were developed by BYU graduate student researchers. Aleson and Ricks present positive outcomes that result from increasing a woman’s intra-household bargaining power and the male role in this transformation. Barham and Schenk draw on evidence from several middle- and low-income countries to demonstrate the most effective methods to integrate men at the household, community, and policy levels. Finally, Sheranian and Taylor provide a unique country-specific approach to women’s empowerment by recommending various interventions to improve male engagement.
In support of the WAGE BEST initiative, the objectives of this assessment are to understand the multifaceted barriers and opportunities for women’s business growth in Timor-Leste, and map the existing local service providers with the potential to address these barriers. In addition, this report identifies opportunities for linkages to enable local service providers to extend a more holistic and high-impact package of financial, business and social services to their clients. This assessment was supported by a preliminary gender and inclusion analysis conducted at project launch through a desk review as well as field research which leveraged focus group discussions and key informant interviews with women entrepreneurs, community members, microfinance institutions (MFIs), and women’s empowerment civil society organizations (WE CSOs).