Women's Economic Empowerment: Scope for Sida's Engagement

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KEY AREAS FOR WOMEN’S ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENTsocial protection schemes are also effective in reaching informalsector workers including women (see Box 6).Conditional cash transfers are an effective mechanism to reach andprotect women and girls. Conditional Cash Transfers, whichchannel money to households on the condition of householdinvestment in the education and health of girls, have proliferatedin many developing and middle-income countries in thelast decade. Mexico, Brazil, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Bangladesh,Turkey and Pakistan are just a few of the countries to have introducedthis type of social protection mechanism, which activelycontributes to building basic human capital and is animportant stepping stone in the process of skills development,labour market participation and the seizing of economic opportunities.Box 6: Examples of gender-sensitive social protectionHealth insurance and pensions for female informal workers inAsia. SEWA (Self-Employed Women’s Association) offers a menuof social protection mechanisms for its approximately 250,000members throughout India. The association provides social securityand health insurance, including generous maternity benefitsfor women. It is financed through a proportional combination ofprivate members’ contributions and interest paid on a loan fromthe German Development Agency (GTZ), and a publicly subsidizedpackage scheme from the Indian Ministry of Labour. The GrameenKalyan, an offshoot of the Bangladeshi Grameen Bank, targets informalworkers through health insurance. Members, 70 percent ofwhom are women, make compulsory contributions towards alump sum pension that members can claim when they leave theorganization. 44Source: ILOGender-sensitive social protection strategies need to target older womenand unpaid family workers. Social protection schemes should recognizethe specific situation many older women are in, due totheir lack of earlier income, and give specific economic supportto them, to make them less dependent on others. The designof pension schemes, labour market policies and care policiesneeds to be coordinated to reduce the risk of poverty forolder women. Similarly, social protection systems need to recognizethe economic rights of unpaid family workers. Otherinitiatives, such as increasing the number of women registeredas farmers, will entitle women to benefits. In transition countriesit is important to take measures to integrate female farmersinto the social protection system to make them eligible forunemployment benefits, maternity benefits and pensions.28
KEY AREAS FOR WOMEN’S ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENTKey area 7: Agriculture and ruraldevelopmentPriority: To recognize and remunerate women in their criticalrole as agricultural producers.Women’s work in agriculture is essential for poverty reduction, food securityand rural growth. Women are responsible for 60–80 percentof food production in developing countries, even though theyare restricted to growing food crops and rearing poultry andsmall livestock, and their work remains mostly unpaid. Studiesshow that investing in women farmers pays off. In Kenya a nationwideinformation campaign targeted at women as part ofa national extension project resulted in the yield of corn increasingby 28 percent, beans by 80 percent and potatoes by84 percent 45 . In Burkina Faso similar access by men and womenfarmers to fertilizer and labour would increase agriculturaloutput by between 10 and 20 percent. 46Therefore, increased investments that provide womenfarmers with greater access to resources, inputs (fertilizers,seeds, credit), markets, information and technologies can helpreduce poverty, improve food security and strengthen ruralgrowth. Sida’s overall objective of improving the living conditionsof poor people means that the agricultural sector is especiallyimportant for Sida’s work on women’s economic empowerment.Policies and interventions targeting the economic empowerment of ruralwomen need to remove obstacles to women’s productive work. In mostdeveloping countries women farmers are mostly under-resourced.They have less access than men to land, credit, technicalassistance and other key inputs and services essential fordeveloping their productive functions. A FAO survey foundthat, worldwide, women farmers receive only 5 percent of agriculturalextension services. Only 15 percent of extensionagents are women, even though it is well known that they aremore effective in reaching out to women farmers. 47Women do not always obtain the returns from their laboureither. For example, in small-scale commercial farming agribusinessescontract with male household heads rather thanjointly with men and women, despite the joint work of menand women in the farm enterprise. 48Policies and interventions in the agricultural sector need toaddress gender inequalities in access to productive inputs andservices, as well as in decision-making. Gender mainstreamingin rural sector policies is essential to achieving women’seconomic empowerment.Most important, agricultural policies and programmes should challengelong standing gender inequalities at the household level which leadwomen to carry out unpaid work as family helpers in the agricultural sec-29
Page 5 and 6: ForewordThe economic empowerment of
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Page 36 and 37: Endnotes1 World Bank, (2007). “Gl
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Women's Economic Empowerment: Scope for Sida's Engagement

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