Women account for 60% of the world’s working poor but own less than 10% of the world’s property. Discriminatory practices at workplaces, in regulation and in the home stifle women’s entrepreneurial drive. Investing in women can be transformational.
DFID will ensure that our work with the private sector benefits women and girls wherever possible; whether on skills development, providing access to financial services, ensuring rights to land and assets or addressing discrimination in the workplace. We are supporting land reform and changes in inheritance laws to secure women’s rights to own and use property.
- In Nepal, we support market-orientated skills training and link women and men to jobs through the Nepal Employment Fund,
- in Zambia, new financial products that target female clients are being developed for small and medium enterprises and,
- in Zimbabwe the Wholesale Microfinance Facility goes beyond simply providing small loans.
Finance linked to assistance aims to make women economically independent and less susceptible to gender inequalities and reduce HIV/AIDS infection from gender-based violence.
Control over economic assets
Work to ensure that women gain direct access to, and control over, economic assets could include: support for increased access to financial services and financial literacy training; increased incomes through more jobs and better working conditions for women; and programmes supporting land reform and inheritance rights to secure women’s rights to own and use property.
We will ensure our cash transfer programmes reach women. We will support initiatives to give women and girls the skills, confidence and networks that will help them to keep hold of their economic assets and make productive use of them.
We plan to work with the private sector to develop innovative approaches to promote assets for girls. We are planning initiatives to improve access to financial services for over 18 million women, to help 2.3 million women access jobs, and to secure access to land for 4.5 million women (including in Rwanda and India).