Scoping Study on Customary Law and Women’s Entrepreneurship – BERF/DFID (2017)

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BERF/DFID, 2017 – 39 pages

This scoping study indicates how customary laws and practices can impact women as owners and managers of enterprises and as employees of these enterprises. Areas within the business environment that are most directly affected by customary laws and practices include:

  • Access to finance, with banking laws discriminating against women’s ability to apply for loans or credit without a signature from a male family member.
  • Business registration and licensing, with restrictions imposed on interacting with men who are not family members.
  • Land titles, registration, and administration, with a lack of property rights limiting women’s ability to use land as collateral.
  • Access to commercial courts and dispute resolution mechanisms, where judges may rule in favour of males on the basis that men are responsible for the family.

The study also includes some case studies highlighting promising interventions that directly or indirectly address customary law and practices to create a more gender-equitable business environment.

Women’s Wage Employment in Developing Countries: Regulatory barriers and opportunities – USAID (2018)

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USAID, 2018 – 88 pages

This report examines how laws and regulations in developing and transitional countries limit or enable women to enter, remain, and advance in the formal sector workforce. Specifically, this study analyses how gender inequalities in civil and administrative laws, regulatory employment restrictions, occupational licenses, employment discrimination, and sexual harassment limit women’s abilities to engage in wage employment. It also analyses how laws and policies can support working women and working parents in not only remaining but also thriving in the workplace.

Women, Business and the Law – WB (2021)

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World Bank 2021 – 134 pages

Women, Business and the Law is a platform and report that analyses laws and regulations affecting women’s economic inclusion in 190 economies. Every year, the project presents progress on eight indicators structured around women’s interactions with the law as they move through their careers: Mobility, Workplace, Pay, Marriage, Parenthood, Entrepreneurship, Assets, and Pension.

This year’s study took place amidst a global pandemic that threatens progress toward gender equality. In this context, barriers were identified to women’s economic participation and reform of discriminatory laws encouraged. Important findings on government responses to the COVID-19 crisis and pilot research related to childcare and women’s access to justice are also included.

Global Gender Gap Report – WEF (2021)

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WEF, 2021 – 405 pages

The Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks the evolution of gender-based gaps among four key dimensions (Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment) and tracks progress towards closing these gaps over time.

Main takeaways:

  • On its current trajectory, it will now take 135.6 years to close the gender gap worldwide.
  • The gender gap in Political Empowerment remains the largest of the four gaps tracked, with only 22% closed to date, having further widened since the 2020 edition of the report by 2.4 percentage points.
  • High-frequency data for selected economies from ILO, LinkedIn and Ipsos offer a timely analysis of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on gender gaps in economic participation. Early projections from ILO suggest 5% of all employed women lost their jobs, compared with 3.9% of employed men. LinkedIn data further shows a marked decline of women’s hiring into leadership roles, creating a reversal of 1 to 2 years of progress across multiple industries.
  • The COVID-19 crisis has also accelerated automation and digitalisation, speeding up labour market disruption. Data points to significant challenges for gender parity in the future of jobs due to increasing occupational gender segregation.
  • Gender-positive recovery policies and practices can tackle those potential challenges.

Revisiting What Works: Women, Economic Empowerment and Smart Design – CGD (2016)

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Centre for Global Development, 2016 – 68 pages

Evidence-based overview of different strategies to achieve WEE. This report was developed to help guide private sector actions and investments to empower women economically. It reviewed the effectiveness of actions that have direct, near term impacts on women’s economic outcomes. It asked what credibly works for women entrepreneurs, farmers, and wage and salaried workers in developing countries, and for whom — all women, very poor, poor, non-poor women, and young women — and identified proven, promising, and high-potential interventions to increase women’s productivity and earnings in developing countries. This update to the Roadmap revisits the accuracy of these ratings. Additionally, it identifies possible underlying mechanisms and summarises those mechanisms in terms of a causal chain of measurable direct, intermediate, and outcomes. Lastly, it identifies aspects of smart design that can increase the effectiveness of interventions aimed at economically empowering women by addressing the gender-specific constraints they face.

Women’s Economic Empowerment in Technical Assistance Programmes: Examples of good practice in PSD – GIZ (2016)

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GIZ, 2016 – 104 pages

The study aims to identify selected examples of good practice in terms of gender-specific approaches and instruments used in private sector development. It looks at the gender impacts achieved, presenting the lessons learned in an easily accessible form. Additionally, it describes the main concepts involved, the methodological approach taken and some key data on the countries selected. Finally, seven case studies are included that embrace a wide range of development approaches to achieve WEE.

Main success factors for successful PSD programmes include:

  • Taking a gender-specific perspective.
  • Adopting a systematic stance and approach.
  • Entering strategic partnerships, cooperation arrangements and coordination schemes with other donors.
  • Conducting studies and analyses as the basis for strategy development.
  • Ensuring the involvement (participation) of implementing partners at an early stage in the design and implementation of measures, and
  • Ensuring regular review of the strategies, processes, and partner structure.

Promoting Economic Empowerment for Women in the Informal Economy – WOW (2019)

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WOW Helpdesk Guidance No. 1, 2019 – 59 pages

To strengthen WEE outcomes, inclusive growth strategies should focus not only on creating jobs in the formal economy – and ensuring access to those jobs for women – but also on improving the quality of and returns to work in the informal economy. This Note aims to provide an analysis of the gender dynamics of informal work, and a set of corresponding recommendations. Additionally, pathways for improving economic outcomes for women informal workers across four key sectors are identified. The Guidance makes five overall recommendations on how to promote better jobs for women in informal economies as part of inclusive growth strategies and across all economic development programming:

  • Context-specific, gendered analysis of informal work and labour markets, as well as dialogue with stakeholders at the country, sector, or programme level.
  • Work with governments to remove discriminatory laws, promote legal recognition of informal workers and widen the coverage of social protection systems.
  • Partner with private sector companies and other actors to improve visibility of and outcomes for informal workers participating in their supply chains.
  • Monitor gender-related outcomes in terms of quality as well as quantity of jobs.
  • Increase coverage, quality, and accessibility of sex-disaggregated data on informal work.

USAID’s Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Policy (2020)

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USAID, 2020 – 56 pages

The goal of USAID’s gender equality and women’s empowerment policy is to improve the lives of people around the world by advancing gender equality and empowering women and girls to participate fully in, and equally benefit from, the development of their societies on the same basis as men. It contains interesting information for agencies that are looking to create or update their policy. The document includes a snapshot of gaps and opportunities on 13 related topics, i.e. agriculture and food security, conflict and insecurity, economic growth, gender-based violence. Furthermore, it outlines several agency requirements regarding its culture and practices that support the successful implementation of this policy.

Will Women in Low-income Countries Get Lost in Transformation? – ODI (2015)

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ODI, 2015 – 29 pages

Economic transformation is defined as the movement of resources (factors of production) to high-productivity activities, both within and between sectors. It encompasses both the process of structural change (movement of resources between sectors) and within sector labour productivity improvements. Focusing on low-income countries, where the problem of economic transformation is most acute, this paper analyses whether a particular economic change associated with transformation is likely to bring more opportunities for women. It develops an analytical framework that analyses how economic transformation might affect economic opportunities, choices, and welfare of women in low-income countries, and it organises the available evidence using this framework.

Main takeaway:

  • The paper argues that overall, the prospects for beneficial effects are good. However, as in other aspects of economic development, the extent of benefits for women depends on whether complementary policies are put in place to increase equality of opportunity.

Women’s Pathways to the Digital Sector: Stories of challenges and opportunities – BMZ (2017)

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BMZ, 2017 – 52 pages

This study aims at understanding the role of ICT in realising women’s rights, gender equality and WEE. It identifies the challenges and opportunities for women and girls to partake in ICT education and employment. Furthermore, the study portrays 22 women working in different roles in ICT, coming from developing as well as emerging countries from all continents.

Main takeaways:

  • There are too few opportunities that target girls outside of formal education.
  • Cost is one of the most significant barriers to initial access to, and use of, ICT for women.
  • The challenges for girls and women participating in the digital sector are compounded by content considerations even when affordable technology access is possible. Firstly, there is a distinct lack of content, or content missing in local languages, which facilitates the development of digital literacy skills. Moreover, there is a dearth of localised content for women online, that corresponds to their needs and interests.
  • The overall lack of support for girls and women’s engagement with ICT in every life stage can negatively impact their ability to develop the self-confidence needed to access and use ICT.
  • Women contend with several socially constructed barriers which impact their ability to work in the digital sector.
  • There is a need to initiate and increase the frequency of measurements for the gender digital divide in terms of access to and use of ICT.