One of the questions that has come up is NOT to be focused on girls as entrepreneurs but girls as micro franchisers or girls working as part of a larger structure but having more control over their own economic opportunities. And totally agree that vocational training shouldnt only be focused on girls/young women as entrepreneurs but very definitely about a combination of job skills, as well as financial literacy, workforce readiness, and RIGHTS.
At Coca-Cola we have what we call the Golden Triangle Partnership model where business, government and civil society can come together to address common concerns. I don't think just one part of society can adequately address an issue in a meaningful and impactful way - we all need to pull together. Our partnership with UN Women where we are seeking to address women's economic empowerment and income generation has been a great experience in motion. The program not only brings together our two organizations, but also Hand in Hand as our local implementing/grass-roots partner, our local bottling partners, local communities and the South African government.
Can I just give a shoutout to WEConnect? If you are a corporate and don't know about them, please get in touch. They are revolutionizing supplier diversity. It's SUCH low hanging fruit with massive impact. Well done Elizabeth and Liz!
With Standard Chartered Bank and our implementing partners we will get adolescent girls to build and practice leadership through sports - this and financial literacy will be a big step in their economic empowerment !
That brings us to the end of the live session of this discussion. Please feel free to continue posting your comments.
A huge thank you to our panel, and to all of you who joined us.
If you'd like to read more about the topic, be sure to check out this week's special with Standard Chartered:
- Payal Dalal, Standard Chartered - Sport as Strategy to Empower Adolescent Girls
- Elizabeth Vazquez, WEConnect International - Women's Economic Empowerment Key to Alleviating Poverty
- Maria Bobenrieth, Women Win - Girl Power in the Pipeline
- Kate Kewley, Plan UK - Examining the Keys to Power
- Amy Spindler, Mercy Corps - Innovative Partnerships to Empower Girls
Also be sure to visit our Women's Zone here: http://women.businessfightspoverty.org
Totally agree Payal!
For those in the discussion, we have a great open source resource for engaging building and sustaining partnerships with the private sector including understanding incentives and profiles that I am sharing here:
http://www.mercycorps.org/research-resources/private-sector-engagement-tool-kit
Thanks Robyn, useful
I've lost who asked this...but someone asked if we could define economic empowerment. For us, it's about girls and women having the same ACCESS to the same economic opportunities as boys and men.
In the IRC, we will be looking at testing and scaling approaches for supporting women and girls in emergency and protracted crises, looking at what interventions (cash transfers, vocational training, microfranchise etc) lead to the most sustainable livelihood outcomes, working with and through both multinational and local businesses.
We will also continue our work on the "soft skills" women and girls need to more successfully access opportunities for employment and enterprise, particularly when they have experienced violence in their lives through conflict or domestic abuse.
at BoPInc and ICCO Cooperation we contune to build the collective impact initiative on Women as Inclusive business partners. by raising awareness ad developing pilots - stay tuned! www.bopinc.org
Thank you Payal!! We absolutely adore you and the great work you are doing with your colleagues at Standard Charter in support of women and girls!
At SPRING we commit to being clear about opportunities for collaboration - and WEConnect we would love to collaborate with you!) and looking to strengthen the whole ecosystem, share our knowledge, and share resources amongst other initiatives. www.springaccelerator.org will more formally launch our new site as of January 7 so hope that people will get in touch with us regarding our first projects in Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda.
I'm also working on several other initiatives outside of SPRING which aim to bring impact investors and investable opportunities with a women/girls lens together. I'm working with many others to build a global network of investors who wish to invest with a women/girls lens together, and radically share investable opportunities. My twitter is @zanne2
It is SO great to be in this with all of you!
Glad to have been able to join the panel at the last minute - Suzanne
Suzanne Biegel
Investment Director, SPRING Accelerator
springaccelarator.org
@springaccel
Suzanne,
Great! We are @WEConnection on twitter and you can find Elizabeth @CEOVazquez and me @LCullenDC.
I will make sure to follow you and follow up on SPRING.
My total admiration for the work that Standard Chartered is doing in this arena, thank you so much for sponsoring this. And to all of you that are doing so much in this. Hope that we can all collaborate further! THANK YOU to Business Fights Poverty for hosting and all of your leadership.
Suzanne
Hi everyone. Really enjoyed today's discussion and thanks for the opportunity, once again, to contribute to the dialogue. Great to hear about the work of Coca Cola, Mercy Corps, Plan UK, SPRING, WEConnect, UN Women. And fabulous to have Maria from Women Win join us today too.
Maria mentioned our Goal program -- you can find it at www.goalprogramme.org
I am @pdalal and Goal is at @GoalGirlsGlobal
Hope to see y'all online again soon!
So appreciate your sharing this -- cant wait to read it. And all of your comments, Thea. Hope that we will get to work together on something related to your work and SPRING. Glad to have been supporting Mercy Corps personally for many years - you guys are amazing.
Thea
you raise an important point about financial literacy, which should start early as well as building the other important financial tools you mention. It's great that Master Card is supporting women and girls work that MercyCorp is doing in Nigeria and Myanmar. I hope they will continue to do so and can perhaps do some peer influencing with other corporates.
All the best
Ama
Ama am interested to learn more about your work and see where we might collaborate. My site is catalystatlarge.com and I think there is also significant work to be done to develop an investor base that is interested in investing with a gender lens. And to educate investors about the opportunities for investing in women and girls. Here's one my articles about this:
The Women Effect
http://www.alliancemagazine.org/feature/the-women-effect/
and also I'd send people to this: The Rise of Gender Capitalism
http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/the_rise_of_gender_capitalism
Please is there any partnership and collaborations for NGOs based in Nigeria for the development of women and girls? I need answers. Thank you.