Category Archives: News of the Day

According to the new Information Economy Report published by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), women entrepreneurs in developing countries face numerous challenges that restrict their abilities to take advantage of opportunities and succeed in their business ventures. Access to finance, lack of physical mobility, and limited use of information technology cervices are cited as the major obstacles that prevent women from closing the gender gap in terms of business opportunities.

Read more about some of the innovative initiatives implemented in Kenya and Brazil aimed at increasing the opportunities of women-owned ventures and sign the La Pietra Coalition’s petition lobbying for the promotion of women empowerment and human rights.

“The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) is calling upon governments and other stakeholders to make better use of innovative initiatives to help women entrepreneurs.

In its Information Economy Report of 2011, UNCTAD concludes that not sufficient programme and policy attention has been given so far to the application of information communication technology (ICT) tools to support women.

“The success of many women-owned ventures in developing countries is often hampered by gender-specific challenges. For example, women entrepreneurs tend to face greater difficulty in accessing finance,” UNCTAD said in a media release, last week.

UNCTAD said family commitments often place a limitation on the amount of time women entrepreneurs can devote to their businesses and in some cases, lack of physical mobility affects their ability to grasp opportunities and to network. “Mobile telephones, radio and the internet can make a significant difference in helping them overcome these barriers,” it added.

According to UNCTAD, very few private sector development (PSD) projects aimed at supporting women entrepreneurs are taking full advantage of ICTs.
“There appears also to be a gender gap in terms of access to some ICTs and the GSM Association and the Cherie Blair Foundation estimate that in developing countries, 300 million fewer women than men own a mobile phone,” the organisation revealed.”

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Women’s economic empowerment is largely tied to women’s empowerment on the whole, as enabling women to contribute to society and improve their socioeconomic status is central to enabling women’s greater societal involvement and their ability to take up positions in leadership. This belief is central to the mission of La Pietra Coalition and so it informs the broad reach of our working groups, which not only work for access to finance, but also for women’s education, legal and social rights, labor rights, and entrepreneurial support. 

Read about how women’s economic empowerment has become central to movements for women’s empowerment in Bangladesh and support Bengali women and women all over the world by signing our petition seeking greater economic inclusion for women at the G20 summit. 

“The country which was treated as an ‘underdog’ after it got it’s much debated and hard fought Independence in 1971, is today one of the models of ‘international development’ lauded by the west and knighted by the experts. One of the only few countries which is on course to achieve its goals of eradicating poverty, providing healthcare and uplifting the status of women by 2015, is a lesson in making for other third world developing countries across the globe. With the economy growing at a rate of approximately six per cent on a constant basis and fiscal measures by the country being lauded by economists the world over, Bangladesh has been constantly on a progressive path to success. 

Although the country has forever been affected by the vagaries of nature, it is the resilience of the people of the country that has paved the way for the country to grow substantially and make steady progress in various fields like a stable global credit rating, increased exports, telecommunication revolution, pharmaceuticals, space research and domestic industry conglomeration. 

With the government aiming to achieve its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which includes better living facilities for its citizens in four years’ time, it is imminent that the country which still faces a grave challenge for the equitable rights of women, who still prefer to stick to their routine life of taking care of their households, needs measures to help uplift their status. 

A silver lining to the cause in recent years has been the gradually transforming social mentality which has acknowledged the increasing awareness of women’s productive roles and their contribution to development. With more and more women coming out of their ‘social veils’, one can see women in Bangladesh now actively participating in political decision-making and taking part in education, sports, science and technology, media activities, art and culture, service sectors and more. Also heartening is the fact that these women have now started to realise their worth in the society and have started to attach more significance to matters of knowledge accretion and economic contribution which can be gauged from the dipping fertility rates across the country and increasing literacy rates amongst women, even from traditional divisions of the country.”

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Essential to women’s economic empowerment is the passage of law and policy, which supports women in this domain that has been dominated by men for centuries. However, passing laws is not enough, as social and cultural norms add another layer making it difficult for women to enter private business, work as entrepreneurs, or even receive basic access to finance.

Read about strides made in Kenya regarding women’s economic empowerment, and why Kenya has been ranked top in gender reform.

Credit: Global Banking Alliance for Women

“Kenya has been voted the best country in the world for passing laws that enable women to conduct business during the last two years.

As La Pietra Coalition works to integrate women fully into the economy; our coalition has identified access to proper training and communal acceptance and support, as two of the most prominent issues encountered by female entrepreneurs. Read the success stories below of two girls in India, who with support from the Goldman Sach’s initiative 10,000 Women, have begun to realize their dreams of becoming female business owners.

Support these women such as these and stand with La Pietra Coalition by signing our petition asking G20 states support women’s greater economic inclusion and advancment.

But despite the progress made by women like Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman, leadership roles in the public and private sector still remain elusive for women in developing countries. For many young girls, especially those in rural or underserved communities, the paths to running one’s own business or earning a descent wage are riddled with roadblocks.

‘Why is it that only men open shops and sell medicines,’ asks Shaheen, a 10^thgrader from our Girls’ Education program who dreams of owning her own pharmacy. “I want to change that and help serve my community,” she shares at an entrepreneurial skills workshop held outside of New Delhi.

A recent addition to the life skills curriculum of our Girls’ Education program in India, the entrepreneurial skills workshops were developed in partnership with Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women, which which provides business and management education to underserved female entrepreneurs in developing and emerging markets.”

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As the world’s population has continued to grow at unprecedented rates, expected to reach and surpass 7 billion people later this month, the advancement of agricultural and economic growth stands out as a major factor in ensuring the supply and availability of food in the years to come. Since women represent the majority of farm workers in developing countries, addressing their needs and promoting their inclusion in decision-making is of utmost importance.  In a new policy document published by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Catherine Bertini, the formal head of the World Food Programme, draws attention to the relevant role of young girls living in the rural areas of developing countries in securing the well-being of the future generations.

Read more about the challenges teenage girls in the development world face on a daily basis and stand up with La Pietra Coalition in promoting women’s empowerment by signing our petition to expand women’s economic opportunities and contributions.

Ensuring women’s access to finance is one of La Pietra Coalition’s central goals, as women’s economic empowerment depends upon it. Historically, banks and financial institutions have not targeted women specifically, and instead much of women’s financial inclusion has been limited to informal sectors of the economy. However, as more and more reports highlight the potential economic gains of focusing on women’s financial inclusion, banks have begun to realize their growth depends on targeting women. 

Read about Westpac, one of Australia’s leading banks, and why it has turned its attention to the “female dollar.” Support Westpac’s new campaign, and sign La Pietra Coalition’s petition to make female financial inclusion a priority of the G20. 

Credit: Sydney Morning Herald

“WOMEN customers, the business they bring and their networking abilities will restore the reputation of banks that cater for them well, according to the head of women’s banking for Westpac.

As Westpac launched an ongoing multimillion-dollar ad campaign targeting women, the bank’s director of women’s market, Larke Riemer, said the female economy globally was a massive opportunity. To succeed, banks had to recognise women’s needs and speak to them the way they wanted to be spoken to.

Westpac will, for the first time, roll out ads targeting women’s financial issues, beginning with this month’s superannuation ads. The ads highlight some alarming statistics for women, including that about 50 per cent of women don’t know how much is in their super, and four in five women retire with no super.

Ms Riemer said the campaign would focus on different financial issues facing women at relevant times of the year and the TV ads would be supported by a large print campaign.

”We’ve always been at the forefront of doing things for women but this is a first, having a marketing campaign for women with TV ads and a big promotion. Banking as a sector realises that if we’re going to be any good at what we do you have to understand your customers.”

Westpac also this year relaunched its four-year-old Ruby Connection, a website for women, which features financial information, networking opportunities, profiles of successful businesswomen and a question and answer forum.

”No major bank has ever gone out and targeted women like we have. With Gail Kelly as our CEO we really want to make a difference for women,” she said.”

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La Pietra Coalition has a diverse membership, including leaders from business, NGOs, government, nonprofit, and academic institutions. This range of perspectives brings a greater understanding to women’s empowerment around the globe. In Cuba, the role of the University of Havana’s Gender Studies Department has proved instrumental in illuminating inequalities facing women and furthermore, providing data on how these inequalities have progressed throughout the past decades.

Read more about issues affecting women in Cuba, and how a close analysis of women’s historical participation in the national economy can help women of today integrate Cuba’s economy.

“Continuing its mission to promote gender studies and use academia to demonstrate the inequalities between women and men in Cuba, the Women’s Studies Department is celebrating 20 years of work with new challenges in terms of researching and drawing attention to the disadvantages faced by the female population. 

“We have to take a critical approach to reality to see the inequalities that persist and those that are emerging in today’s new scenarios. The patriarchy reproduces itself and is difficult to change,” Norma Vasallo, president of the Women’s Studies Department at the University of Havana, told IPS. She said she still sees a long road ahead. 

“The current ‘updating’ of the economic model in the country could have repercussions on the development that women have achieved,” Vasallo, a psychologist, said, commenting on one of the principal challenges faced by women’s studies in the context of the economic changes ushered in by the Raúl Castro government. 

Cuban women hold 42.7 percent of public sector jobs, according to the National Office of Statistics. 

But since the government announced massive lay-offs of public employees last year, which were to potentially affect one million people by the end of 2011, an expansion of self-employment and areas like agriculture and construction that are not traditionally seen as the domain of women has been expected to absorb the hundreds of thousands of employees slashed from the public workforce. 

Women make up about 69,000 of the more than 300,000 people with small private businesses, the labour and social security deputy minister, José Barreiro, told the Cuban parliament in late July. However, women tend to be concentrated in low-income activities or as the employees of these businesses, and rarely as the owners.”

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In times of war, violence and and natural disasters, women endure unique challenges, as societal destruction and instability inevitably makes them more vulnerable. The famine in Somalia is no different and women seeking to survive and protect their families have been subjected to even more hardship: sexual violence. La Pietra Coalition Legal and Social Status working group seeks to address legal codes that fail to condemn sexual violence, and disasters such as the famine in Somalia illustrate the need for protecting women’s legal rights needs to be a top priority among governments, international aid organizations, and local organizations alike.

Read below about why protecting women’s legal rights cannot be ignored and stand in support of the women of the Horn of Africa and sign La Pietra Coalition’s petition demanding greater representation for women at the G20.

"The famine spreading in Somalia has left women more vulnerable to sexual violence." Credi: Sipa Press / Rex Features

“Like so many in the Horn of Africa, Nadifa needed food. The twice-widowed mother of four left her children at their makeshift hut in an internally displaced persons (IDP) camp outside Mogadishu to seek dry food aid in a neighbouring camp. After waiting hours, she returned home with nothing. She found a gunman inside her home, raping her 11-year-old daughter. She screamed for help, trying to pull him off the child while protecting her other children. Neighbours stood by as the militia abducted Nadifa. In an abandoned building, with a hood over her head, she was pistol-whipped, kicked, punched, and scorched with burning plastic.

For sexual predators, famine and the resulting vulnerability equals opportunity, even in refugee camps with the heavy presence of international aid organisations and the United Nations. A recent UN assessment in Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp indicates that the majority of families in the camp are female-headed households, and reported cases of rape have quadrupled with the famine.

This points to the unbearable reality for women within Somalia. The crisis in the Horn of Africa is, in many ways, a women’s famine. Women frequently face the daily battle for survival without husbands or male providers, who have died, left with the herds or simply abandoned their families. Women travel hundreds of kilometres with their children. They make do in al-Shabaab controlled camps, facing alone what aid workers euphemistically describe as “the extreme vulnerability of displacement and loss of livelihoods”.

Just prior to the news of the famine, the Guardian named Somalia one of five “worst places in the world for women“. Somali women have long faced a culture of severe oppression, along with 20 years of conflict. IDP camps are ruled by al-Shabaab, a militant terrorist group linked to al-Qaida, which controls 90% of south and central Somalia. Impunity is absolute. If a victim of rape dares to complain, she is accused of promiscuity or “speaking against the brotherhood”, both crimes punishable by beheading or stoning.”

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As the world reflects upon the tenth anniversary of the United States War in Afghanistan, it has become increasingly clear that strides made to secure Afghan women’s rights, in education, economic and political representation, remain precarious. Drawing on support from world leaders, NGOs, and international institutions, Afghan women continue to fight to make gender equality a priority alongside peace in their country.

Read more about why women in Afghanistan face an uncertain future, and help promote gender equality around the globe by signing La Pietra Coalition’s petition to ensure that women’s rights are on the agenda at the G20 summit.

"In response to a demand for qualified Afghan engineers, Kabul University hosted an intensive five-month Mentor Protégé Training Program with 10 female fourth year university students. Four of the ten students celebrate here after completing the program March 16, 2011." Credit: USAID

“(WNN) KABUL: On the tenth anniversary of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, a new October 3, 2011 Oxfam report on progress for Afghan women shows steady advances for Afghan women since October 2001. But recent data shows women’s personal safety, opportunity and human rights inside the nation are beginning to erode back to conditions that existed previously. 

With May 2011 being the deadliest month for Afghan civilian casualties since 2007. opinions inside and outside the country on the war in Afghanistan have been mixed. Many women in the region worry they will be left behind as international peace talks accelerate toward the proposed U.S. military campaign ‘end’ date in 2014.

Oxfam warns that women’s “hard-won gains remain fragile.” Numerous gains have begun to see reversals says Oxfam’s recent October report, “A Place at the Table – Safeguarding women’s rights in Afghanistan.”

“Women want peace but not at the cost of losing our freedom again,” says Noorjahan Akbar, co-founder of Young Women for Change.

The changes for women in the past decade are evident but still show disparity between those women who have more opportunity and those who have little to no ability to jump through the wall of poverty. Those who may be granted a chance to speak at the table with peace talks are the same ones who have gained more education that enables them to push forward with gains for women.”

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At La Pietra Coalition, educating girls and women is one of our central initiatives because women can only be fully enabled and empowered when they are educated, and have the tools to participate in their communities. Read about Intel’s collaboration with one of our members, 10×10, and how private sector participation in global education can reap big rewards.

Credit: 10x10 Cambodia Writer's Trip

“Big business is eyeing advocacy for girls’ education and likes what it sees. For one, Intel’s Director of Global Education Integration, Karen Spencer, puts it well: “Girls’ education is what we need to do, and collaborating with 10×10 is going to make a difference.”

Intel, our strategic action partner, is not alone in understanding the impact of global education. The GBCHealth—a hub for private sector engagement on the world’s most pressing global health issues—has a new initiative called “Healthy Women, Healthy Economies.” It focuses on women’s issues worldwide, including educating girls, and how corporations can help, and benefit.

Last week, GBCHealth facilitated an enlightening conversation among Holly Gordon, Executive Director of 10×10, Spencer from Intel, and Justin van Fleet of the Brookings Institute, about the whys and hows of engaging corporations in the global movement for girls’ education. The whys are clear. Gordon explained that educated girls become educated consumers, employees and leaders in their communities. This gives corporations a considerable stake in the cause.

How can this be a win-win? The conversation emphasized that successful partnerships emerge from a culture of collaboration, where companies integrate their business goals with their social goals. Van Fleet cited the global health sector as the gold standard for successful partnerships with corporations, receiving 91% of corporate contributions to development programs. The power of public-private partnerships has not yet been unleashed on global education.”

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Support Girl’s education and stand with La Pietra Coalition, by signing our petition demanding women’s increased economic opportunity in the G20 states.