The June 2014 ratification of the Association Agreement and the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement with the European Union enabled Moldova to expand its trade significantly. Funded by USAID and Sweden, the Moldova Competitiveness Project (MCP) made the most of these economic benefits by improving the quality of Moldovan products and encouraging the country’s…
Tourism is an industry with the capability to transform international development. Tourism is the largest service industry globally, accounting for nearly 10 percent of global GDP. Nearly 293 million jobs, or one in eleven jobs around the world, are within the tourism sector. Tourism is currently featured in three of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),…
Around the world, mothers, wives, daughters, and sisters support the resiliency of their communities in the face of adversity and inequality. As a member of the business development team in the East and Southern Africa Division at Chemonics, I’m exposed to the cross-cutting interventions designed to support women throughout our work across all technical areas.…
USAID’s recent Women’s Economic Empowerment and Equality Workshop in Johannesburg, South Africa, brought together nearly 100 men and women dedicated to advancing women’s economic empowerment and equality throughout Africa and beyond. Over a period of two and a half days, we discussed USAID’s new draft Framework to Promote Women’s Economic Empowerment and Equality, listened to…
Often, the success of nationally funded programs hinges on budget allocation. “Show me the money,” is a saying that reflects this reality, meaning that what gets funded gets done. Below, we will walk through the principles of gender-responsive budgeting (GRB), which highlights the budget design stage as a critical opportunity for intervention. This post will…
As we explore economic empowerment during the Global to Local campaign and prepare for Global Entrepreneurship Week, we reflect on what it takes to empower women economically. Today, women across the globe still too often face implicit and explicit barriers to full economic participation. As practitioners working for global development, we do right to pause…
When I was a Peace Corps volunteer, I worked with female artisans in Morocco and witnessed firsthand the barriers they faced in economic development. Poor education, which prevented many from completing paperwork; low self-confidence or hope for a better future; lack of capital to invest in business licenses, equipment, and training; and a lack of…
The business case for promoting in women’s economic empowerment is clear. According to a recent McKinsey Global Institute Report, expanding and improving women’s economic participation can add as much as $12 trillion to $28 trillion to the global GDP by 2025. In addition, as studies consistently affirm, an investment in a woman’s economic empowerment is…
This document aims to help development professionals design trade capacity-building programs that respond to the clear-cut case for equalizing economic conditions for men and women. To assist development professionals in identifying appropriate areas for interventions, this paper gives an overview of the complex issues related to gender and trade, presented in five parts: Setting the…
A $350 billion gap sits squarely between today’s reality and the potential of impact investing. Why is it so difficult for investors to identify the right opportunities that achieve both social change and a return on capital? How can the development community serve as the intermediary between social entrepreneurs who provide essential services and the…
September 22, Members Day of the annual 2014 SEEP Conference, marked the launch of the SEEP Network’s Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) Working Group. Throughout my career with Chemonics, I have spent the majority of my time focusing on issues surrounding women’s access to capital, business development services and SME development, particularly in conflict zones such…