According to UN WOMEN, women’s economic empowerment includes women’s ability to participate equally in existing markets; their access to and control over productive resources, access to decent work, control over their own time, lives and bodies; and increased voice, agency and meaningful participation in economic decision-making at all levels from the household to international institutions.
As Africa Youth Trust an independent, non-partisan, development and advocacy organization that focuses on Youth Led Development that involves economic and social investments such as business start-ups and community improvement projects, has taken up the task to ensure that women are empowered economically. Africa Youth trust has previously partnered with the Forum for International Cooperation (FIC) and began implementing the Decent Work and Labor Rights Program in East Africa particularly Mombasa in a program which seeks to empower Mombasa youth and labor market stakeholders towards supporting and promoting youth employment.
The program also created awareness on existing opportunities in the labor market and served as a platform linking all stakeholders to a common goal of positively influencing and affecting decision makers at the labor market towards youth employment. The program targeted to train 1000 youth on Business Skills and Entrepreneurship Development and 2000 youth on Labor Market in the three counties where 40% of the (BSED) and 40% Employability Training beneficiaries are expected to start a business or secure formal employment respectively. We have had 300 women benefitting from these projects having 60 women coming from each county of operations so far.
We also have an Access to Skills Development Project where we were one of the partner organization under ICCO Cooperation consortium implementing the Strategic partnerships – Civic Engagement Alliance (CEA) program in Kisumu, Kakamega, Homabay and Busia counties. Africa Youth Trust implemented pathway 3 of the program which was to empower small holder farmers to be able to access sustainable value chains and inclusive markets. Specifically, our role was to harness the skills and knowledge of the women, youth and persons with disabilities in the four counties which will essentially enhance improved livelihoods and higher income levels in selected agricultural value chains.
Women Economic Empowerment can be achieved by giving women equal access to and control over resources that are available, training them on financial literacy, offering them job opportunities, training them on skills that can generate income, paying them well for their work and investing in their organizations financially or with ideas on how to start, improve and grow their business to enable them get good profits. Another way to empower women is by ensuring that there are legal systems put in place that protect women from any form of abuse or discrimination of any kind, we can also create a conducive environment where they feel safe to vie for elective positions without feeling like them being women makes them targets of abuse to their male counterparts and the society at large.
Unfortunately, most women and girls at this time and age are not empowered in any way and still face gender inequality. The causes of gender inequality include: Uneven access to education where you find the boys have more access to education whereas girls do not, girls drop out and are not able to finish primary or sometimes tertiary education making them illiterate and this affects the kind of opportunities they will get in future. The other cause is lack of employment equality where you find women doing the same kind of job as the men yet being paid less than the men or the men getting more privileges in the employment spaces more than the women do.
Lack of legal protection is another cause where you find that we do not have enough laws directed at protecting women from being abused or misused in their day to day lives. Having less or lacking enough political representation in our societies acts against the women where their voices and concerns are not heard because they are not represented well whenever it comes to making policies on matters that affect them directly. Societal mindsets are another cause where women and girls are limited because of what the society has as beliefs and states them as differences between the men and women, this also comes by because of the kind of systems that the society has in place and how they work when it comes to both men and women.
Economic empowerment makes women to be financially independent. Having their own source of income enables them to take part in decision making starting from their households, in their businesses, places of employment and can later move on to National and International levels if the world fully embraces and accords the women the support that they need. Empowering women economically gives them an opportunity to come up with ideas that free them from issues that have been hindering them, making them suffer in poverty and not able to achieve their dreams as they purpose to.
Empowering a woman is equal to empowering a whole society and this can be proven by cases where you see a woman who has a source of income, is aware of who she is in the society, has been taught and allowed to thrive in the society ensures to instill the same values to those around her starting with her own children. Women who are economically empowered come up with opportunities and ideas that accommodate not only the women but other people in the society by offering them employment. This helps in reducing the poverty levels in that particular society while also making it possible for other women and people in the society to reach out to their dreams and not only dream but bring them to live. Through this income generating opportunities the government is able to collect more revenue and the rate of early pregnancies reduces.