Empower women - they are secret weapon to fight poverty

On this beautiful day as we celebrate the International Women's Day, I would like to devote my blog to women that are a great drive in many sectors of economy. Women produce half of the world food, do small businesses, control the rational use of natural resources, innovate and create services. Women bring own perspective into the development process and without them whole would be impoverished. It`s not about being better than men, it`s about to make a balance, to learn making nontraditional decisions.

In many countries women`s ability to participate in important aspects of society is limited due to discrimination and lack of access to education and job opportunities. The impact of this disparity is huge. Asia loses about $47 billion a year due to women restricted access to job opportunities and $16-30 billion due to gender gaps in education. Besides existing aspects of women restriction, some Asian and Central Asian countries still have traditional boundaries and unwritten rules that are obstacle to fully empower women.

Empowering women and girls by creating opportunities in public works, agriculture, training their entrepreneurship skills, provide quality education will not only accelerate economic growth but also will help to mitigate the effects of financial crisis.  Countries investing in promotion social and economic status of women have lower poverty rates. Equal access to education and training means women can improve living standards of their families and make contribution in the local economy.

Is there an effective approach to empower women?     

Yes, giving an opportunity to women use their secret weapon to tackle the developing world challenges and fight the hunger. By giving a right to develop policies, regulations, establish partnership and create friendly environment for women to use their full potential. There are also some important principles enabling women empowerment:

• Helping them become a business leaders.
• Giving the women knowledge and skills they need to run successful farms and businesses is an efficient way to improve life standards of poor families.
• Give them access to credits, land and training to grow better food. Providing women with small grants and credits, tools and educating them in growing yields is one of the best way to increase food production in the countries prone to hunger.
• Continuous promotion of education and women`s professional development. Educating women is a first important step towards fighting hunger and poverty. We should admit the fact that educated women have healthier children, and educated girls can increase their future wages by 10 to 20%.   
• Treating all women fairly, women friendly policies and support human rights, nondiscrimination
• Expending reproductive health programs and family support policies.

All these activities can be supported by the Women`s Empowerment Fund, which is a great help to women to improve their lives and reduce poverty.

Women empowerment throughout the life cycle will be a key to a future free from hunger and poverty.  

Photo credit: SesapZai