Ideas to Action:
Independent research for global prosperity
Disagreement exists over the usefulness of the concept of headship in household surveys, and of the use of female headship in the analysis of poverty. Some researchers even argue for getting rid of the headship concept altogether and for organizing the household roster instead around a chosen “primary respondent,” whatever her status in the household.
A focus on progressive legislation to promote gender equality at Biarritz is a move in the right direction
The call to economically empower women in developing and emerging economies at long last has significant financial backing.
In their recently released 2019 annual letter, Bill and Melinda Gates argue that data can be sexist. Missing or inaccurate data on women and girls can block their progress and that of society and economic development at large, they state, since robust gender data has the power to encourage change to achieve greater gender equality.
The broad scope of the Sustainable Development Goals acknowledges that human development is multifaceted and that gender equality is crosscutting.
In the drive to measure these concepts and gauge progress, there has been a proliferation of indices in recent years. The allure of indices is twofold: they reduce complex concepts and multiple indicators into one number, and this number can be used to rank countries and, so the theory goes, drive change. In one fell swoop then, indices seem to bring simplicity, order, and transformative potential.
Growing a business is not easy, and for women firm owners the challenges can be acute, especially when they are poor and run subsistence level firms. In developing countries, 22 percent of women discontinue their established businesses due to a lack of funds, and women are more likely than men to report exiting their businesses over finance problems, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. Meanwhile, personal savings are a crucial source of entrepreneurial financing, and nearly 95 percent of entrepreneurs globally state that they used their own funds to start or scale up their businesses. Women, however, face unique constraints in accumulating savings to invest in growing their firms.
Eight years and millions of mobile financial transactions later, we came together again at a private CGD roundtable in London to discuss the potential of mobile banking and savings for women’s economic empowerment. We were pleased to hear the richness of research evidence and interventions on women’s financial inclusion that have emerged over the past decade. What follows are some takeaways from our deliberations, informed by this research and practice.
A sense of urgency was present at a recent World Bank Spring meeting on financial inclusion. This is not surprising, given the Bank’s ambitious goal of Universal Financial Access by 2020. Two years to go and globally about 1.7 billion adults remain unbanked—close to 1 billion of them are women. It’s clear that to meet this goal, we all must focus our efforts on women.
Here at CGD, we’re always working on new ideas to stay on top of the rapidly changing global development landscape. Whether it’s examining new technologies with the potential to alleviate poverty, presenting innovative ways to finance global health, assessing changing leadership at international institutions, or working to maximize results in resource-constrained environments, CGD’s experts are at the forefront of practical policy solutions to reduce global poverty and inequality. Get an in-depth look below at their thoughts on the 2018 global development landscape.
Gender data are essential. How else are we going to monitor progress in the wellbeing of women and girls? Below, we provide background on data shortage, and outline three key steps that countries and the international community should take in order to produce better data and close gender gaps.
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