to removing barriers so that no job is completely closed to
either women or men.
The world is starting from a very low point on women’s
engagement in the workforce. Most women continue to
struggle with heavy workloads, low pay, and few opportunities to improve their lives. For many, “gender equality” is
just a phrase—it’s not something that’s real.
The impact of women’s economic empowerment reaches
beyond improving the lives of individuals and their families, important as that is. Today more than ever, global,
regional, and national economies don’t have the “luxury”
of wasting time and talent because of gender bias. As thenSecretary of State Hillary Clinton said in 2011, “To achieve
the economic expansion we all seek, we need to unlock a
vital source of growth [women’s work] that can power our
economies in the decades to come.”
“We have to move “women’s issues” from the margins…
and recognize that the issues are not only about women’s
roles, but are about the kind of world we want to create,”
said Ambassador Melanne Verveer, the first-ever U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues. Development
depends on the kinds of economic activities that a nation or
community chooses to prioritize. That’s where the resources—financial, material, human, political—will be directed.
That’s what will actually get done. To spur economic development, “women’s work” must be treated as simply “work.”
Ambassador Verveer’s job is to promote women’s empowerment in the ways U.S. foreign policy is put into practice. Another new tool in this American effort is the U.S.
Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Policy
for Gender Equality and Female Empowerment, released in
February 2012. Its main goal is to make women, girls, and
gender issues central to U.S. development assistance.
The policy recognizes that in order to be effective, development assistance must involve women fully in food security,
health, economic development, technology, government, climate change, and other areas. It also guides USAID in organizing foreign assistance under one umbrella—gender equality.
As Ritu Sharma, president of Women Thrive Worldwide,
explains, “It is a big step forward from special, small, separate
women’s projects and towards true integration of half the
world’s population in our country’s international assistance.”
Think about it: sending girls to school was more effective
against child malnutrition than having more food available.
Why? It’s largely because worldwide, women carry the major responsibility for providing for their families. Conditions that interfere with women’s ability to earn a living—
such as lack of education—contribute directly to hunger
and disease among their children, both boys and girls.
“Work” Versus “Women’s Work”
UN Photo/Stuart Price
Better economic prospects for women benefit entire
families. There’s solid evidence from all over the world that
women are much more likely to spend any additional income on food, health care, and education for their children.
This means, of course, that workplace equality is essential to
making lasting progress against hunger.
In both industrialized and developing economies, many
people still work in jobs heavily domin ated by one gender or the other. This is changing in some countries and
in some professions. But enabling women to work to their
full potential doesn’t require a society to achieve gender balance in every job category. Rather, what’s needed is respect
for the contributions of every worker and a commitment
A shoe seller displays her wares in Hamar Weyne market,
Mogadishu, Somalia, August 2013.
97
1 in 2
Girls in high school
for every 100 boys
in high school,
worldwide, 2010
Mothers ages 30-35
in Kenya with sole
financial responsibility
for their children
2