In January, Daniela Ligiero became vice president of girls and women strategy at the United Nations Foundation, Women and Children. In the second part of an interview, she explains what her organization does – and what work remains in empowering women around the globe. (Read part 1 of the interview here.)
Given the more than 40 countries you’ve visited, what regional and cultural crossovers do you see in how women view success, empowerment and happiness?
Empowerment is defined differently in different social and cultural contexts. The same is true about what it means to be a man or a woman – and the definition of happiness.
We must classify empowerment more clearly. People have tried to qualify empowerment to include a woman’s power to make decisions about her own body, or a woman’s freedom to walk on the street. But we haven’t looked across all the areas of work and what empowerment may mean to different women in different cultures beyond how much money women make. That is the next step.
The Global Findex data shows the gender gap between men and women’s access to financial services still exists. What key causes for this disparity do you see, and what are the solutions?
The causes partly link back to the different work that men and women do. And the work women do in the care economy, an economic system in which caring for nature and people is paramount, frequently denies them access to the same financial services men have. Valuing women’s contribution and then creating the support and infrastructure allowing them to segue into other economies is key.
We must also tackle cultural norms – many countries lack the legal infrastructure necessary for women to own property or open a bank account without their husbands’ permission. Also, within the financial sector, decisionmakers must start thinking about the end user as a woman and using data to analyze and collect the impact and differences between the way men and women use and approach financial services.
Can you describe the financial inclusion for women initiatives at the UN Foundation, Women and Children, and your hopes for this work?
The UN Foundation and the ExxonMobil Foundation joined forces in early 2012 to create a roadmap for policy and programs helping women’s economic empowerment. Each organization has invested millions of dollars and years of research aimed at improving how women in developing countries live.
The Roadmap for Promoting Women’s Economic Empowerment, published in September 2013, identifies proven and promising interventions that increase productivity and earnings for different women in diverse contexts. Many interventions – like arming women farmers and entrepreneurs with mobile phones to help them access market information, and the knowledge that women seek safe and viable ways to save to help further invest in their businesses – are simple and easy to implement. The roadmap helps funders, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and governments create programs that help women improve their incomes, productivity and ultimately their communities.
In 2014, the initiative expanded to include work to help researchers and program directors better compare outcomes. The Measuring Women’s Economic Empowerment, published in June, summarizes recommended measures to assess the outcomes of women’s economic empowerment programs, such as their increased productivity, income and well-being.
