Women in Action: Week 2 - Economics

Women in Action: Week 2 - Economics

France / Women in innovation: There is still room for progress…

At the end of August 2017, an article in the French economics and business magazine Capital hit like a bombshell. This special edition, dedicated to French start-ups, didn’t go unnoticed. Not a single female was among the line-up of highly promising entrepreneurs; those with the potential to make it among the heavyweights at international level. Social media had a field day with the story, creating a buzz that was spurred on by feminist associations, amongst a chorus of angry jeers.

Women In Action / Nebeday enables Senegalese women from rural areas to obtain new forms of income

Nebeday enables Senegalese women from rural areas to obtain new forms of income

International / Valuing women’s work and activism

Women work hard. All day long, they are busy caring for others, creating new knowledge and ideas, solving problems, building our world, and contributing to our economies and societies in endless ways.

Switzerland / Highlighting female entrepreneurs

33-year-old Emilie Hawlena wants to create synergies between women who share an entrepreneurial spirit, to help them break into the complex, exciting and sometimes hostile arena that is starting one’s own business.

Senegal / Planting the seeds for a brighter future

Wafts of fresh mint pass through the sticky air, the ground is littered with cut-off bottles from which other aromatic herbs peek out, zigzagging tables laden with plant pots lead up to a building covered in hanging containers—all sprouting luscious greenness. This building is Centre d’écoute et d’encadrement pour le développement durable (Centre for Support and Training in Sustainable Development), more commonly known as Ceedd. The centre, founded in 2005 in the city of Thies, seventy kilometres east of the capital Dakar, provides microcredit and training in micro gardening to women from deprived urban settlements.

Nigeria / Hard journey to the boardroom

The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day was Women in the Changing World of Work: Planet 50-50 by 2030. Around the world, women and men were invited to pledge their utmost efforts in achieving workplace gender parity by 2030. Sadly, in many parts of the world this remains an ambitious plan, notably in our native Nigeria. Walk into any boardroom in downtown Lagos or Abuja and it will be overwhelmingly male-dominated. Just what is stopping our Nigerian sisters from breaking the glass ceiling?

India / Taking the driver’s seat

Manisha Malvade was 21 when her mother died of cancer. “Mother’s death shook me,” she said. “But I had to help my family survive.” Her father, alcoholic and unemployed, was of no help. It fell solely upon her to support her five other siblings.

Promoting ‘Faso Dan Fani’: Burkina Faso’s ‘woven cloth of the homeland’ Elisabeth Delma, a master of the tradition

It’s in the northern outskirts of Ouagadougou, in Tampouy, that we met up with Elisabeth Delma, founder of the Adaja Centre. Despite her discretion and modesty when speaking about her work, Delma; a woman well into her sixties, is a key figure in the development and promotion of Faso Dan Fani (attire from traditional handwoven cotton cloth).

Pedal Power

Sometimes, you have to take the mountain to Mohammed. Just ask iSocial, a groundbreaking programme that involves entrepreneurs delivering vital information and services to isolated communities throughout Bangladesh. In a gender-defying feat, the entrepreneurs are tech-savvy young women—who travel on bicycles.

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