Help Women Feed the World

Please pardon the last minute notice, but I wanted to make sure you knew that Women Thrive has teamed up with the ONE Campaign's Girls and Women Program and Google for a special conversation about women and poverty. You can watch and join the Google Hangout here: https://plus.google.com/events/cp4j3r8f6n1gb3t2qs98pq8pcrg?fd=1 

This unique panel—part of an ongoing effort to advance women’s economic opportunity—will include representatives from the Brookings Institution, the World Bank, and FashionABLE.

Jina Moore, Buzzfeed’s International Women’s Rights Correspondent, will be logging in from Kenya to moderate.

I really hope you can join us in a few minutes. If not, the entire conversation will be available live and archived at the link below:

http://womenthrive.org/teach-woman-fish-economic-opportunities-women-developing-world 

I hope you can join us!

Best,

Mei Powers

We know that investing in women farmers - such as providing them with information, land rights, organizing support, time-savings systems, and better access to public-private partnerships - not only benefits women and their families economically, but also increases overall global crop production.

However, existing programs have often skewed toward middle- and upper-income women and overlooked those who live on less than $2 USD a day.  Such practices leave the most marginalized women and girls trapped in a cycle of poverty with draining resources and limiting growth.

To reduce overall poverty, we must take a closer look at the primary obstacles that women living in extreme poverty face in obtaining sustainable, productive economic opportunities.  As such, Women Thrive is excited to share our latest report entitled, “Less Than Two Dollars a Day: Creating Economic Opportunity for Women and Men Living in Extreme Poverty in Developing Countries.”

Key findings from the report include:

• Although both market access and property rights are critical for economic advancement, interventions focused in either area will be limited until the broader issues of the informal economy, largely made up of male and female farmers, are addressed.

• Countries with the largest populations in poverty also have high rates of agricultural employment, like South Asia (60 percent of employment in agriculture) and Sub-Saharan Africa (65 percent).  

 • While the informal sector normally refers to the non-agricultural economy, the predominant lack of social protection, formal employment arrangements, organized businesses, and regulations make agriculture a major part of the informal sector.

 The report concludes with specific, strong recommendations that stakeholders—donors, practitioners, researchers and advocates—can take to help mobilize resources to women at the base of the economic pyramid, reducing hunger and poverty.

The information and recommendations presented in this newly released report will help Women Thrive to inform a new multi-year policy initiative on women’s economic opportunity that will be launched this coming Fall.

Thank you for your interest and ongoing support.  The research, report, and upcoming policy initiative would not be possible without your belief in us as well as your generous donations.  We look forward to sharing more updates and successes in our joint efforts to end world hunger.

Best,

Christine Bond

Organizational Advancement Intern