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Gender Equality & Women's Empowerment
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Working to unlock the power of women to transform development |
Measuring the impact of Feed
the Future programs on women |
Strengthening our work in countering human trafficking |
Empowering women as agents of peace & conflict prevention |
USAID promotes gender equality and women's empowerment worldwide. No society can develop successfully without both increasing and transforming opportunities and resources for women and men, girls, and boys so that they have equal power to shape their own lives and contribute to their communities.
USAID investments are aimed at three overarching outcomes:
- Reduce gender disparities in access to, control over and benefit from resources, wealth, opportunities and services - economic, social, political, and cultural;
- Reduce gender-based violence and mitigate its harmful effects on individuals; and
- Increase capability of women and girls to realize their rights, determine their life outcomes, and influence decision-making in households, communities, and societies.
To achieve these goals, USAID integrates gender equality and female empowerment throughout the Agency’s Program Cycle and related processes: in strategic planning, programming, project design and implementation; and monitoring and evaluation. This integrated approach positions the Agency to respond systematically to gender gaps and the constraints that hold women back.
Learn more about gender equality and the importance of investing in women.
USAID Supports Women's Leadership
USAID supports women as leaders and change agents in many of our programs:
- Girls' education is the special focus of 67 percent of USAID's basic education programs
- Women receive more than 60 percent of the loans from USAID-supported microfinance institutions
- Women are one-third of the clients receiving USAID-supported enterprise development services
- USAID promotes legislation to prevent gender-based violence and provide protection, livelihoods, and other services to survivors
Challenges to Women’s Advancement
Although tremendous progress has been made, many obstacles to women's advancement remain. Some include:
- 774 million adults worldwide cannot read. Two-thirds of them are women.1
1. The World’s Women 2010: Trends and Statistics, United Nations, 2010
72 million school-age children worldwide do not attend school. 54 percent of them are girls.2 Girls are 4 percent less likely than boys to finish primary school.
2. The World’s Women 2010: Trends and Statistics, United Nations, 2010
- Seventy-two percent of the world's 33 million refugees are women and children.
- 1 in 120 women from developing countries, and 1 in 37 women from least developed countries die during pregnancy and childbirth. In contrast, in industrialized countries, the ratio is 1 in 4,300.3
3.The State of the World’s Children 2011, UNICEF
- In 2008, the female labor force participation rate stood at 51.7 percent while the male rate was 77.7 percent.4
4. Women in Labor Markets: Measuring Progress and Identifying Challenges, ILO, March 2010
- At least 1 in 3 women is beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused by an intimate partner in the course of her lifetime. 5
5. Fact Sheet: How Widespread is Violence Against Women? United Nations Department of Public Information, February 2008.
More Gender Statistics
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