Investing in women's productivity

Description

Investing in women's productivity involves directing resources, training, and support to enhance women’s skills, access to technology, and participation in economic activities. This strategy aims to remedy gender-based barriers, increase women’s income-generating opportunities, and improve overall community well-being. Practical actions include providing microfinance, vocational education, and equitable workplace policies, thereby enabling women to contribute fully to economic growth and poverty reduction.

Context

In the subsistence economy, this means: securing women's access to land, credit and other productive resources, in both law and practice; investing in the extension and popularization of appropriate labour-saving technologies; and including women producers as full partners in new institutions (cooperatives, credit unions, and the like), and in rural development strategies. In the formal sector, steps are required to break down sex-segregated labour markets and gender-biased wage systems. Planners need to be aware of the macro-economic and family-level costs of discrimination against women in the market place.