Trainings on Women's Economic Empowerment
The ICR Facility’s WEE training facilitators in the Pacific
The ICR Facility is currently training experts from Pacific countries who can deliver courses on gender sensitive business environment reform (BER) to support women’s economic empowerment (WEE).
The selected experts will receive a training from the ICR Facility. This training is expected to begin during in September 2023. It will be offered in English, last ten weeks, and involve two hours of online live instruction and two hours of self-study per week.
Upon completing the training, the experts/facilitators will receive a certificate from the ICR Facility and may have paid opportunities to deliver the course to representatives of private and public sector organisations and consultants working with the ICR Facility as well as other stakeholders in African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries[i].
They may also be able to attend conferences, to speak about their experiences, and to become part of a growing community of WEE champions in the ACP regions.
[i] Procurement rules apply
Course objectives and content
Gender sensitive and transformative reforms of the complex policy, legal, institutional, and regulatory conditions that govern business activities have the potential to support the process of women’s economic empowerment.
The course includes videos, gender sensitive tools, quizzes, exercises and interviews, and is made up of the following modules:
- Module 1: Understanding WEE, gender equality, and the need for BER to help promote them in ACP countries
Learning objective: students will learn about gender gaps in ACP countries that affect the potential of achieving women’s economic empowerment and the reasons for those gaps. They will learn about the process of women’s economic empowerment and its adaption to local context in ACP countries, as well as the legal and regulatory barriers that affect WEE and how business environment reform can help promote women’s economic empowerment.
- Module 2: BER to support women-owned businesses in ACP countries
Learning objective: students will learn about the legal, regulatory barriers women face in ACP countries to inherit land and access assets, register a bank account and financial products, and operate their own business. In addition, they will learn how BER can help reduce these barriers and promote women-owned business creation and growth.
- Module 3: BER to promote quality and more inclusive jobs for women in ACP countries
Learning objective: students will learn about the legal, regulatory, and tax barriers women face in ACP countries that affect their chances to access quality, well-paid jobs in the formal sector and in traditionally male-dominated industries. In addition, they will learn about BER reforms.
- Module 4: Gender Lens Investing – improving the investment climate for women in ACP countries
Learning objective: Students will learn what gender-lens investment (GLI) is, how and why it is being promoted, and which are the main barriers to implementing GLI strategies.
- Module 5: Promoting WEE through public-private dialogue (PPD) in ACP countries
Learning objectives: students will learn about the role of women’s organizations in promoting WEE through PPD. Learning how PPD can contribute towards promoting WEE through BER.
In addition, Facilitators will also learn about pedagogical tools and exercises to help them teach the course both in person and online.
Testimonials from previous facilitators:
"My work revolves around the business environment and we have in place a Gender centre in the Nigerian Economic Summit Group. We will jointly organise training on gender sensitive reforms."
"I have started to contemplate how policies drafted or reviewed by my organization can be enhanced with the inclusion of gender sensitive considerations in the policy development process, particularly as my country is currently engaged in ongoing business environment reform."
"I will introduce the topic of gender business environment reform to be mainstreamed in the policy measures implementation that my colleagues support such as in the tourism sector, trade in goods, services, AfCFTA and ICT."
"I work closely with County Governments in Kenya I will endeavour to ensure gender sensitive planning and budgeting as well as in design of Women Economic Programmes. Secondly, I also work closely with chambers of commerce, business membership organizations and wish to empower spaces for women participation. Thirdly, I will adapt the tools for my volunteer work with grass root based women supporting community based organizations. Lastly at a personal level in my programme management, monitoring and evaluation work I look forward to applying gender sensitive lenses. "
TRAINING ON BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT REFORMS FOR WOMEN’S ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT
The course develops awareness and provides tools to advance Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) through Business Environment Reform (BER) in African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. Participants learn to apply a gender-sensitive and gender-transformative lens when they work on their own reforms, taking into account gender differences and promoting reforms that tackle barriers women face in the business environment.
Module 1: Understanding WEE, gender equality, and the need for BER to help promote them in ACP countries
Module 2: BER to support women-owned businesses in ACP countries
Module 3: BER to promote quality and more inclusive jobs for women in ACP countries
Module 4: Gender Lens Investing – Improving the investment climate for women in ACP countries
Module 5: Promoting WEE through public-private dialogue (PPD) in ACP countries
Find out more here.
Online Training for Development Finance Institutions: How to Develop a Gender Approach
In these self-paced training modules representatives from development finance institutions (DFIs), public and private stakeholders and experts from African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) countries will learn how to develop a gender finance approach in the institutional environment, such as the DFI. The course offers an interactive journey with videos, texts, interactive exercises and quizzes to learn more about institutional gender mainstreaming, actions and measures to be taken in the organization to ensure gender inclusion. It also refers to additional sources so that participants can explore specific topics in more depth if they wish so.
The course is organised into 9 modules. Each module takes 10 to 15 minutes to complete, and the whole course takes around 2 hours.
At the end of the course, participants will take a final test to assess their knowledge and receive a certificate of completion.
Find out more here.
