Economic Progress

Providing access to financing, information, training and markets is a powerful means of fostering self-sufficiency.

American women have cultivated the know-how to maximize business and professional opportunities that can enhance their futures. Efforts that promote very small businesses — or microenterprises — provide the groundwork for women in developing countries to do the same.

• More than half the world’s population lives on less than $2 a day.
  Source: Population Reference Bureau 2005 World Population Data Sheet
• A woman in Uganda who secures a $75 loan to run a small business — such as milling grain, raising poultry, tailoring, baking or selling charcoal — will earn $100 more than the country’s average per capita income of $320 a year.
  Source: BASIS-CRSP, Gender Targeting of Rural Financial Services: Is this Appropriate? A Case Study of FINCA Uganda, Fabian Kasi
• In Burkina Faso, Africa, it is estimated that the average farm woman every day carries on her head almost 45 pounds over a distance of about 1.5 miles for marketing and other purposes.
  Source: International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) — Rural Women's Walking Time