Exploring how executive women can contribute to sustainable economic empowerment in the developing world.

April 2007 Volume V, Number 2

Net Contents
I. Network Presentation
Key Findings
Perspectives

II. What’s New

III. The Women’s Network for a Sustainable Future
The Concept of the Network
Contact Information
Sponsorship Opportunities

I. Network Presentation
A big thank you to those who took the time to attend WNSF’s luncheon panel on March 6, 2007 entitled “Sustainability and Gender: Private Sector Perspectives” hosted by the World Bank in Washington, D.C. The session featured speakers from IBM, Intel, World Bank and IFC, and explored how executive women can contribute to sustainable economic empowerment in the developing world.

Key Findings

• Women play a vital role in sustainable development
• Women’s empowerment (in addition to being a moral and human rights imperative) is a critical economic and business issue
• The World Bank’s new Gender Action Plan is structured to both make markets work for women and to empower women to participate in the productive, financial, labor, and land markets
• Both economic and technological capital can be a critical advantage for today’s businesses, especially for women entrepreneurs in the developing world
• Technology can broaden market access for women entrepreneurs by allowing them to reach global customers and market their goods remotely.
• The World Bank’s extractive industries programs demonstrate that seeking out women’s voices when crafting development programs ensures that the community’s needs are more appropriately addressed
• Training, education and micro loans are among the techniques that can help lift women out of poverty and related life problems

Perspectives

Welcome:

• Peter van der Veen, Manager, World Bank Oil, Gas, and Mining Policy Group
• Ann Goodman, Executive Director and Cofounder of WNSF

Speakers:

• Dominique Lallement, International Development Consultant
• My Luu, Market Development Executive, IBM - Small and Medium Business
• Karen Mayer, Director of Worldwide Community Solutions, Intel
• John Strongman, World Bank Mining Advisor, Oil, Gas, Chemicals, and Mining
• Amanda Ellis, Head of Gender Entrepreneurship Markets Initiative, IFC

Peter van der Veen, Manager of the World Bank Oil, Gas, and Mining Policy Group, welcomed event participants, and framed the speaker presentations by posing a central question facing practitioners working towards sustainable development and women’s economic empowerment: “How can we close the gender gap that exists within global poverty?” To illustrate the question, he listed several striking statistics regarding women’s economic and social status

1. Women comprise a majority (70%) of the 1.3 billion people living on less than $1 a day
2. Women account for 2/3 of the total number of illiterate people
3. Women lack access to credit, jobs, and business opportunities

Recognizing the vital role women play in sustainable development, the World Bank recently launched a new Gender Action Plan. Mr. van der Veen broadly described the goals of the plan to enhance women’s economic opportunities in sectors including finance, private sector development, agriculture, and infrastructure, including oil, gas, and mining. He explained that the World Bank Group developed this initiative as not only the “right thing to do”, but because it makes good economic sense, with women’s empowerment leading to gains in poverty reduction, economic growth, and overall sustainable development.

Mr. van der Veen went on to highlight the specific problems faced by women with regard to the extractive industries, and to share some examples of how his group is addressing the gender empowerment gap. In stark terms, the extractive industries strongly favor men, who typically get the lion’s share of jobs and income, while women often bear the costs of land loss, environmental damage, and social and family disruption. To counteract this bias, the World Bank Group has conducted pilot programs to engage, empower, and build women’s capacity in extractive communities. A main driver for these programs is the fact that benefits accruing to women have a higher development impact than benefits geared only to men. As such, women’s empowerment (in addition to being a moral and human rights imperative) is a critical economic and business issue.

Mr. van der Veen closed by expressing his hope that the panel presentations and subsequent discussion would help shape a common platform of best practice and to facilitate closer public-private partnerships to address the gender gap.

Ann Goodman, PhD., Executive Director and Cofounder of WNSF, greeted attendees and acknowledged the presence of several WNSF directors and board members, including Kathy Robb, Joyce LaValle, Diane Dillon-Ridgley, and Deborah Sliter.

She thanked the World Bank for hosting the event, and clarified for first-time participants the mission of WNSF: to mobilize businesswomen to facilitate sustainable development through the exchange of ideas, discussion of best practice, and formation of partnerships to address issues and challenges.

Against the backdrop of March as International Women’s Month, Dr. Goodman commented on the extraordinary breadth and depth of experiences brought to the event by both speakers and attendees. She encouraged participants to focus on practical solutions to building a common agenda for women’s global empowerment.

Dominique Lallement was the first speaker. Formerly of the World Bank, Ms. Lallement now works as an international development consultant to refine and implement the World Bank’s Gender Action Plan. Ms. Lallement described how the World Bank has had a gender policy in place since the mid 1970’s. At a large scale consultation with development partners in February 2006, however, the World Bank examined progress towards meeting the Millennium Development Goal of women’s empowerment. The result of the consultation was a commitment to create the resulting four-year gender action plan.

Ms. Lallement explained how the Gender Action Plan is structured to both make markets work for women and to empower women to participate more effectively in markets. Plan implementation strives to highlight what needs to occur to make these goals a reality through women’s access to the productive, financial, labor, and land markets. In particular, the Plan includes the ‘gender-equitable’ provision of infrastructure services, both for women’s welfare and market-access benefits.

An important aspect of the plan is its examination of risks facing both genders, as well as opportunities for both genders to proactively contribute to women’s empowerment. For example, the World Bank is considering questions such as whether men and women are heard equally and whether they are able to participate equally at the individual, household, and community levels.

The plan comprises four action areas that will enable women to compete effectively in the market:

1. Engender operations and technical assistance in economic sectors
2. Implement results-based initiatives
3. Improve research and statistics
4. Undertake a targeted communications campaign

Ms. Lallement then turned to plan implementation. She described how the World Bank has compiled a list of target countries for plan rollout, including both low- and medium-income countries (such as Ghana, Senegal, and Guatemala) and fragile states such as Liberia and Sierra Leone.

In terms of implementation resources and partners, the World Bank has lined up nearly $25 million in direct support; secured matching funds; initiated coordination with operational and anchor units at the World Bank; and established partnerships with external organizations such as UNIFEM, ICRW, private donors, NGOs, and the private sector.

Ms. Lallement concluded her remarks by highlighting the most important aspect of this work, namely, to develop ways to work together across governments, the private sector, NGOs, and civil society to get results on the ground.

More information about the World Bank’s Gender Action Plan is available at http://www.worldbank.org/gender and http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTGENDER/Resources/GAPNov2.pdf

The second speaker, My Luu, a Market Development Executive on IBM’s Small and Medium Business team, turned the conversation to the consideration of private sector involvement in women’s empowerment.

Ms. Luu fosters the development of various programs that support women in underserved communities. One example is the IBM Global Women Initiative, which was initially launched in 1992 in the United States and Canada, and has now been extended overseas to provide women entrepreneurs with greater access to technology. Ms. Luu explained how IBM’s strategy of facilitating access to technology creates not only social and economic empowerment for individual women business-owners, but also creates a new market segment and potential future customers for the company. She cited the fact that women own one-third of all privately held businesses–a percentage that includes about 10.4 million women-owned businesses in the United States and 20 million women-owned businesses in China.

Ms. Luu drew a comparison between access to technology and access to financing. Just as Muhummad Yunus and the Grameen Bank have provide women entrepreneurs with access to capital, IBM is helping women entrepreneurs gain access to technology. Both economic and technological capital can be a critical advantage for today’s businesses. IBM’s provision of products and services – such as software, email security, virus protection, and website hosting – can help women entrepreneurs launch and grow their business. Through these tools, women business owners can connect with a broader (potentially global) market and build stronger relationships with current and potential clients and partners.

The second program Ms. Luu described was the expansion of the Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise (SME) Toolkit, which is a website portal that offers the latest tools, resources and information to business owners around the world. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) launched the SME Toolkit in 2002. IBM has now partnered with the IFC to build out the web interface to include more interactive and collaborative tools. The SME Toolkit is already available for 22 sites around the world, has been translated into 12 languages, and receives 2 million visitors each year; further rollout to Brazil, India, South Africa, and other countries is planned for later this year.

Ms. Luu informed attendees that a US-centric SME Toolkit will be launched in June this year, commenting that although the United States is not a developing country, the reality remains that there are many underserved individuals and communities that could benefit from this service. The Toolkit in the US will focus on the needs of Asian, black, Hispanic, Native American and women business owners.

Ms. Luu ended her presentation with a discussion of IBM’s “base of the pyramid” initiative, which is aimed at finding ways for technology innovations to address the needs of the 4 billion people around the world who make up two-thirds of the world’s population and yet earn less than $5 per day. Although IBM is not a consumer products company, it can provide the technology infrastructure and services to facilitate advances in global living standards and expedite the delivery of products and services to the poorest of the poor.

To explore the most pressing issues facing our global community, in 2006 IBM invited employees, clients, and partners to brainstorm about these issues and ways to solve them in an “InnovationJam”. 15,000 people participated, generating 43,000 postings, which were then narrowed down to a set of 35 implementable ideas. IBM is allocating $100 million to developing the top 10 ideas that reached finalist status, including the following which are pertinent to those at the base of the socioeconomic pyramid:

1. Branchless banking to provide basic banking services to the masses, including those in remote areas of the world,
2. “Green” emerging business organization, which is exploring ways for technology innovations to address environmental and sustainability issues (for example, how to use nanotechnology to improve water filtration and address the issue of access to clean water), and
3. Enhanced digital media as a form of identification in the absence of driver’s licenses, bank cards, passports or other identification typically required for transactions and other services.

The current SME Toolkit platform may be accessed at: http://www.smetoolkit.org/ More information regarding IBM’s InnovationJam and related projects is available at: http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/20605.wss

The third speaker was Karen Mayer, Intel Corporation’s Director of Worldwide Community Solutions. Ms. Mayer related to participants that her work rests on the fact that access to technology is becoming as important as access to capital. The programs she leads look for needs in the community that can be joined to Intel technology to create solutions.

Ms. Mayer focused her presentation on Intel’s World Ahead Program (“Bringing the advantages of technology to the next billion”). This initiative aims to enhance peoples’ lives via the effective application of technology, with a specific focus on accessibility, connectivity, education, and rich content.

In the educational arena, Ms. Mayer provided examples of Intel’s outreach to teachers and schools to provide students, and especially girls, with exposure to 21st century skills. Intel has helped establish math and science education web portals, supported teacher training, and facilitated access to WiMAX broadband internet connectivity in countries including Ghana and Colombia.

The World Ahead Program also provides technology support for home-based businesses run by women. Ms. Mayer discussed how technology can broaden market access for women entrepreneurs by allowing them to reach global customers and market their goods remotely.

With regard to providing computer hardware and other technology, Ms. Mayer described the process by which Intel product designs are engineered to meet community needs. The company sends ethnographers to study local customs and lifestyles to determine what kind of computers might meet needs of the community. Intel also works with local businesses to promote local manufacture of computers and equipment, and with local financial institutions to establish low down-payment programs. An additional and important facet of the World Ahead Program is Intel’s outreach to government to provide incentives and assistance for computer purchases. These interventions collectively facilitate greater access and empowerment for community members, and specifically women entrepreneurs.

More information on Intel’s Worldwide Community Solutions program is available at: http://www.intel.com/community/solutions/index.htm

Read about Intel’s World Ahead Program at: http://www.intel.com/intel/worldahead/

John Strongman, World Bank Mining Advisor in the Oil, Gas, Chemicals, and Mining Department, shifted the focus of the discussion to the challenges facing women who work in or are affected by the extractive industry. He identified a “gender gap” whereby most of the benefits of extractive industries (in particular employment and income) tend to go to men, whereas the environmental and social harm impacts women and families most strongly.

He specifically outlined the goals of the Women and Extractive Industries Program, which was developed to facilitate the economic and social empowerment of women and to improve their overall well-being. He underscored the points made earlier by Mr. van der Veen as to the potential negative impact of the extractive industry on communities, despite the influx of jobs, taxes, and revenues that may accompany the arrival of a new mine or facility.

Mr. Strongman described both internal and external actions that have been proposed under the Women and Extractive Industries Program to increase awareness of the gender gap and take steps to empower women. These include the development of gender guidelines, increased gender-based communication, and practical actions on the part of companies to support affirmative action for the greater employment of women in the direct workforce and through linkages to the indirect services sector.

Communities themselves could provide support for women’s businesses and cottage industries, and ensure equitable community level distribution of benefits payments. Governments could ensure that micro-credits programs and training are available for women, undertake consultation with affected female populations, and act to direct a percentage of compensation and royalty benefits to support community-based sustainable development programs that are women-defined. Mr. Strongman spoke to this point by noting gender preferences for different development projects: whereas men favor physical projects such as roads and infrastructure, women will typically choose projects that enhance family health, education, and skills training.

Companies must also remain sensitive to gender-based issues. Given the great disparity of social access and empowerment between men and women, and the distinct impacts that are borne by each gender, Mr. Strongman illustrated that it is insufficient for companies to undertake consultation or support community programs only at the overall community level. Instead companies could have a more positive impact and obtain greater benefit form their community related expenditures if they disaggregated the views of men and women, and if they supported projects proposed by women and women’s groups. World Bank projects in Papua New Guinea, Poland, and Peru have demonstrated that seeking out women’s voices when crafting aid or development programs for the community will ensure that women’s needs are appropriately addressed and better development outcomes achieved.

More information is available at the newly launched Extractive Industries and Gender website: http://worldbank.org/eigender

The final speaker was Amanda Ellis, head of the Gender Entrepreneurship Markets (GEM) Initiative at the IFC. In lieu of a formal presentation, Ms. Ellis told a story of two sisters in Tanzania. Both were widowed, and while one was forced into prostitution after being left with nothing after her deceased husband’s family took back all her possessions, the other was able, through a micro-loan, to purchase a refrigerator and use it to store fish. Selling the fish enabled the second widowed sister to create a livelihood for herself and her family.

The micro-lending program at the heart of this story is Selfina Leasing Company–owned by a woman who had been widowed herself and who wanted to help others–and now has more than 3,000 members. The IFC recently signed an agreement to provide funding for the first commercial SME line of credit for women entrepreneurs in Tanzania through EXIM Bank, and $1 million has been on-lent to Selfina for the expansion of the program’s asset pool. As most of the beneficiaries of micro-loans are women, this funding directly promotes women’s empowerment and entrepreneurship. The GEM initiative also provides training and education to prepare women business-owners to participate in traditional banking and finance structures once their businesses expand beyond the micro-finance sphere.

Ms. Ellis closed her remarks by inviting participants to the GEM website to delve deeper into the work underway to empower women entrepreneurs.

The IFC Gender Entrepreneurship Markets website contains further resources: http://www.ifc.org/gem

The Women’s Network would like to thank all of the speakers and participants for attending the Sustainability and Gender event. We are grateful to our host, the World Bank, for making this meeting possible and to Sheila Shahriari for coordinating event logistics.

II. What’s New

• WNSF’s Executive Director Dr. Ann Goodman spoke on businessswomen and sustainability at the OECD in Paris in April as part of the organization’s new initiative on gender and sustainable development.
• WNSF hosts China Association of Women Entrepreneurs (CAWE) in NYC in April, continuing to forge the ongoing relationship launched in November 2006, when WNSF Executive Director Dr. Ann Goodman spoke at CAWE’s Beijing conference on women, sustainability and entrepreneurship.
• At the invitation of Intel Corp., WNSF will hold its first West Coast roundtable, “Sustaining Emerging Markets: Technology, Capital and Women,” including speakers from Intel and Google, on May 11 in Santa Clara, CA. RSVP on the WNSF website.
• WNSF’s next roundtable on poverty alleviation and workforce development, featuring WNSF Board member Michele Kahane, co-author of ‘Untapped,’ will take place on June 22 in NYC. Please look for an announcement on the WNSF website and email invitations.

III. The Women’s Network for a Sustainable Future
The Concept of the Network
The Women’s Network for a Sustainable Future (WNSF) provides a forum for businesswomen to congregate, reflect, and act on the convergent issues of corporate social responsibility and sustainable development. Through meetings, training and simple electronic support tools, WNSF facilitates the exchange of experiences and best practices, building a community of businesswomen who can serve as powerful change agents for corporate responsibility sustainability in the US and internationally.

The Women’s Network for a Sustainable Future is a 501c3 organization. Gifts are tax deductible.

For more information, please contact:

Ann Goodman, Executive Director
Women’s Network for a Sustainable Future
Please direct inquiries to: info@wnsf.org

Board of Directors: CHAIR: Kathy Robb, Esq., Partner and Head of Environmental Practice, Hunton & Williams; Dianne Dillon Ridgley, Director, Interface Inc. Board; Karen Flanders, Director of Sustainability, Coca-Cola Co.; Joanne Fox-Przeworski, Director, Bard Center for Environmental Policy, Bard College; Ann Goodman, Executive Director, WNSF; Sarah Howell, Director, Corporate Communications, BP; Michele Kahane, Special Projects Director, Center for Corporate Citizenship, Boston College; Clair Krizov, Executive Director of Environmental and Social Responsibility, AT&T; Joyce La Valle, Senior Vice President, Interface Inc.; Anita Roper, Director of Sustainability, Alcoa Corp.; Deborah Sliter, Vice President of Programs, National Environmental Education & Training Foundation.

This issue of Net Notes was written by Framework CR. WNSF thanks founding sponsors AT&T and the Ford Foundation for their generous support.

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