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WWW.WOMENINBUSINESS .ORG.ZA

Financial Skills for Women Presented by Ali Engelbrecht

CEO Women In Business

INTRODUCTION Empowerment of women that will have lasting impacts, must involve consciousness raising

before the social construction of gender, which subordinates women in the family, class, caste, religion, or society, can be changed.

The economic empowerment approach has relied on improving women's control over economic resources and strengthening women's economic security.

The results also suggest that policies to raise women’s age at marriage, enhance their education and open greater employment opportunities will also help to empower them, at least in some respects.

Empowerment is a multi-faceted, multi-dimensional and multi-layered concept.

Women's empowerment is a process in which women gain greater share of control over resources - material, human and intellectual like knowledge, information, ideas and financial resources like money - and access to money and control over decision-making in the home, community, society and nation, and to gain “power”. According to the Country Report of Government of India, "Empowerment means moving from a position of enforced powerlessness to one of power".

Empowerment of women lead to dual change that will improve the lives of women and girls everywhere.

WWW.WOMENINBUSINESS .ORG.ZA

WORLD BANK GENDER EQUALITY AND DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2012

Girls now outnumber boys in secondary schools in 45 developing countries

Globally 4 out of every 10 workers is a woman 552 million women joined the global labour force between 1980 and

2008 Women account for 50% of informal employment globally Globally, only 10 to 20 of every 100 land owners is a woman Women are responsible for 60 to 80% of all house and care work Globally, over a third of women die in their reproductive years About 2/5 of girls are never born due to a preference for sons

WWW.WOMENINBUSINESS .ORG.ZA

“WOMEN HOLD UP HALF THE SKY”PARTICIPATION OF WOMEN IN SOCIETY

Women Hold Up Half the Sky is an Old Chinese Proverb.

It can be interpreted in many ways but in the context of this conference I’d say that it paves the way for recognition that focussing on women in the way to fight global poverty and national social and economic development.

WWW.WOMENINBUSINESS .ORG.ZA

CONTACT US:

WWW.WOMENINBUSINESS .ORG.ZA

• Want to know more?• Would you like us to present this

topic at a workshop or conference for you?

• Contact us via our website www.womeninbusiness.org.za

ceo@womeninbusiness.org.za