This report focuses on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and presents findings drawn from the narratives of over 150 young female STEM professionals in seven countries. The report showcases how confidence in their own abilities helps women deal with setbacks. At the same time, the report highlights the critical role that support from parents, mentors, and partners play in women’s success in STEM.
This report presents a first diagnostic of Africa’s gender gap in financing early-stage ventures in the digital economy (start-ups). The report’s findings indicate that since 2013, only 3 percent of total funding for Africa’s tech start-ups went to all-female founding teams, compared with 76 percent of funding for all-male teams.
This report seeks to focus attention on the challenges that Africa’s women entrepreneurs face and identify practical solutions. The report draws on new, high-quality, household and firm-level data to present the clearest evidence to date about the barriers to growth and profitability faced by women entrepreneurs. It goes beyond looking at contextual, endowment and household restrictions in isolation, and, through deep-dive analysis, uncovers new evidence on how social norms, networks and household-level decision making contribute to business performance.
Buildher aims to equip women in Kenya with accredited construction skills, which are expected to allow beneficiaries to have greater financial independence and prosperity, to change male attitudes and to promote gender equality within the construction industry.
This document serves as a “how-to” guide on including women and men with disabilities into USAID’s gender assessments and analyses with background information on persons with disabilities as well as considerations specific to the issue of disability.
This Note builds on research covering the three countries with the highest concentration of Syrian refugees displaced since 2011: Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon. It is intended to inform policymakers and practitioners on the barriers that Syrian refugees, especially women, face in securing work to earn a livelihood. This Note highlights initiatives designed to address those barriers, but does not enumerate all of them.
This Jobs Solutions Note identifies practical solutions for development practitioners to proactively integrate gender inclusion in digital jobs programs. Based on curated knowledge and evidence for a specific topic and relevant to jobs, the Jobs Solutions Notes are not intended to be exhaustive; they provide key lessons, solutions and approaches synthesized from the experiences of the World Bank Group and partners.
This brief examines how the World Bank’s ‘E-Commerce for Women-Led SMEs’ project addresses the constraints faced by small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) run or managed by women operating in Algeria; Djibouti, the Arab Republic of Egypt; Jordan; Lebanon; Morocco; and Tunisia. It highlights how the World Bank seeks to support women-led SMEs (WSMEs) in the Middle East North Africa region (MENA) in accessing global markets through e-commerce platforms, and the strategies used to help WSMEs access financial resources, develop capacity, and increase sales.
This brief examines how the World Bank’s ‘Gaza Emergency Cash for Work and Self-Employment Support’ project supports NGOs that are connecting unemployed youth with online work opportunities. The project will help fund skills training and digital job support to 750 youth (including 375 young women). The brief highlights challenges facing young women in the West Bank and Gaza – who experience high unemployment rates – and the strategies used to encourage their program participation and empower them to engage in e-work.
This toolkit provides advice for young women who could become digital professionals and employers struggling to fill the job openings in their companies. The focus is on young women that are
Not in Education, Employment, or Training (NEETs) – hence they face various risks, problems, and negative orientations.
