Women's economic empowerment

Inclusive market systems development is increasingly recognised as an approach that empowers poor and marginalised people. By explicitly taking gender dynamics into account, inclusive market systems can empower women, leading to wide-ranging development dividends for both women and men, their families, and wider society. The Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO) project aimed to improve USAID programmes, projects, and activities focused on creating inclusive market systems.

To support this process, LEO developed a framework that defines market systems and offers general guidelines for interventions. The framework presented in this paper identifies gender considerations and provides examples for facilitating women’s economic empowerment in inclusive market systems.