Women. Drive. Economic. Growth. Period.

When women’s participation in the labor force increases, GDP rises. When women start businesses, communities flourish. When women are promoted to senior management and appointed to corporate boards, companies do better. We ignore this compelling data at our peril.

Business leaders, advocates and policy makers committed to economic growth and prosperity must use every strategy and tool to open doors and opportunity for women to participate in today’s global economy.

In early May, I moderated the opening plenary of the Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society in Toronto, which convened 600 influential business, institutional and political global leaders to strategize about breaking down entrenched barriers to women’s participation and developing concrete

solutions. The Forum focused specifically on influencing the agenda of the G7, a powerful group comprising the U.S., Japan, Germany, the U.K., France, Italy and Canada, as well as the European Union. This discussion was particularly timely as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has made empowering women one of the main themes of Canada’s 2018 G7 presidency.

The plenary examined how governments, the private sector and multilateral forums like the G7, can take action to accelerate women’s economic opportunity, and in the process, create more jobs, increase innovation, and transform societies. It highlighted the importance of enabling environments and corporate culture, the role of technology, and the importance of measuring impact. I was joined on the panel by four dynamic women leaders from the private, public and NGO sectors.

Here are my key takeaways.

First, most private sector leaders today recognize the competitive advantage of women’s economic participation, whether in the corporate c-suite, in non-traditional jobs, or as entrepreneurs. But, talk isn’t enough. Companies that make their commitment real have been able to attract, and importantly, retain women employees by challenging assumptions, promoting work/life balance, and creating an environment where everyone is valued. For example, Salesforce took an honest look at how women and men were being paid, and increased salaries when it found discrepancies. But these actions aren’t only important to women. Today, both men and women are seeking jobs and starting businesses that value their contributions, are flexible, and give them a sense of ownership.

Second, strong enabling and legal environments are critical. To succeed, women need skills, networks, and access to capital and markets. At the same time, women also need access to quality education, child care, clean water, health care and a sense of personal security. This includes legal frameworks that ensure non-discrimination, and protections against sexual harassment, assault and violence. There is good news. According to the most recent World Bank Women, Business and the Law Report, over the last two years, governments in 65 countries took concrete steps to improve women’s economic inclusion. However, women still face legal barriers in over 100 countries, and those barriers adversely affect their economic choices.

Third, technology is both a tool and a challenge. Technology is driving change and innovation across the globe, and has a tremendous impact on economic competitiveness. As we embrace technology, however, we need to be mindful that globally, there is a gender gap in online access. In urban poor areas, women are 50 percent less likely than men to be online, and 30–50 percent less likely to use the internet for economic or political empowerment. A 2015 report, Connected Women, found that women are 14 percent less likely than men to own a mobile phone. And, when women own phones, they use them differently than men do.

Finally, measurement matters and helps tell the story. We know that making the business case is important, and macro-level data, like that contained in the studies cited in this article, makes a difference at the policy level. We also need to look closely at what works on the individual and business level. Measuring success is about understanding how many women graduate from a vocational program, and also how that translates into impact and value.

Under the Canadian presidency, the G7 is deepening its focus on these critical issues. As advocates, policy makers and business leaders, we can help by continuing to gather data about how women are central to economic growth. Interventions must ensure women are treated equally and fairly, and have access to the tools they need to succeed, wherever they are on the path of economic participation and leadership.

SDG Five, Target Three

Within the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), or Global Goals, Goal 5 is to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. For Goal 5, there are nine targets. In this, we will focus on SDG5 Target 3: Eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation.

Unfortunately, data on these critical issues is not regularly collected in the United States. While we believe that less than 5 percent of girls in the United States are married before the age of 16 and that female genital mutilation is rare or limited to ethnic minority enclaves, we do not know for sure.

Early, Forced and Child Marriage:  At the federal level, there is no law against child, early and forced marriage because laws on the age of marriage in the United States are set at the state level. Twenty-seven states have no minimum age for marriage; four states allow girls as young as 13 or 14 years old to marry; and in many states, 16 and 17 year olds can marry with parental consent alone. According to data compiled by Unchained At Last, at least 207,468 minors married in the U.S. between 2000 and 2015. This likely does not reflect the breadth of the issue because ten states provided no or incomplete statistics.  A few other nuances:

  • Eight-seven percent of the minors who married across the country between 2000 and 2015 were girls, with the majority aged either 16 or 17.
  • More than 1,000 children aged 14 or under were granted marriage licences. (Source)

There have been some advocacy campaigns to set or increase the age of marriage at the state level to match the age of consent for sex. However, in 2017, the Governor of New Jersey rejected legislation that would have banned marriage before age 18, without exceptions. “An exclusion without exceptions would violate the cultures and traditions of some communities in New Jersey based on religious traditions,” the Republican governor wrote. (Source)   

Globally, one third of girls in the developing world are married before the age of 18 and one in nine are married before the age of 15. In 2012, 70 million women aged 20-24 had been married before the age of 18. If present trends continue, in the next ten years, 150 million girls will be married before their 18th birthday. While countries with the highest prevalence of child marriage are concentrated in Western and Sub-Saharan Africa, due to population size, the largest number of child brides reside in South Asia. (Source)

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM): A federal law making it illegal to perform FGM was passed in 1996, and was amended in 2013 to make it illegal to knowingly transport a girl out of the U.S. to inflict FGM abroad. Since 1990, the estimated number of girls and women in the U.S. who have undergone or are at risk of the practice has more than tripled. This increase is due to rapid growth in the number of immigrants from countries where FGM is a common practice.  These girls and women are concentrated in California, New York and Minnesota. Though at-risk girls and women are thought to live in every state but Hawaii, only 25 states have enacted laws against FGM. Prosecution under these laws depends on the age of the victim; who performed the procedure; whether the victim was taken out of the country for FGM; and, whether the accused uses cultural reasons as a defense. Punishments include as much as 30 years in prison and fines that reach $250,000. The first prosecution  in the U.S. did not occur until 2017 when two Michigan doctors and the wife of one of the doctors were charged with performing the banned procedure on two 7-year-old girls. (Source) There has been some discussion about more formal data collection about the incidence of FGM in the U.S. with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Globally, an estimated 200 million girls and women alive today have undergone FGM in the countries where the practice is concentrated. Furthermore, there are an estimated 3 million girls at risk of undergoing female genital mutilation every year. The practice has been documented in 30 countries, mainly in Africa, as well as in the Middle East and Asia. Some forms of FGM  have also been reported in other countries, including among certain ethnic groups in South America. (Source)

Smart Cities Must Reflect Women’s Transportation Needs

Today, 55 percent of the world’s population lives in urban areas, and by 2050, that number is projected to increase to 66 percent. At least half are women and girls.  This movement of people — largely in Africa and Asia – is transforming our cities and should transform our thinking about how infrastructure meets everyone’s needs.

As the number of urban dwellers increases, mayors and other city officials are focusing on designing “smart cities,” where plans and services are based on data that reflects citizen needs, provides a strong foundation for economic growth, allows for more efficient management of city assets, and minimizes environmental impact. These officials are also examining how “equitable innovation” can help ensure that city services meet everyone’s needs, no matter who they are, what neighborhood they live in, or what they do.        

This presents an unprecedented opportunity for greater gender equality if urban design and the provision of public services are more responsive to, and reflective of, the needs of women and girls. We rely on infrastructure — roads, street lighting, public transportation, technology, public spaces and parks — as a foundation for economic and social development but often don’t think about how men and women use it differently.        

Everyone needs to get to and from work, school, the store, and the doctor. Women more often use public transportation than men.  And, women and men use transportation differently because social roles and gender norms drive the contours of a woman’s daily life. She may work outside of the downtown business center, and she has more family responsibilities, such as child care, running household errands, and maintaining family and community ties. These tasks all determine where a woman goes every day.

Unlike men who usually travel to and from work, and then home, women often “chain” their activities together by combining multiple stops and destinations within a single, longer trip because of their multifaceted household and domestic responsibilities. Traveling to multiple destinations makes public transportation costlier, since the traveller may have to pay for numerous single-fare, one-way tickets throughout a “chained” trip. If women are traveling with children, elderly parents, or groceries, there are additional challenges if buses aren’t on time or aren’t easy to use.  Finally, routes outside central commuter corridors may have regular service during off-peak hours, when women are most likely to need public transport for caregiving or to see friends and family.

Think about it – as women juggle work, family care and household responsibilities, the purpose, frequency, and distance of trips differ. Women may take the bus or train to work, and along the way drop their children off at school, which is outside the central business district; similarly, on the way home, they may pick their children up, go grocery shopping closer to their home and check in on an older relative in a different part of town.

At the same time, we know that women and girls experience more violence in public spaces than men and boys do – whether that is street harassment or sexual assault.  In Mexico City, 64 percent of women reported having been groped or physically harassed while using public transit. In New York’s subway system, 63 percent of women surveyed reported sexual harassment and 10 percent sexual assault. As a result of unsafe transportation, women tend to change their behavior and often reduce how many trips they make. Transport insecurity reduces household income, as women are limited from access to their full educational and employment opportunities.

Let’s look at what has worked to make public transportation more responsive to the needs of women:

  • Recognize that infrastructure and city design aren’t gender neutral:  As a graduate of a city planning program, I can attest to the ethos in the planning and architecture fields that design is gender neutral. It isn’t. Planners need to shift their perspectives and understand that every decision that gets made has a differential impact on women and men.
  • Involve everyone, including women and girls, in transportation planning: It’s important to involve everyone – women and girls, boys and men – in the decisions that impact their daily lives. Planners shouldn’t make decisions about transportation routes, the hours they run, without hearing from a broad cross-section of the community. As a corollary, planners need to take the input and concern of women and girls seriously, since they are the ones who have lived the experience of using public transportation. Tools for this type of input include household surveys and focus groups. Planners shouldn’t make assumptions; for example,  studies in the UK reflect that women prefer more police on transport to address safety, while men prefer closed circuit TV.
  • Address issues of both actual concern and perceived concern: Perceived threats can impact the way women make decisions about transport use, and as result can have an impact on the jobs they take or the tasks they do at certain times of the day. For example, to address safety concerns in Quito, Ecuador, 43 out of 44 trolley stops have been remodeled with new safety criteria, including the construction of transparent glass corridors that provide secure transfer and waiting areas.
  • Conduct a safety audit:  UN Women has created templates for safety audits, with a series of questions to ask around transportation issues. These include questions about lighting (where it is located and whether it is working), signage, the availability of footpaths, the level of maintenance, visible police presence and the ability to reach someone in an emergency.

Equitable access to public transport is about making the transport system work for everyone – regardless of gender – and meeting needs for safe, efficient, sustainable mobility.  These are critical investments to ensure that the smart cities being designed are truly inclusive.

SDG Targets

In 2016, countries agreed to seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including ones focused on ending poverty, and addressing  hunger, education gaps, clean water, economic growth, and climate change. (Link to full list of goals)  In order to measure progress towards meeting the 17 goals, there are 169 overall targets. .  

Goal 5 is a stand alone goal focused on achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls. Goal 5 has nine targets, spanning the need to end discrimination against women and girls and gender-based violence, to ensure equal access to education, and equal participation in public and economic life. Specifically, the targets ask us collectively to:

  1. End all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere;
  2. Eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation;
  3. Eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation;
  4. Recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate;
  5. Ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life;
  6. Ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences;
  7. Undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance and natural resources, in accordance with national laws;
  8. Enhance the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communications technology, to promote the empowerment of women; and,
  9. Adopt and strengthen sound policies and enforceable legislation for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls at all levels.

These targets are not indicators per se, and do not create a new reporting framework. On the contrary, the United Nations encourages governments and organizations to use the SDGs to guide their activities. Reporting on progress towards these overarching and important goals should be done using already existing frameworks and indicators that best suit each context, organization and issue.

In this space, we will continue to report on — and track — efforts to measure the progress of the United States towards Goal 5. We will also share other interesting information around the topic. Your thoughts and additional materials may be sent to info@smashstrategies.com. We look forward to collaborating with you.

Women Mediating Peace Talks: A Long Road to Parity

Last week, I was at Durham University in a setting made for a Harry Potter movie. I was there for an expert meeting on increasing the number of women high-level mediators, or special envoys, in peace negotiations led by the United Nations or other regional bodies. Between 1991 and 2011, the UN tracked 31 negotiations, and you can literally count the number of women chief mediators on one hand. At the same time, women have played other high-level mediation roles globally, as well as significant roles in conflict mediation at local levels, often negotiating safe passage for access to humanitarian assistance.

Increased global stability is inextricably tied to greater numbers of women mediators, negotiators, signatories and witnesses to peace talks. Women’s participation translates to more durable and longer lasting agreements. When women are engaged in the process, agreements are 64 percent less likely to fail, and 35 percent more likely to last 15 years.

This gathering comes at a critical time. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is committed to increase the UN’s emphasis on conflict prevention and mediation and the number of women who serve in these roles globally. Over the last two years, three regional networks of women mediators have launched: a Nordic network, an African network and a Mediterranean network. We’ve seen more women negotiators, representing parties to conflict. In the Colombia peace process, women comprised 33 percent of negotiators overall, with women on both the government and FARC teams. And, there was a Gender Subcommission to review proposals and agreements. Here in the U.S., the Women, Peace and Security Act of 2017 has just been signed into law.

Here are my takeaways and lessons learned:

1) Political will supporting women special envoys is critical. Special envoys are usually former presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers, or high-level diplomats, with strong political connections and diplomatic skills, and who are acceptable to parties to the conflict. There are enough women with experience and expertise to fill these roles. Governments and the international community need to be clear in advocating for specific women and publicly supporting those appointments.

2) UN Security Council Resolutions committing to more women mediators aren’t enough. There must be more action. Countries need to take concrete actions, such as enacting legislation (like the US Women, Peace & Security Act), signaling to those with responsibility that they are expected to nominate women, and ensuring that National Action Plans for Women, Peace and Security commit to increase women’s participation as mediators (only the NAPs of Ghana, Rwanda and Sweden do so).

3) The UN should provide incentives to countries that nominate women. Countries should put forward women who meet the criteria for these roles, including former presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers, and high-level diplomats. Those at the UN with responsibility for receiving nominations can request gender balanced slates of nominees, require an explanation when slates do not have gender parity, and give more consideration to those on slates that do.

4) Networks of women mediators provide a pipeline. These networks span several regions and are growing. Many of the members are ready to serve as special envoys or high-level members of their teams. Identifying these women and ensuring they are on both formal and informal rosters is key to increasing their visibility, highlighting their suitability and providing access to key meetings and forums. Networks can also provide platforms for knowledge sharing and, if necessary, coaching to deepen skills.

5) We should broaden who we consider for service as a special envoy. In addition to the types of people who have served to date, we should also look at those who have mediated trade disputes, or those who have served as mediators in judicial settings. There are many women in these roles globally, with strong and tested dispute resolution skills.

Bottom line, there are women who can fill these roles. We have a Secretary-General committed to action, and it’s on all of us to make this a reality.

The Importance of Women’s Networks and Beyond

Earlier this week, I spoke on a panel at the  Wilson Center  on women in politics. We all agreed on the importance of women’s networks as an empowerment tool. Networks can provide women with several kinds of support. First, a network of similar women allows members to share strategies as they face similar situations. An example of this could be an association of women engineers. Second, a network of diverse women can give women the opportunity to meet women that are unlike them in some ways but could be helpful to them financially or politically precisely because of their differences. An example of this kind of network could be a parliamentary women’s caucus. A third kind of network for women could provide the members access to resources they might need but find hard to acquire. This network might include mentoring or a “pitchfest” event where younger entrepreneurs share their business ideas with potential funders. Another is the annual conference put on by EMILY’s List that brings together candidates with journalists and potential donors. Supporting a variety of networks is often a part of a gender equality development program.

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