Women’s Economic Empowerment in Asia

Amid the ongoing challenges to gender equality and the impacts of COVID-19, effective policy measures are needed to strengthen women’s economic empowerment.

Key Points

• Support women in business by promoting alignment and improving reporting and accountability systems, particularly for gender-disaggregated data collection
• Invest in the care economy and industry to relieve women’s burden on unpaid care and domestic work and spare them time to look for professional opportunities
• Develop gender-responsive policies and offer skills development for women and girls to enhance their ability to join the labor force in a wider range of industries
• Enhance gender diversity in leadership and the decision-making process for better design of gender-responsive policies in empowering women and achieving the Sustainable Development Goal on gender equality (SDG 5)
• Support women entrepreneurs by adopting inclusive gender entrepreneurship via gender-based procurement and increasing access to finance