Enabling Environment for Women’s Economic Empowerment

A gender-responsive enabling environment refers to a combination of policies, programs, institutional mechanisms and similar measures at the national and local levels that promote and facilitate the growth of women’s microenterprises to small and medium enterprises. It is also the convergence and synergy of actors in micro-, small- and medium- enterprise (MSME) development at the national and local levels towards gender-responsive economic actions that will provide women with:

  • greater access to information, credit, training and technology
  • better incomes
  • increased participation in high-value economic activities and decision-making in their respective industries and sectors
  • better control over productive resources and the business environment
  • better work conditions and zero discriminatory practices, social protection and other safety nets for their workers