Banyan Global is pleased to announce the launch of the Women’s Economic Empowerment and Gender Equality (WEEGE) Wiki on Marketlinks. Greater women’s economic empowerment and gender equality can reduce poverty, promote prosperity, and improve development outcomes for future generations. The WEEGE Wiki is intended to help United States Agency for International Development (USAID) staff, implementing partners, and development partners (including U.S. Government agencies, counterpart government agencies, private sector, and civil society partners), to understand, address constraints to, and advance women’s economic empowerment and gender equality in their work.

Banyan Global researched and developed the reports and practical samples, resources, and tools presented on the WEEGE Wiki under the USAID-funded Women’s Economic Empowerment and Equality Technical Assistance (WE3 TA) activity. The Wiki is currently divided into three sets of documents:

• WEEGE Technical Guide
• The Gender Digital Divide
• WEEGE in Trade Facilitation

Banyan Global developed the WEEGE Technical Guide to enable USAID staff to design, procure, implement, monitor, and evaluate programs that increase women’s economic empowerment and gender equality outcomes. It offers tangible solutions to support USAID efforts to integrate WEEGE into global, regional, and country strategic planning; project and activity design and implementation; monitoring and evaluation; and collaboration, learning, and adapting.

The Gender Digital Divide Desk Review, Gender Analysis Technical Resource and Risk Mitigation Technical Note support the USAID Digital Strategy through the “Closing the Gender Digital Divide” initiative and its objectives to: scale understanding of the gender digital divide across the Agency; provide tools for USAID staff to support host countries in overcoming the barriers to women’s access and use of digital technology; and, provide further evidence of the benefits and risks relating to women’s access to and use of information and communications technology.

The WEEGE in Trade Facilitation: The Role of Customs and Border Services report presents findings and recommendations on promoting WEEGE in customs and border agency services, operations, and personnel management to support women in trade. On March 10^th, 2021, Banyan Global’s gender analysis technical team shared learnings from the report to a global audience. Presentation slides and the event recording are available online. 

Malini Patel, WE3 TA Chief of Party, explained the importance of the WEEGE Wiki on advancing women’s economic empowerment and gender equality worldwide:

“The WEEGE Wiki fills a critical gap by providing guidance on how to integrate women’s economic empowerment into programming as well as into organizations. The reports and comprehensive set of practical resources, tools, and samples can be used by all actors, in all sectors to improve both development and business outcomes. We look forward to governments, civil society, and the private sector using and tailoring these tools to accelerate women’s economic empowerment and gender equality globally.” – Malini Patel