Women’s Economic Empowerment:
building evidence for better investments
Kenya
During the second phase of our project, we are focusing our research and advocacy efforts on Kenya.
Through a mixed-methods approach, we will map international development funding and public expenditure to women’s economic empowerment (WEE), women’s financial inclusion (WFI), and women’s empowerment collectives (WECs) in Bangladesh. Our aim is to produce robust findings on who funds these investments and why as well as how these investments align with interventions that are catalytic for progress. Alongside our findings on funding in Kenya, we will produce evidence-based recommendations for international funders and national and sub-national government ministries to improve their collection and publication of data on funding to these areas.
We will be collaborating with national stakeholders and networks to contextualise research and advocacy to ensure that our project builds upon existing knowledge and supports ongoing efforts to move the needle on funding to WEE, WFI and WECs in Kenya. We will develop a new tool to track funding to WEE and WFI. Through this and our other research, we aim to enhance collaboration between funders, gender advocates, and policy-makers, all in an effort to increase funding towards WEE at a crucial time during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.
If our research is relevant to your area of work or you would like to get in contact with regards to our advocacy efforts please contact our Communications Officer.
*We will be updating this page shortly with research findings and policy recommendations*
Analysis
Country report
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Download the full report hereBudget analysis
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Sed nec turpis et lectus aliquam facilisis in quis erat. Cras at tristique nunc. Nunc sit amet sollicitudin metus. Ut consectetur tristique velit, a fermentum tellus feugiat nec. Phasellus ultricies in justo ac congue. Sed gravida feugiat erat, non viverra turpis pulvinar sit amet. Integer pellentesque, erat nec efficitur rutrum, ligula est pharetra est, eget vulputate nisi mauris sed metus. Sed nec condimentum magna. Nunc congue lacus volutpat turpis tristique pharetra. Sed ac lobortis ligula, sed malesuada arcu.
Download the full analysis hereAdvisory Committee Members
Our multi-stakeholder advisory committee is made up of WEE experts and advocates, feminist economists and policymakers. We aim to work with our advisory committee to ensure our work is appropriately contextualized and aligned with advocacy efforts in Kenya to move the women’s economic empowerment agenda forward.
Lauren Hendricks is the CEO of Equity Group Foundation International. Equity Group Foundation (EGF) was established in 2008 as the social arm of Equity Group Holdings. It seeks to transform the lives and livelihoods of the people of Africa. EGF was born out of Equity Bank’s commitment to providing service to the poor, both through its core business model and its various corporate social responsibility initiatives.
Prior to Equity Group Foundation, Lauren served as the Executive Vice President of Grameen Foundation. A global expert in international development and financial inclusion, she works to engage technology and the private sector to address the critical challenges of our time. She has partnered with banks, microfinance institutions, mobile network operators, and others in the private sector to adapt products and services to meet the needs of the poor, and to ensure that participants benefitted from new, digital financial services.
She was previously Executive Director for the Access Africa initiative at CARE, where she led the development of financial inclusion programs and innovative solutions to reach the poorest people in Africa.
Azetse Were is a development economist with over ten years of experience working in Africa on Economic Research, Analysis and Strategy Development with a focus on Macroeconomics, Manufacturing, Private Sector Development, the Informal Economy, Finance Systems, and Trade and Investment. She has a Master’s in Economics from the University of Sydney (Australia) and a Bachelor’s degree from Brown University (USA). Over her career Anzetse has worked with African governments, private sector, development finance institutions, non-profit organisations, as well as academia and think tanks. She is currently Senior Economist at FSD Kenya.
Maureen Miruka is Country Director at CARE International in Kenya. She previously has held various roles within the Food and Water Systems Department at CARE USA as follows: Director of Gender, Youth and Livelihoods; Director of Agriculture and Market Systems; Team Leader of the flagship Women in Agriculture Program-Pathways; and as Principal Research Scientist at the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization. Her research and development focus is on gender equality & women’s voice in agriculture-based livelihoods. Maureen received the African Woman Award in 2018 from the International Development Research Center- in recognition of leaders and change-makers in the area of women’s empowerment and transformation of gender relations in Africa. She holds a PhD in Development Studies from the University of Greenwich, London UK.