The Minister of Gender, Williametta E. Saydee-Tarr, says despite numerous social protection interventions, Liberia, among other countries, faces various challenges in promoting women’s empowerment.
Madam Tarr made the statement when she served as one of the panelists at a high-level panel discussion on investments to unleash women’s economic power ‘Summit for A New Global Financing Pact’ held in Paris, France.
She said, “We believe that donors and financiers can play a crucial role in addressing these challenges and advancing women’s empowerment as we look forward to being supported extensively to address issues of sexual and gender-based violence; gender inequality and cultural norms; education and literacy rates; healthcare and reproductive rights, as well as women’s access to justice, and promoting women’s economic and political empowerment, particularly so when we gear toward elections in October of this year.”
The Gender Boss observed that the perceptions are changing about women’s capabilities and roles in the society, and highlighted the need to provide a space to promote more equitable and inclusive environment for women’s economic, political participation as well as social development.
She informed the audience that Liberia’s social protection program is contributing immensely towards gender equality by challenging social norms and barriers that restrict women’s economic participation.
Minister Tarr shared the panel with some highly influential women leaders including, Madam Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister of Finance, Christine Lagarde, European Central Bank President, Bruno Le Maire, Minister of Economy, Finance and Recovery, France, Jessica Espinoza, Chief Executive Officer- 2X Global and the host and Mrs. Melinda French Gates, Co-Chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, among others.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Women’s Economic Empowerment program seeks to increase women’s economic opportunities by supporting efforts to help them generate and control their own incomes.
The gathering concentrated on exploring how countries are evolving their social welfare programs to ensure greater inclusivity and efficiency for government social welfare programs, how implementing Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) to digitize social welfare payments can advance women’s economic power, and why the global financial community should invest in DPI to support the effort.
Mrs. Tarr elaborated on the context of Liberia’s National Gender Strategy and the intention behind the country’s gender-targeted social welfare program and outlined challenges that donors and financiers should be aware of so as to attract extensive international support for the advancement of women’s empowerment in Liberia.
Madam Tarr said the intention of the gender-targeted social welfare program is to promote women’s economic empowerment and contribute to achieving additional development goals.
“This program acknowledges that women face specific challenges and barriers that hinder their economic participation and overall development. Therefore, by targeting women with social welfare programs, Liberia aims to address these challenges and create opportunities for women to enhance their economic status.”
“The wider impact of this program has been to achieve several development goals, including poverty reduction, sustainable economic growth, and gender equality. By empowering women economically, the program aims to reduce poverty among women and their households, increase their income and financial independence, and enable them to access productive resources and opportunities,” Minister Tarr asserted.
She used the occasion to rain praises of President George M. Weah for what she called ‘always allowing a gender balance.’
The widely publicized Summit for a New Global Financing Pact was an opportunity for donors, financiers and influential world leaders to collectively rethink the global financial architecture of international solidarity and climate action by proposing concrete solutions to create a fairer, more effective and more responsive global financial system.
The two days high-level summit, which was organized by President Emmanuel Macron of France and was held in Paris from 22-23 June 2023, was intended to meet the common challenges relating to our planet and development.
The goal was to enhance cooperation among the international community in the face of the threefold challenge of poverty, climate change and the erosion of biodiversity by uniting as many partners as possible around a common roadmap, against a backdrop of international tensions.
It can be recalled that in April of this year, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced the first step in the ‘Women in the Digital Economy Fund’ as a flagship opportunity for public-private sector collaboration to advance digital gender equality.
The Women in the Digital Economy Fund will accelerate progress to close the gender digital divide by scaling evidence-based, proven solutions that improve women’s livelihoods, economic security, and resilience.
It will support programs that advance digital access and affordability, develop relevant products and tools; provide digital literacy and skills training, promote online safety and security; and invest in sex-disaggregated data and research. It will also support, wherever possible, women-led solutions, products, and tools.
