Overview

For nearly 40 years, Pathfinder has partnered with the Government of Egypt to advance reproductive health and rights, economic opportunity, and social stability. Pathfinder’s Women’s Economic and Social Empowerment Program (WESEP) is building on this long history of partnering with community members and the private sector, as well as engaging with public social service initiatives to encourage women’s participation in the workforce; generate demand for financial services; promote tailored, market-based solutions to women’s economic empowerment; and strengthen gender-based violence (GBV) prevention and response such that women become more economically and socially resilient.

Project Activities

• Work with local firms, highlighting and demonstrating business incentives for recruiting and retaining women.
• Work with private-sector firms and site managers to adopt and implement key policies to reduce unsafe working conditions, including combatting sexual harassment and other forms of GBV.
• Engage men and community leaders where women employees live to ensure gains made in the workplace are not lost outside of it.
• Provide women with digital financial services. This includes card-based payments, eWallets (also referred to as mWallets, mobile money, and mobile money transfer), and inclusion of the post-office, where many women in Egypt, especially those with low literacy, are most comfortable doing business.
• Build on existing initiatives, including the national Takaful and Karama conditional cash transfer program, as well as the ‘Decent Life’ Initiative, which provide entrance points to reach communities with social interventions, job opportunities, messaging, products, and services.
• Link women most at risk of GBV with violence-response services as well as financial inclusion and employment support.