Not just a 'nice' strategy: The business case for women's empowerment

What’s the business case for empowering women?

For many corporations, working on women’s empowerment and women’s rights isn’t just the nice thing to do — it’s critical for making money.

The business case varies by company. For instance, in Coca-Cola it’s all about investing in the people who make 70 percent of household purchasing decisions and have the greatest potential to improve communities and business as a result. The Gap prefers to invest in empowering the women in their supply chain so that translates not only to community gains but greater productivity.

Devex Impact reporter Adva Saldinger sat down with representatives from Coca-Cola, The Gap, Qualcomm and General Mills to discuss the business case for investing in women at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s International Women’s Day Forum.

“Women are absolutely crucial both to the growth of our business but also to the growth of the local economy in the local community,” said Charlotte Oades, Coca-Cola’s global director for women's economic empowerment. “If we can help through economic empowerment of women, their local communities will thrive and business generally will thrive.”

Check out the above video montage for more insights from our interviewees.

Want to learn more? Check out She Builds and tweet us using #SheBuilds.

She Builds is a month-long conversation hosted by Devex in partnership with Chemonics, Creative Associates, JBS International, the Millennium Challenge Corp., United Nations Office for Project Services and U.K. Department for International Development.

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