MSD can create a more gender-inclusive economy

Integrating women’s economic empowerment (WEE) into MSD programmes is essential to help build more inclusive and equitable economies. 

The Women in Business (WIN) programme in Mozambique has developed methodologies providing a comprehensive blueprint for designing, implementing and evaluating interventions that effectively address the unique challenges faced by women entrepreneurs. 

By focusing on sector selection, partner collaboration, intervention design and rigorous evaluation, MSD programmes can significantly contribute to the economic empowerment of women, thereby promoting gender inclusivity and sustainable development in emerging economies. This is especially so in regions such as sub-Saharan Africa where women face significant barriers to economic independence.

With this in mind, we'd like to share this collection of tools that will help you enhance the design, execution and evaluation of MSD programmes targeting WEE. They offer insights into:

• selecting impactful economic sectors
• choosing the right partners
• designing sustainable interventions
• establishing rigorous monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) systems

Selecting high-impact economic sectors for MSD interventions
The foundation of effective MSD interventions begins with the identification of sectors with high potential for WEE. 

This guide outlines a structured process encompassing scoping, selecting verticals, and analysing these verticals to expose gender gaps and barriers. 

Identifying sectors with high potential to support WEE is a critical first step. This involves a comprehensive analysis to determine sectors where women are predominantly engaged or have the potential to thrive. The selection process should be informed by criteria such as:

• potential for impact and scalability
• relevance to low-income women
• feasibility within the local context. 

This approach  helps in targeting interventions more effectively and also ensures that they address the specific needs and challenges faced by women entrepreneurs in these sectors.

Choosing the right partners for WEE
Partner selection is central to the success of MSD interventions aimed at WEE. 

This guide focuses on tools to help you identify entities that have:

• a strong alignment with your programme goals
• relevant products/services
• a commitment to promoting gender inclusivity

This includes private sector companies, public sector institutions, and other market actors capable of optimising their offerings to benefit women economically. 

The guide describes two approaches to selecting the right partners:

1. A courtship model, where the project researches the most relevant partners, holds initial conversations to hear their priorities and ideas, and pitches the programme's services and potential value add. This process can be iterative and flexible, adapting to emerging opportunities and partnerships.
2. A request for proposals where the overall WEE goal is clearly defined and against which the proposals are measured. 

In both cases, the team selects partners based on the will and skill of the partner, as well as the potential for impact, scale, and sustainability after the project ends.

Designing winning MSD interventions
Effective intervention design is about ensuring the sustainability and ownership of solutions proposed to advance WEE. By collaborating closely with partners, MSD programmes must align their strategies by incorporating gender analyses to tailor interventions. 

The guide proposes steps that include: designing gender-responsive activities, theory of change (or results chain) and budgets; organising a decision committee meeting to evaluate the rationale, potential impact and risks of the intervention; and deciding to go/no go, negotiating a partnership agreement. 

These steps are essential for creating interventions that genuinely address the barriers hindering women's economic participation and empowerment.

Building rigorous MEL systems for MSD programmes
A robust MEL framework is essential for assessing the impact of MSD interventions on WEE. This includes tracking changes at multiple levels, from direct beneficiaries to broader market systems. 

By focusing on key indicators of WEE - such as increased income, assets, and control over these resources, alongside other dimensions like confidence and access to information - programmes can understand valuable lessons on measuring and understanding the complex dynamics of empowering women economically through MSD programmes.

To create substantial and lasting change, market systems need to become both more profitable and more equitable. These tools can play an important  role in guiding interventions to reach these two important  goals.

By carefully choosing sectors and partners, designing effective interventions, and measuring the impact of our efforts, we have the potential to transform the vision of an inclusive economy into a tangible reality.