The ECWG participates in events, conferences, and meetings around the world with an interest in women’s groups, collective action, and economic development. You can keep up with all upcoming events and conferences here.
The Gender Equality team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is soliciting brief Letters of Interest (“LOI”) (up to 5 pages) from interested partners to conduct a follow-up survey to generate additional longitudinal data on the long-term effects of group-based models that have shown promise in economically empowering adolescent girls. A LOI is requested by April 16, 2021, with finalist(s) notified by May 7, 2021. Full proposal(s) from the selected finalist(s) will be due by June 4, 2021.
Anticipated timeline of grant: 18-24 months.
More details can be found here
Women's Groups and COVID-19: Impact, Challenges and Policy Implications
In a policy brief released in the early stages of the COVID pandemic in June 2020, the Evidence Consortium on Women’s Groups (ECWG) examined the implications of the pandemic and the lockdown for women’s groups.
What have we learned since then? How has the COVID pandemic affected women’s groups, and how have these groups helped mitigate the negative consequences of the health crisis?
Join the ECWG on April 13 for a discussion on women’s groups and COVID, with the Africa Centre for Systematic Reviews, the American Institutes for Research, the Population Council, and the World Bank.
The ECWG will present the findings of two new reports on the impacts of COVID on women’s groups in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, followed by a panel discussion on the implications and policy recommendations for development organizations and governments.
Digital Solutions for Women's Collectives in Chhattisgarh: Preliminary Insights on What Works
Join LEAD at Krea University and IWWAGE for a webinar that presents emerging evidence on how digital solutions can empower women’s collectives and improve their access to livelihood opportunities.
Women’s Self Help Groups (SHGs) and their federations hold the promise of being transformative change agents for their social and economic empowerment. Digital solutions have the potential to accelerate this progress by improving women’s access to social protection, markets, credit, and improving their book-keeping practices. This webinar will convene key stakeholders to share preliminary insights from the portfolio of research, implementation, and evaluation activities that the Initiative for What Works to Advance Women and Girls in the Economy (IWWAGE) and LEAD at Krea University are implementing in Chhattisgarh in partnership with the State Rural Livelihoods Mission (Bihan). The program is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The event will provide an opportunity to discuss these findings with a curated audience.
In India, with the launch of the POSHAN Abhiyaan/ Nutrition Mission, efforts to improve maternal nutrition services have gained additional momentum in 2018. Nevertheless, it remains a challenge to ensure universal and equal coverage of interventions as well as to contextualize the nutrition care package for the at risk - mothers suffering from obesity, extreme thinness, with or without depression or anemia, both at the facility level and community. The level of awareness on interventions, strategies and innovations is varied among professional nutritionists and gynecologists.
National Institute of Nutrition (ICMR-NIN) and Federation of Obstetric and Gynecologic society of India (FOGSI), in association with UNICEF is organizing a monthly, technical webinar series “Maternal Nutrition technical E-dialogues” with the theme “Strengthening maternal nutrition assessment and services in antenatal care in India”. The goal is to equip nutritionists, gynecologists and other professionals with the latest maternal nutrition interventions, strategies and innovations.
Women Saving for Resilience Innovation Fund: Innovation Fund
December 03, 2020 – January 22, 2021
The SEEP Network is delighted to launch a challenge fund to support innovations in gender intentional COVID response and recovery efforts related to Savings Groups. SEEP will award four to six 18-month grants, worth a total of $600,000.
The fund will be responsive to promising innovations of diverse types and scope. This may include communications and training materials, program models, policy development, technology, new partnerships, or disruptive collaboration. Activities and interventions the fund might support include:
- Technologies or adaptations in Savings Group methodologies that better meet the needs of women to mitigate the effects of health, economic, and social shocks;
- Technologies or approaches that enable Savings Groups to effectively adapt to physical distancing requirements; and
- Partnerships and disruptive collaboration between Savings Groups and market actors (government, civil society and private sector) as part of gender intentional COVID-19 response and recovery efforts.
Successful projects will increase the resilience of Savings Groups and their members in times of crisis by reducing gender gaps and barriers in access to resources and improve the capacity of sector stakeholders to engage them in emergency response efforts.
Proposed interventions must include a strong, practical learning component to document the innovation, track progress, consolidate and assess experience, and communicate results (both internally and externally).
Mechanisms in Women’s Groups Interventions: Findings from two recent reviews
This webinar will focus on mechanisms in interventions with women’s groups in low and middle-income country settings. The speakers will present findings from two recent evidence reviews: a synthesis of experimental and quasi-experimental evidence on livelihoods, health and adolescent groups and a mixed-methods systematic review of interventions with community groups to improve women’s and children’s health. The panelists, who bring wide experience implementing and researching women’s groups interventions, will discuss implications of these reviews on programs and the evidence base on women’s groups.
September 23, 2020 – September 25, 2020
The EVIDENCE 2020 event is the biennial gathering hosted by the Africa Evidence Network. EVIDENCE 2020 ONLINE is being designed as a virtual working meeting that will foster collaboration, facilitate dialogue, and move forward the thinking, practice, and action to advance the use of evidence in decision-making across the continent.
Adolescent Health and Gender Equality: Implications of Covid-19
This webinar will explore intersections of adolescent health and gender-based impacts of COVID-19, including educational opportunities, empowerment collective participation, sexual and reproductive health and health behaviors.
ECWG co-PI, Sapna Desai, will be speaking on ‘Disruption and opportunity: the effects of COVID-19 on organizing women and girls’
September 12, 2020 – September 14, 2020
The conclave aims to explore how evaluation theory and practice can address complex socio-environmental challenges through innovation and collaborative processes, with an emphasis on gender and equity. The conclave will host discussions on new ways of bringing together existing tools and methods, the use of new processes such as big data and social media, and the use of techniques and tools adapted from other disciplines and sectors.
How can we support community/women groups for longer-term local economic recovery and resilience?
Community groups (SHGs, farmer groups, saving groups, etc.) are one of the important platforms for local economic development (LED). Most of the community group members are women. Focusing on LED strategies is key to ensuring longer-term local economic recovery and resilience. Such approaches entail investing in entrepreneurship of community/women groups, linking community institutions to value chains, investing in productive infrastructure, supporting financial institutions, and developing public-private partnerships. This session will explore how community/women groups are coping up with COVID and discuss strategies to support women groups and collectives for the transition to economic institutions and longer-term local economic recovery.