A supportive legal and regulatory environment could enable women’s engagement in entrepreneurship, empowering them to participate equally in the economy. Yet, all over the world discriminatory laws and regulations restricted women’s economic inclusion. In Asia and the Pacific, when it came to economic inclusion, women had less than three-quarters of the legal rights of men. Through a series of interactive sessions, this dialogue would discuss continuing legal and regulatory challenges to women’s entrepreneurship in the region and strategies for the way forward.
The regional dialogue, organized jointly by United Nations ESCAP and the World Bank, facilitated dissemination of region-specific data on the above-mentioned issues and took a deep dive into specific country examples. This event was part of ESCAP’s Catalyzing Women’s Entrepreneurship Programme supported by Government of Canada. It also looked at the social, cultural, and political factors holding back legal and policy reforms, including on how COVID-19 had reversed gains made by women. Finally, it identified the elements required to establish well-functioning mechanisms to implement and enforce legal and policy measures.
Sessions included an overview of relevant legal and economic research, discussion of case studies of positive policy reforms, and a panel discussion of experts on gender equality and women’s entrepreneurship. Participants from relevant government ministries, parliamentary offices, development partners and local legal organizations could expect to learn how legal and policy barriers hinder women’s labour force participation and entrepreneurship, identify lessons learned and priority areas of reform and seek partnership with others to continue advocating for women’s economic empowerment.
This event was part of the World Bank Group’s yearlong Gender Equality and Development +10: Accelerate Equality initiative, which explored the important progress made and lessons learned over the last 10 years in closing gender gaps and promoting girl's and women's empowerment and drove for transformative change in the future.
It provided an opportunity to showcase successes, learned, and developed ideas and further momentum for the future of gender equality and women’s leadership, while taking stock of remaining challenges and strengthening partnerships in the quest to #AccelerateEquality.