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UNHCR-supported processing center in Qaleen Bafan township enables 800 weaver families to wash, cut, dry carpets in Afghanistan instead of exporting to Pakistan. Women earn higher wages. Processing locally captures premium prices. Community development funded by profits. Afghanistan’s women carpet weavers thrown an economic lifeline A UNHCR-supported carpet weaving and processing centre will provide new jobs and better working conditions for former refugee and displaced Afgha

Arzu Studio Hope employs 700 Afghan women weavers earning $1,200 annually (68% above Afghanistan average). 100% literate when 90% rural Afghan women cannot read. 55% own homes. 20% have children in university. Zero maternal deaths. Social contract requires children's education. https://skoll.org/organization/arzu/

April 7, 2022 Former child worker and labor leader Nazma Akter delves into the vulnerability and injustices faced by Bangladesh’s garment factory workers Nazma Akter and Awaj Foundation fighting for workers’ rights in Bangladesh Having witnessed the ongoing problems at her factory, Nazma Akter shaped her motivation to improve workers’ rights in Bangladesh’s garment sector. As founder and executive director of NGO Awaj Foundation which shaped her motivation to improve; the Ba

January 19, 2022 Wage digitization of low-income populations has the potential to be a win-win opportunity that can deliver both social and economic progress. For workers, especially women, it can mean the chance to open a financial account, potentially leading to greater economic empowerment. For global buyers, it can mean efficiency savings and increased transparency in global supply chains, and for financial service providers, a new active market segment.  At HERproject, w

Oct 3, 2017 Ten Lessons from a visit to the Basque Cooperative Confederation By Jill Bamburg I recently completed a study tour to Mondragon, a small town in the Basque region of Spain, which is the home of the world’s largest and most advanced cooperative economy. In the United States, the cooperative sector, which represents over $500 billion in revenues and employs about two million people , is surprisingly invisible. Despite its size, it is seldom, if ever, discussed in bu

February 7, 2017 https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2017/02/07/in-bangladesh-empowering-and-employing-women-in-the-garments-sector Women, aged between 18-26 years, at one of the training centres The northern areas of Bangladesh are amongst the poorest in the country. Women in particular have difficulty finding alternative employment here, as they are isolated from the major industrial centres where the majority of jobs are. The Northern Areas Reduction of Poverty Initi

A growing body of evidence suggests that diasporas play a critical role in supporting sustainable development by transferring resources, knowledge, and ideas back to their home countries, and in integrating their countries of origin into the global economy. Financial flows from migrants and their descendants are at the heart of the relationship between migration and development. While remittances have important effects on financial development, diasporas also hold substantial