Years of research has showcased that the dominant neo-liberal economic model, that prioritizes economic growth, financial deregulation and privatization of public goods has increased poverty in many parts of the world and intensified inequalities between and within nations.

In other words, globalization is causing the rich to get richer and the poor to become poorer.

GENDER AND FINANCE

The majority of the world’s poor are women. Women work two-thirds of the world’s working hours. They also produce half of the world’s food. However, women earn only 10 percent of the world’s income and own less than 2% of the world’s property.

Women’s economic rights and empowerment are thus central to national and global strategies for eradicating poverty and achieving gender equality. Because women suffer the economic imbalances most acutely, they ought to be at the center of development models and economic policymaking.

Current neo-liberal economic models often cements women in low-wage, insecure, hostile and degrading work conditions thus ensuring increased corporate profit. The current global economy also relies on women’s unpaid work caring for children, the elderly and ill and maintaining households—work that is invisible in U.S. economic policy yet valued by the United Nations at $11 trillion annually.

WEDO IS CALLING FOR:

• Support for alternative sources of finance. In order to achieve a transformational change to a low-carbon and climate-resilient global economy, there is a need for a massive shift of financing towards climate-friendly activities;
• A push for divestments, but also reinvestment strategies. For a clean energy economy that does not rely on fossil fuels, now is the time to divest from these at the government, institution and individual level. Unless we push for a radical change on this front, effectively addressing climate change will remain a mirage.
• An energy democracy, making it accessible and affordable for all. There is a growing consensus that in order to stop climate change and secure access to energy to all we must bring about system change by breaking the hegemony of big transnational corporations over the global economy;
• Keeping the women’s rights frame as a critical bar for gender just finance.