While both genders suffer in poverty, the discrimination gives far fewer resources for women to cope. Access to food and healthcare is lower, and they are more likely not to be paid in domestic tasks. Their options to work or build business as well as their access to education are significantly reduced.

Poorer women see their rights as not being protected. The obstacles that they face are more difficult to overcome. But women’s productivity is one of the greatest generators of economic dynamism. In the developing countries 60 to 80 % of food production is accounted by women.

According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Bank, women represent 43 % of the world’s agricultural and 47 % of the global fisheries labour force. These hard-working women produce more than half of the world’s food despite being less than half of the labour force. The FAO highlights that if the world’s women farmers had the same access to resources as men, 150 million people could be lifted out of poverty.

The goal of the Almas Jiwani Foundation is to elevate millions of women out of poverty, and from radical, insufferable situations – and with them, their families and entire communities. To do so, our programs will be aimed at empowering girls and women by expanding access to quality education, increasing economic opportunity, and providing or improving access to eco-sustainable energy at the most local levels possible.

If you would like to help lift women out of poverty: