WASHINGTON — CARE, the global humanitarian and development organization, welcomes House passage of the Women’s Entrepreneurship and Economic Empowerment Act of 2018 (HR.5480), a bipartisan bill that helps women around the world access the financial tools, resources, and rights necessary for economic advancement. CARE’s work with Congressional partners has ensured this bill centers on some of the most pressing needs of women living in poverty, including shining a light on gender-based violence and discriminatory structures that hold women back from economic empowerment. We are pleased the House of Representatives passed the bill with overwhelming support and now look to the Senate to act.
Michelle Nunn, CEO of CARE, said:
“Most of the world’s 1.2 billion people who live in extreme poverty are women and girls. Yet, CARE’s experience shows that when women lift themselves out of poverty, they pull their families and communities up with them—exerting enormous leverage and change.
This bipartisan bill will help millions of women around the world participate in the economy and control the resources necessary to become self-sufficient, generate income, and escape poverty. CARE’s advocacy and leadership will always focus on bringing women into the center of U.S. foreign policy and directing U.S. assistance towards overcoming barriers such as gender-based violence, legal and social discrimination, and limited access to financial tools. This bill brings us one step closer to this goal.
We thank Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair; Rep. Lois Frankel (D-FL), Co-Chair of the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues; Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee; and Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Ann Wagner (R-MO) and Robin Kelly (D-IL) for their leadership and for working with CARE to champion this bill.”
The Women’s Entrepreneurship and Economic Empowerment Act of 2018 (H.R. 5480) strengthens the work of USAID to support women’s empowerment in accessing and controlling resources such as property and land, while emphasizing the critical need to build women’s leadership skills, link them to credit and other financial resources, and address key structural issues such as discriminatory legal frameworks and access to legally enshrined rights, gender-based violence and the burden of unpaid care work, and norms that have held women back. By focusing on approaches, including savings groups and financial literacy training made popular by CARE’s Village Savings and Loans Associations, that link women living in extreme poverty to economic opportunities, the bill encourages USAID to leave no woman behind.
About CARE
Founded in 1945 with the creation of the CARE Package®, CARE is a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty. CARE places special focus on working alongside women and girls because, equipped with the proper resources, they have the power to lift whole families and entire communities out of poverty. That’s why women and girls are at the heart of CARE’s community-based efforts to improve education and health, create economic opportunity, respond to emergencies and confront hunger. Last year CARE worked in 95 countries and reached more than 65 million people around the world. To learn more, visit www.care.org.
Media Contact
Ari Goldberg (ari.goldberg@care.org; 240-678-9102)