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The Knowledge Gateway is an open global community for knowledge mobilization, innovation and partnerships for women’s economic empowerment
Our Mission
Our mission is to offer a user-friendly, demand-driven one-stop service community where you can find and share resources and tools for women’s economic empowerment and connect with experts, peers, networks and potential partners. We aim to create a cross-collaboration network between young women and girls and advanced experts and professionals and enhance young women and girls’ capacity to drive innovation for a better world.
Our Staff
The Knowledge Gateway is managed by a team of UN Women staff in New York and in Bangkok, Cairo, Dakar, Istanbul, Nairobi and Panama.
Our Values
Our key values are inclusive, collaborative and community-driven.
Our Community
Together with women entrepreneurs, women workers and women farmers we develop solutions to create better economic lives for women. Our community is diverse—we engage with policy makers, researchers, teachers, students, entrepreneurs, civil society activists, impact investors, social change-makers. Our Advisory Board members include: the Government of Canada, Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, International Labour Office, the International Association for Feminist Economics and the World Bank.
Advantages of Joining our Community
- Access world expertise
- Drive innovation with creative ideas and partnerships
- Enhance your professional visibility and get recognition for your contributions
- Learn, join webinars and access how-to-tools, learning kits and success stories
- Save time and resources
Get started
To get started and become our community member, please register. This will enable you to: Connect with other members, Share and download resources, Post comments in the Knowledge Library and Knowledge Circles. You will also benefit from learning opportunities in the Learning Center.
We aim to create a truly community-driven online platform and to provide right incentives for our community members to learn and enhance their professional skills. You can apply to become our “Global Community Champion for Women’s Economic Empowerment” and be recognized for your contributions and get premier guidance and support to drive community engagement and advocacy on women’s economic empowerment worldwide.
History
In October 2011, Canada and UN Women co-hosted an international Conference on Women’s Economic Empowerment in Ottawa. The conference assembled more than 100 global experts, entrepreneurs, policy-makers, development practitioners, academics, and business and industry leaders to share their experiences and best practices on how to break down the barriers to women’s economic empowerment. Through a series of high-profile roundtables, conference participants provided key recommendations for action to advance women’s and girls’ rights, opportunities and participation in the economy. One of these recommendations was the need for a dynamic platform for improved sharing of evidence, experiences and good practices. At the Ottawa Conference, UN Women and Canada committed to jointly develop an online Knowledge Gateway on Women’s Economic Empowerment.
On 23 September 2013, the Knowledge Gateway was launched during the high-level session of the United Nations General Assembly. The launch was hosted by Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women, and Lynne Yelich, Minister of State, Foreign Affairs and Consular, Government of Canada. See for further details the programme, video and press release.
Today 4 out of 10 workers globally are women. Yet the majority has insecure jobs, earn on average 20% less than men, and do most of the unpaid work. Raising female employment to male levels could raise GDP by up to 34 percent. Economically empowered women improve workplace performance, raise agricultural productivity, increase household income, and raise healthier, better-educated children.
The Knowledge Gateway for Women’s Economic Empowerment—EmpowerWomen.org—is an open global platform that promotes collaboration, learning and innovation to advance women’s economic empowerment. It connects women and men in more than 190 economies with development partners from the private sector, civil society, academia, governments and international organizations.
EmpowerWomen.org is a community-driven online platform that provides opportunities for women and men to:
- EXPLORE over 1,000 resources and tools for driving the agenda of gender equality and women’s economic empowerment and for helping women to achieve their economic goals.
- CONNECT businesses, entrepreneurs, farmers, workers, politicians, policy-makers, professionals, researchers, and advocates for women’s economic empowerment.
- DISCUSS what governments, companies, civil society, communities, families and individuals can do to advance economic empowerment of women.
- LEARN new skills and gain insights on how to enter the job market, develop a career, run a business, claim economic rights, and succeed professionally.