Education

Edito

Women's economic leadership: an unfinished emancipation

In the past, figures such as Olympe de Gouges, with her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen in 1791, laid the foundations for modern feminist demands for civil and economic equality. Centuries later, the acquisition and respect of women's fundamental rights to economic independence remain an unfinished battle throughout the world. At Louvain Coopération, our commitment to women's economic leadership stems from this observation: true equality cannot be achieved without dismantling the stereotypes and domestic barriers that hinder women's emancipation, and without transforming support structures and the division of labour to make them more equitable.

In the DRC, with the Observatoire de recherche sur l’Entrepreneuriat Féminin Durable Pour Elles (Research Observatory on Sustainable Female Entrepreneurship for Women), we are working to identify and overcome the socio-cultural barriers limiting female entrepreneurship. Our programmes to improve the financial independence of women fishermen in Madagascar and female entrepreneurship in South Kivu aim to empower those who are marginalised by traditional economic structures. When we support the socio-professional inclusion of single mothers in Haiti, we take into account the fact that behind women's access to leadership roles lies an often overlooked reality: the double burden that many women face, combining paid employment with domestic work, which is a major obstacle to their economic empowerment.

In Belgium too, how can we reconcile women's personal and professional fulfilment without trapping them in a spiral of exhaustion? Here, as elsewhere, is our job not simply to contribute to a reassessment of the place of human beings in our economies in order to rebuild our social contract? These are, in any case, central questions at Louvain Coopération, which drive our work and our thinking. And we are happy to share them with you in the following pages.

Sandrine Laroche
Project Monitoring Officer