Arabic is the lingua franca of twenty-four countries. Thus the Arabic language materials and manual, used in institutionalizing and mainstreaming gender and economic literacy, will be an invaluable resource for numerous organizations within the region. The development and dissemination of this project, as well as the trials and lessons learned, could be a resource for any organization or country working towards the economic empowerment of women.

Understanding the Need for Economic Literacy

Economics has always been delineated as a man’s field. Although women all over the world play a crucial role in the functioning of national economies, they are almost invisible both as policy-makers in the field of economy and as actual economic actors in statistics. On the other hand projects that aim at women’s economic advancement have mainly focused on the areas of microfinance and income generation. Most of these projects neglect educating women about how the market itself operates, and how the functioning of the market brings about the economic subordination of women in specific ways.

The Economic Literacy Component of the WEEP Project aims to provide women and participating NGOs with insight on the role of women in the formal and informal economy while enhancing their understanding of the general economy through destructing the myth that economics is a man’s world in which women cannot take place as knowledgeable actors.

Economic literacy gives us the skills necessary to understand how the national, regional and global economy operates and how we relate to these structures. Through economic literacy it is possible to identify the structural causes of economic and social problems and come up with positive policy alternatives to alleviate the existing economic subordination of women. Moreover the skills gained as a result of the training will be of use for women in their whole life; loans may be cut and small businesses may collapse but the knowledge base that is gained through the training will remain intact.

What are the Economic Literacy Trainings all about?

The objective of the Economic Literacy Trainings is to familiarize the participants with the basic concepts and mechanisms of the economic system and how these are gendered. The trainings provide new insights into women’s role and value in the informal and formal economy, and increase their understanding of the general economy. As such, it addresses a major knowledge gap which hinders the economic independence and empowerment of women.

The manual used in the trainings is developed by the WIDE network for the purpose of popular economic training over the period of 1998-1999. It combines gender analysis and gender sensitivity with the essential principles and techniques of popular education training to develop an understanding about the basic economic terms, concepts and issues such as market, profit, interest, labor force, inflation, deflation monetary/fiscal policy, etc.

The trainings utilize popular education techniques and methodologies. They start by addressing a concrete need or situation. The trainer then reflects on that reality, broadens it with new information and analyses it. Throughout the sessions, participants engage in group activities in which they express their own ideas on the topic being discussed, examine their own reasoning about certain issues and compare and contrast that with the new information they get. After processing and evaluating the new information, participants are encouraged to search out strategic openings and alternative courses of action regarding the particular topic being discussed.

Training activities are constructed particularly to ensure joint leadership and joint creation of knowledge within the group. They are interactive and highly participatory and they motivate participants to take action and challenge the structural causes of social and economic problems.

What is unique about the Economic Literacy Component?

Current development programs often fail to draw the link between economic empowerment and gender equality. Economic advancement programs targeting women, e.g. microfinance, exclude basic economic education as a key component to the women’s economic empowerment. The uniqueness of the economic literacy project is that it attacks the problem of economic disenfranchisement on an educational and most basic level. It focuses on strengthening women's understanding of the economy and increase their economic empowerment by introducing economic literacy as a tool for women’s economic empowerment

Moreover, the knowledge gained will not disappear if donors drop out, loans aren't repaid or small businesses collapse. The project brings in a skill as much as a knowledge base, one that can be transferred and applied not only in women’s daily life but within the context of other economic aid projects. In this way, the economic literacy project is both unique from it's predecessors as well as a compliment to them. Additionally, this project will be exceptional and innovative as the only one of its kind within the Middle East.