The Hidden Economics of Remarkable Women (HERO)

A lot of shea butter, which can be found in moisturizers and chocolate, originates from West and East Africa. According to the Global Shea Alliance, shea exports from African countries have increased about 600 percent in the last 23 years.

Most shea nut collectors are rural women. So, this should be great news for them. But because of the way the shea nut supply chain operates, most women are at the bottom of the power structure, oftentimes squeezed out by middle men.

On today’s episode of the Hidden Economics of Remarkable Women, reporter Nelly Kalu visits a Nigerian nonprofit called Initiative for Gender Empowerment & Creativity. They have innovated the shea nut business to enable women shea nut producers to earn more.

Then, host Reena Ninan speaks with Sybil Chidiac, a senior program officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Chidiac focuses on women's economic empowerment initiatives in Africa and shares her thoughts on this program and others to Ninan. For transparency, it is worth mentioning that HERO is funded in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

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One silver lining of the COVID-19 pandemic, and its resulting child care crisis, is that an increasing number of countries have passed legislation supporting the child care sector. These include Vietnam, Peru, Argentina, and Bangladesh.

On today’s episode of the Hidden Economics of Remarkable Women, we will hear about Bangladesh’s efforts to increase access to child care, particularly for working parents. Bangladesh lawmakers passed the Daycare Center Act in 2021, and last year, they proposed implementation guidelines.

In the first part of the show, host Reena Ninan speaks with Marina Elefante, a lawyer with the World Bank’s Women Business and the Law Project. Ninan asks Elefante about the World Bank’s involvement with Bangladesh to increase child care there and what this law did to support daycares.

Then senior producer Laura Rosbrow-Telem profiles daycare managers in Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital and largest city, to gauge their opinion of the law. Producer Alvah Amit Halder helped report and produce this segment from Dhaka, Bangladesh.

This week, we are also conducting a listener survey to better understand what you like about the podcast and what else you’d like to hear in future episodes. All participants in the survey who provide their email will be eligible to win a $25 Amazon gift card. To participate, follow this survey link. Thank you very much for your time and feedback.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/heropodcast

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Indonesia has the eighth highest number of child marriages in the world. Beyond being a human rights issue, child marriage significantly increases the chance of domestic violence, dropping out of school, and poverty. Misiyah Misiyah, founder and director of feminist organization Institut KAPAL Perempuan, wanted to convince Indonesian President Joko Widodo to increase the legal marriage age from 16 to 19, which could dramatically decrease the rate of child marriage. To do that, she and her colleagues came equipped with reams of data.

On the season finale of the Hidden Economics of Remarkable Women, we hear how Misiyah collected grassroots data and used it to build a powerful case to ban child marriage in Indonesia. Later in the episode, host Reena Ninan speaks with Mabel van Oranje, founder of Girls Not Brides and VOW for Girls, about the most effective ways to decrease child marriage globally.

Special thanks this week to Alison Holder from Equal Measures 2030, who recommended we talk to Misiyah. You should check out their latest report on countries’ progress toward gender equality and sustainable development goals; it’s pretty sobering. Also, thank you to In-Depth Creative, a lovely podcast company based in Jakarta, Indonesia. They helped produce our interview with Misiyah. The Hidden Economics of Remarkable Women is a Foreign Policy podcast made possible through funding by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

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Close to 20% of all domestic workers are migrant workers, according to the International Labor Organization. Most of these domestic workers are women and they are particularly common in Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia.

Kenya sends a lot of domestic workers to Gulf countries. More than half of the over 87,784 Kenyans employed in the Middle East since 2019 have been domestic workers.

But many women returning from this work describe horrific circumstances, particularly in Saudi Arabia. And in an alarming number of cases, death.

On today’s episode of the Hidden Economics of Remarkable Women, reporter Pauline Ongaji talks with Kenyan women who have returned from domestic work in Saudi Arabia. Then host Reena Ninan speaks with Caroline Kasina from the Solidarity Center in Kenya and Ruth Khakame from the Kudheiha union about their efforts to organize Kenyan domestic workers in Gulf states.

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On today’s episode of HERO, the last show of the season, we look at how a Women for Women International program in the Democratic Republic of Congo worked with families to try to overcome longstanding cultural barriers to women owning land. We hear from a mother, father, and son who participated in this program. Also, Women for Women International’s country director in the DRC, Rachel Boketa, explains how this project attempted to change men’s and boy’s opinions about female property ownership. Special thanks to Francis Shok Mweze, who acted as our field producer for this segment.

Boketa's program was supported with a grant from the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID. The U.S. currently gives more money to international development than any other country in the world, largely through USAID.

In the second part of the episode, host Reena Ninan talks to Isobel Coleman, the deputy administrator of USAID. Coleman explains why the Biden administration is doubling funding towards gender programming and how USAID plans to invest that financing. This conversation first took place at Foreign Policy’s Her Power Summit, an annual gathering all about women’s leadership.

Finally, we are conducting a listener survey to better understand what you like about the podcast and what else you’d like to hear in future episodes. All participants in the survey who provide their email will be placed in a raffle to win a $25 Amazon gift card. To participate, follow the survey link below. Thank you very much for your time and feedback.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/heropodcast

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