Work and Opportunities for Women

The Work and Opportunities for Women (WOW) programme is a £10.2 million flagship programme funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID). The objective of WOW is that women have access to improved economic opportunities through business interventions in supply chains and economic development programmes. The five year programme began in October 2017 and aims to enhance the economic empowerment of 300,000 women working in global value chains by September 2022. It will achieve this goal by supporting businesses, organisations and programmes that are ready and willing to act on women’s economic empowerment; enabling players across the supply chain ecosystem to drive change; and influencing the UK and global agenda on women’s economic empowerment. WOW is being delivered by a consortium of global experts at the cutting edge of women’s economic empowerment research, program design, and delivery—including PwC, BSR, CARE International, the University of Manchester, and Social Development Direct. WOW’s priority sectors are garments, agriculture and personal care. The DFID focus countries that the programme is most likely to work in are those where global companies have supply chains e.g. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria and Ethiopia. To date, the programme is working in India, Bangladesh, Kenya, Nepal, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda and South Africa. In January 2020 it was announced that the WOW programme would receive a further £5.1 million in funding to extend the programme by two years to September 2024 with the intention of reaching a further 100,000 women in sub-Saharan Africa.