Celia Boyd, Managing Director of SHE Investments, followed up with an in-depth summary of the key findings of the research. These include evidence that education equality between men and women at the primary school level has not resulted in equal job opportunity as adults and that health issues including high maternal mortality and rates of suicide are having a significant impact on women in Myanmar. In addition, she noted that the research pointed to a puzzling relationship between high levels of gender-based violence against women alongside women’s high perception of safety in the community.
Taking these results into account, she argued that enterprises have a key role to play in addressing the gender gaps identified in the research as well as creating safe workplaces for women to encourage progress toward greater empowerment.
Matt Viner, Investment Manager for EME Myanmar, provided an investor and business perspective on the challenge presented by gender gaps in Myanmar. He laid out the results of two surveys conducted in Myanmar focusing on the progress of innovative enterprises seeking to close gender gaps as well as the state of women-owned and women-operated businesses in rural Myanmar. He concluded by unveiling a
new interactive digital dashboard, which provides an interactive interface displaying the results from the second survey.
The second half of the event was dedicated to a presentation event, moderated by Gender Investment and Innovation Department Program Director Ayaka Matsuno, featuring five finalists working to leverage their entrepreneurial ventures toward greater social impact in Myanmar.
The finalists include Zigway, a company that provides monthly subscriptions for household essentials; Myanmar Women’s Self-Defense Center, which trains women in martial arts and self-defense as a form of empowerment; ONOW Myanmar, an incubator that trains women to start their own micro businesses; How She Did It, a coaching app promoting the development of soft skills; and Ezay, an app that connects mom and pop shops with wholesale distributors.
