The Health Sector: A Key Contributor to Women’s Economic and Social Empowerment and Prospering Families and Communities

You're Invited!

World Health Worker Week Side Event

The Health Sector: A Key Contributor to Women’s Economic and Social Empowerment and Prospering Families and Communities

When women are economically empowered, they re-invest in their families and communities. This creates a ripple effect, increasing economic growth and contributing to global peace and stability. No other sector employs more women than health; 70% of the health workforce is made up of female health and social care workers. The health sector can provide some examples for other sectors to effectively engage the female health workforce, but also faces challenges such as increasing the number of women in the labor force, ensuring decent work, addressing equality in leadership and management, and eliminating gender pay gaps.

On the heels of the February 2019 White House launch of the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity (W-GDP) Initiative and alongside the impending release of Gender Equity Hub’s report “Delivered by Women, Led by Men: A gender and equity analysis of the global health workforce,” the time is now to leverage existing global and national efforts and push forward the renewed momentum around women’s economic empowerment.

In collaboration with USAID and PEPFAR, HRH2030 is convening a discussion to highlight the growing evidence that employment in the health sector empowers female health workers, their families, and communities.

Featuring Kelly Saldaña (Director, Office of Health Systems, USAID Bureau for Global Health); Diana Prieto (Acting Director, USAID Office of Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment); Jim Campbell (Director, Health Workforce, World Health Organization); and Roopa Dhatt (Executive Director and Co-Founder of Women in Global Health), along with a series of speakers and panelists, please join us at the event as we discuss:

• Empowerment through health workforce employment, including financial, leadership and decision-making opportunities, educational benefits, community respect and trust
• Empowerment of young females to mitigate health risk, especially for HIV, and overcome structural inequalities to take charge of their life choices and health benefits
• Significance of female health workers’ role in providing accessible, accountable, affordable, and reliable health services and in contributing to further empowerment
• High-level priorities, evidence on progress in the health workforce, and best practices to increase opportunities for greater coordination across sectors

We will also be joined by representatives from Abt Associates, AIHA, Amref, Chemonics International, Global Communities, Last Mile Health, Living Goods, and Population Council who will share their experiences of empowering families and communities through health sector programming.

Download the full agenda.

This event will be live streamed on HRH2030 Program's Facebook page.

Please send any questions to HRH2030 at: HRH2030Comms@hrh2030program.org