The 2018 Conference, Collaboration for Impact, is taking place at the Renaissance Arlington Capital View Hotel, Arlington, Virginia, on October 1-3.    Tweet #SEEP2018

Member Day on October 1 kicks off the SEEP Annual General Meeting, followed by lunch discussions highlighting three exciting SEEP programs: mainstreaming the Minimum Economic Recovery Standards, the Responsible Finance through Local Leadership and Learning Initiative and the Savings Groups Evidence & Learning Initiative. The afternoon is devoted to highly interactive annual meetings of the Markets in Crisis community of practice, the Savings-led Working Group and the Women’s Economic Empowerment Working Group. The conference days – October 2 and 3 – feature energizing Plenaries with industry experts, 25 member-led Peer Learning Sessions, four donor-sponsored Lunch Dialogues and the third edition of the much-acclaimed SEEP Fail Fest.

Monday, October 1st (Member Day)

Member Table Talks, 12:00-1:15pm

• Amalia Johnsson will host “Women’s Empowerment Through Savings Groups: What Do We See and How Can We Better Measure It?”
• Lis Meyers will co-host “Promoting Women’s Economic Empowerment: What We’ve Learned and Where We’re Going” with Raksha Vasudevan of MarketShare Associates.

Working Group Meetings (free for non-members & members), 1:30-5:00pm

The Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE WG) Working Group will have its annual meeting on Monday, October 1, at the 2018 SEEP Annual Conference. Nathan’s Managing Associate for Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Lis Meyers is a co-facilitator of the working group and will lead this half-day meeting of global WEE practitioners – including implementers, researchers, and donors. The meeting will include an interactive presentation from BSR on working with the private sector to promote women’s economic empowerment.  It will also feature break out group discussions on promising approaches in women’s economic empowerment across a range of topics, work planning for 2019, and opportunities to connect with fellow WEE practitioners and WEE WG members! This meeting is free and open to all. You do not need to be attending the 2017 SEEP Conference to attend this meeting. Register for the working group meeting here.

Tuesday, October 2nd

• Lis Meyers will participate as part of the panel in the “Addressing Sex-based Harassment in Workplaces: Unleashing women’s economic potential” as part of the “Unleashing the Power of Women and Girls” technical track. This evidence-based session will discuss how sex-based harassment deters women from entering labor markets and curtails their participation and contributions. Presenters will share findings on the magnitude and costs of the problem, the types of legal and regulatory frameworks that need to be in place and an exploration of underlying gendered power imbalances and toxic masculinities that need to be addressed to prevent sex-based harassment. A case study from China will illustrate opportunities for engaging with industry associations, employers, and civil society to improve employer practices in addressing sexual harassment.
• Amalia Johnsson will be chairing a session, “Fast and slow evidence: what works best in different contexts?” As part of the “Getting and Using the Right Kind of Evidence” technical track. This session discusses the challenges of effectively applying fast and slow evidence in different development contexts with a focus on financial inclusion. We define fast evidence as high-frequency, program-level monitoring data and slow evidence as more rigorous – but often costly – quantitative and qualitative research. Managing the creation and application of fast and slow evidence is crucial at all stages of program implementation; from piloting innovations through to iterative adaptation, impact assessment and the dissemination of research findings to public and private stakeholders. The processes around evidence must be managed efficiently to deliver robust results, if not, the ability to achieve systematic change is weakened.

Wednesday, October 3rd

• Lis Meyers will speak in a Nathan-chaired session, “Leveling the Regulatory Playing Field for Women’s Wage Employment” as part of the “Unleashing the Power of Women and Girls” technical track. This session will highlight findings from recent and forthcoming reports and analysis to understand how policies and regulations limit or enable women to enter, remain, and advance in the workforce. We will explore policies that we, as development practitioners, can promote government and private sector to implement to increase women’s economic opportunities. The session will discuss the challenges of addressing restrictive policies and how donors can move the needle. Participants will then be grouped by sub-topics and presenters will facilitate discussions around the application of policies around: equal pay, occupational restrictions, women’s decision-making, leave and care policies, among others.

Register Today