Women around the world have been deeply affected by the COVID-19 pandemic – both at work and at home. In Sri Lanka – where over a quarter of households are headed solely by women – the story is no different.
As the economic shocks of COVID-19 ripple across all industries in the country – from small businesses to large conglomerates – the Women in Work program stepped forward to help Sri Lankan women and companies build back better.
Women in Work (WiW) – a partnership between IFC and the Australian government – is a five-and-a half year, AUD13 million program designed to close gender gaps in Sri Lanka’s private sector while improving business performance.
Even in the wake of the pandemic, WiW continued to move ahead, shifting gears to help Sri Lankan women overcome the challenges of the pandemic, and build resilience to future crises.
One of the first responses under WiW following the onset of the pandemic was to identify the impact COVID-19 was having on Sri Lankan women as employees and business owners. Two rapid assessments on the gendered impacts of the pandemic on SMEs and employment provided valuable insights in to what was needed for Sri Lankan women to counter the effects of the pandemic, paving the way towards a resilient recovery.
Building on those findings, WiW supported one of the worst hit sectors from COVID-19 – micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) –especially those owned by women. As part of the overall work with the NationalDevelopment Bank, financial assistance was provided to women entrepreneurs struggling to keep their businesses afloat as COVID-19 made deadly tracks across the country.
WiW is innovative.
To ensure WiW remained relevant and was able to continue to deliver throughout the pandemic, the program quickly vaulted to virtual delivery methods and sought digital solutions to the challenges businesses and their employees were facing.
Thanuja Gunaratne from Southern Sri Lanka, founder of Thanuja Lace– who brings the traditional beeralu lace to the market – benefitted fromIFC-DFAT’s virtual interventions. At a crucial time of need, IFC led an innovative digital training program in collaboration with the Women's Chamber of Industry and Commerce and Women’s International Foundation. This 15-week program covered topics such as entrepreneurship, taxation, marketing, supply chain management, digital finance and financial literacy – all of which were designed to help women entrepreneurs like Thanuja manage their businesses more successfully, and to prepare them for future shocks. This initiative grew out of Sri Lanka’s first National Financial Inclusion Strategy – amulti-stake holder effort led by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka with technical assistance from IFC – and reinforced WiW’s mission on uplifting the lives ofSri Lankan women and boosting business outcomes.
On the employment side, WiW, together with the Federation ofChambers of Commerce and Industry Sri Lanka, launched an online learning series– Together We Can (TWC) – to help businesses advance gender equality while addressing the challenges of COVID-19. Through TWC, nearly 30,000 women and men from over 40 companies across Sri Lanka’s private sector are benefiting from their employers’ proactive approach to promoting diversity in leadership, building respectful workplaces as well as recruitment and promotion. This was launched at a time when increasing numbers of employees were working from home.
In a climate where many workers, particularly women, were struggling to retain jobs while shouldering increased caretaker duties on the home-front, PickMe – an IFC investment and advisory client – saw their fleet of women drivers double. WiW supported the company to develop a strategy to attract women drivers, while increasing their market share of female clients.As PickMe made best use of their technology to quickly adapt to the needs of the pandemic, they remained focused on keeping women drivers gain fully employed.
Almost two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, WiW continues to make a positive transformation in Sri Lanka – none of which would have been possible if not for Australia’s immense support and resilient partnership.
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