WAGE believed if women’s organizations have increased organizational capacity to serve and advocate for the interests of Central Asian women and are better equipped to address legal, regulatory, and societal barriers to women’s economic empowerment – including gender-based violence – through collective action, then these organizations will have greater ability to advance women's participation in the economy, ultimately resulting in Central Asian women leading more resilient, independent, and economically sustainable lives.
The program's central goals were:
- Strengthen the capacity of WBAs, WCSOs, and other key stakeholders in the private sector and civil society to identify and address barriers to women’s economic empowerment in Central Asian countries.
- Foster collaboration among WBAs, WCSOs, and other key stakeholders to develop and advocate National Women’s Business Agendas.
The program activities were aligned with WAGE research findings that women still face many obstacles when entering the economy as entrepreneurs, including restricted access to finance, lack of access to quality information on state supported programs for women entrepreneurs, low financial literacy, and widespread GBV in addition to a culture of silence around GBV. The Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Tajik, and Uzbek WAGE coalitions formed under the initiative advocated on women’s entrepreneurship and WEE issues to address these obstacles and their NWBAs to the government and other key stakeholders. The formation of these coalitions is notable as historically, the women’s business community and CSOs have not partnered together to address issues related to women’s empowerment. WAGE was able to bring these actors together, with a total of 46,000 women represented within these coalitions.
As a result of the WAGE Coalition’s advocacy to support social entrepreneurs in Kazakhstan, the country’s Ministry of the National Economy amended rules for the provision of grant assistance, giving priority to social entrepreneurs. The Kazakh Coalition also developed manuals on social entrepreneurship and sexual harassment in the workplace, and drafted amendments to legislation, which would address sexual harassment. In the Kyrgyz Republic, the WAGE Coalition laid the groundwork for the establishment of an Advisory Council on Women’s Business under the Cabinet of Ministers of the Kyrgyz Republic with support from the Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers. In Tajikistan, the Network of Organizations (the Network) was invited to be a member of the national “Development of Women, Youth, and Disabled Entrepreneurship” task force, under the State Investment Committee, to ensure the successful implementation of its advocacy campaign. Additionally, 10 out of 12 recommendations in the Network’s NWBA were incorporated into the “State Program for the Development of Women’s Entrepreneurship for 2023-2030.” The WAGE’s Uzbekistan Coalition, formally known as the Uzbekistan Expert Council, successfully advocated for the inclusion of its recommended amendments on GBV to the country’s national Criminal and Administrative Responsibility Codes. These recommendations led to the passage of the first law criminalizing domestic violence in Uzbekistan in April 2023.
To further address the obstacles that women face in entering the economy, the WAGE Central Asia initiative implemented a media campaign in each target country. Highly successful, the campaign reached over 5 million people over social media including Facebook, Instagram, and Telegram; and 2.5 million people across the region through traditional media including radio and television. WAGE developed and utilized a range of media products including interviews, skits, videos, and success stories. In Kyrgyzstan, for example, the Kactus Media group posted a story about Burul Karybekova, a WAGE-supported businesswomen in the country. After raising a family, she went into business managing a greenhouse of tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, brussels sprouts, broccoli, and lemons. WAGE Kyrgyzstan also shared a series of video interviews with women entrepreneurs from northern Kyrgyzstan, such as craftswoman Ainagul Zhamgyrchieva. As a result of the campaign and other initiative efforts, WAGE’s research suggests a notable shift in women’s individual perceptions of gender norms and the prescribed roles given to women.
