women’s economic equality
Creating genuinely different economic opportunities,
designed by and for us.
We are committed to a future where all women, regardless of background or location, experience economic equality in their everyday. Our big goal is to collaboratively innovate new examples of women’s economic empowerment in Australia and the Pacific, that genuinely dismantle barriers to equality, are locally generated, sustainable, and life-giving. We focus on partnering with entrepreneurs because of the necessity to act quickly, and sustainably, creating better outcomes for women, girls and gender-diverse people right now, whilst also working to dismantle the system-level blockers that maintain the status quo.
Why Women’s economic equality?
We are half of the world’s population and yet we do not experience the same job, pay, business and finance opportunities as our male counterparts. Investing in women’s economic futures has a positive multiplier effect that can create a far more equitable future for everyone. While the importance of gender equity in economic development work is well known, change isn’t happening fast enough, nor deep enough. True women’s economic empowerment requires different economic paradigms.*
*Oxfam Canada, 2019, A Feminist Approach to Women’s Economic Empowerment
‘I refuse to accept the idea that we can simply shoehorn women into a global economy that is exploiting them and then celebrate it as women’s economic empowerment.’
– Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director, Oxfam International
Our Focus
Partnering with women to start and grow businesses
We’re for women with lived experience of economic injustice, creating businesses that build economic assets and safety nets, and developing them as business sector leaders.
Strengthening and decolonising business support services
We work to transform the services available to women entrepreneurs by ensuring that the support offered is more appropriate and sensitive to women’s unique challenges.
Transforming market access for women suppliers
By working within the supply chain ecosystem, eliminating the obstacles that hinder women’s participation, we help create a more level playing field.
Partnering with women to start and grow businesses
Addressing gender equity issues within existing businesses by encouraging and facilitating change, we work toward creating more inclusive and equitable workplaces.
“Women, in all our incredible diversity, we’re not a problem to be solved. We are the greatest untapped resource in this economy, and it’s high time that we recognise that.”
– Dr Emma Fulu, Executive Director of the Equality Institute
Our Projects
Our latest thinking
Future projects in development
We’re currently scoping the following projects and looking for co-conspirators. Please get in touch if you’d like to chat and explore the possibilities.
How might a social enterprise model, in partnership with multiple women’s rights NGOs, support women most affected by economic injustice and intergenerational poverty, to find training and employment pathways?
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Our hypothesis: A growing number of women are becoming trapped in the criminal justice system, which is perpetuating the disadvantage that brought them into the system in the first place. Decades of research has underscored that, while prison significantly disrupts people’s working lives, being employed is one of the things most likely to prevent recidivism. We are looking at buying existing businesses that could be turned around to provided places of judgement-free employment for women exiting the criminal justice system. If you are interested in the work behind this model, please contact us on info@tdi.org
How might corporates in the Pacific, integrate SDG priorities for women and girls in their supply chain?
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Our hypothesis: the power of procurement to realise better gender outcomes, is relatively untapped in the Pacific. Leveraging our experience with YuMi Tourism Partners, which demonstrated that procurement partnerships plus capability building, we believe this type of program could generate an additional AUD$1.5m annually for women and girls.
How might business and finance help women in informal markets
in the Pacific to find more customers?
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Our hypothesis: based on our work in informal markets in bilum in PNG, we believe there may be other areas where the establishment of aggregation businesses, led by trusted individuals, can support female makers and sellers to access larger opportunities. This could have a transformative effect in dismantling market barriers. We are also exploring an accelerator program for aggregators, to test if concentrated focus could shift outcomes for women and gender-diverse individuals.
What we do
We understand that real change in gender equality requires working across multiple areas simultaneously.
Our focus is just one part of the bigger picture of women’s economic empowerment to affect real change.*