CRAWN Trust initiated the ‘Women and the Economy’ series designed to be the ground zero for women’s economic emancipation, connecting women to business and financial opportunities for growth and impact in the building skills as well as creating and building wealth for women form the bottom up, the series will be a game changer in women’s economic transformation. The ‘Women and the Economy’ series, will be contributing towards closing the gender gap and supporting women to enable them fund and grow their businesses to greater levels. CRAWN Trust held the inaugural Women’s Economic Forum Kenya in February 2021. The forum was held under the auspices of the Networking and Alliance Building pillar of the Women’s Voice and Leadership Program Kenya-WVL-K. The WVL-K program is a project funded by Global Affairs Canada (GAC) under the coordination of CARE Canada and CARE Kenya and is being delivered in Kenya by four principal partners namely CRAWN Trust, Uraia Trust, The Centre for Rights Education and Awareness (CREAW) and the Urgent Action Fund (UAF-Africa).

The initiative has been designed to be implemented under the leadership of Women’s Rights Organizations-WROs themselves, offering space for them to determine key priorities, selection processes, results, and will remain flexible to the needs of the Kenyan women’s rights movement. The project aims to contribute to gender equality and the increased enjoyment of human rights by women and girls in Kenya by improving the governance, management, programming, and sustainability of local women’s rights organizations (WRO), enhancing their ability to deliver quality services, and increasing the effectiveness of Kenyan women’s rights platforms.

A first in the ‘Women and the Economy’ series, the discussions stemmed from the County to National Level incorporating a hybrid approach where we had a virtual audience with conference speakers on location and others streaming virtually onto the panel discussions. We had power talks to motivate participants, keynote speeches where women entrepreneurs, members of business communities, informal sector actors and small scale farmers, had a chance to actively participate via live chats in the conference through their virtual attendance.

The conference was the first in a series of conferences that will be held annually on women and the economy.