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Women make up more of the world's poor than men. Often, their work is unrecognised and unpaid. They rarely have control over assets, such as land. This means they cannot become economically independent, and makes them particularly vulnerable in widowhood and old age.

Women need more resources and opportunities for sustainable economic and human development. We want to help improve their access to markets and jobs, make credit more readily available, and ensure that infrastructure improvements benefit women as well as men. We encourage our partners in developing countries to make sure that economic management and investment programmes take account of gender issues and urge the private sector to be more socially responsible.

We are supporting research into the effects on women of globalisation and the liberalisation of world trade. This should give us a better understanding of how women can benefit from these global developments. We are also developing a programme to support initiatives on ethical trade, socially responsible business and the promotion of core labour standards to protect women and other workers from exploitation. Child labour and the sexual exploitation of children are also growing areas of concern.

These studies are called Participatory Poverty Assessments (PPA). UK expertise helped develop PPAs in conjunction with the World Bank. They are an invaluable tool for highlighting the economic and social problems which women, as well as men, face.