2024 Annual report: Collaborative Action toward Gender Equality in Supply Chains

Key Points:

1. Women workers are underrepresented in leadership roles within factories in the Ready-made-Garment (RGM) supply chains 
2. Existing activities focused on workers’ and supervisors' capacity building to promote women to supervisory roles don’t fully match the expectations of workers or address their concerns  
3. There is an opportunity to explore a broader approach to supporting women’s advancement, beyond supervisory roles, that can get the buy-in of women and support longer term business needs.  

Celebrating its first anniversary on International Women’s Day, RISE is expanding its membership to accelerate its gender equality mission.

2023 has been an inspirational year from launch to integration to innovation. Read our Annual Report to learn about our work, impact and activities! 

There are 4,000 garment factories and over four million garment workers in Bangladesh. Supporting workers to be able to use their accounts safely and confidently requires a concerted effort from all of the different organizations they come into contact with during the transition from cash to digital wages. HERproject has therefore explored a new way of engaging stakeholders who are important touchpoints for workers during wage digitization

HERessentials, a tablet-based learning app for workers and managers, started as a response to the COVID-19 crisis, but it has the potential to build digital capabilities for all workers. We share three key recommendations for businesses considering how to set up digital training in supply chains.

This guide offers practical advice on developing and delivering wage digitization programs that can lead to women's economic empowerment.

Interviews led by HERproject suggest that female and male garment workers were more financially resilient following wage digitization and financial capability training. However, the systemic gender inequalities that have long affected women and girls were exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic.   

HERproject's new report presents findings on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on workers in global supply chains and recommendations for companies and other stakeholders for an inclusive recovery that benefits workers and supply chains.