UN Women and Gojek Collaborate to Enhance the Economic Empowerment of Women in Indonesia

[Press release] 
EMBARGO UNTIL MONDAY 7, SEPTEMBER 2020 AT 9 AM (INDONESIA, BANGKOK TIME) 

Women entrepreneurs coaching session. Photo: UN Women/Ariyanto Nugroho.

Jakarta, 7 September 2020 – UN Women and Gojek, Southeast Asia's leading on-demand, multi-service tech platform, today announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to accelerate the economic empowerment of women in Indonesia. Grounded in UN Women’s universal mandate to advance gender equality and Gojek’s commitment towards enabling inclusive growth across communities, the MoU will provide a strong framework for strengthening and leveraging synergies and advocacy efforts that aim to educate more women on their rights for equal economic opportunities.

While 64.5 per cent of registered Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Indonesia managed by women¹, they tend to be concentrated in the low productivity, low value sectors compared to businesses initiated by men². Women in Indonesia face limited access to skills development, technology, and business networks, challenges that are largely due to discriminatory and cultural norms and make it difficult for them to start and grow their businesses. These challenges have become more pronounced amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The economic empowerment of women has great potential to drive gender equality and benefit women, their families, communities, and countries.

To better support women entrepreneurs and to unleash the economic potential of women during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond, the partnership includes three key areas of work: (1) Supporting women entrepreneurship through capacity development and knowledge sharing; (2) Collecting new data and analysis on the impact of COVID-19 on small and micro businesses, including insights from Gojek’s partners and beyond to formulate evidence-based policies and strategy for national economic recovery; and finally (3) Promoting women’s safety in public space to ensure women’s full participation in public life, including in pursuing economic opportunities.

“Increasing women’s economic participation is a game changer for economic transformation to ensure more sustainable and inclusive growth in Indonesia. It is critical for COVID-19 recovery to create equal economic opportunities for all. Too often women’s unique needs are underrecognized with very little supportive environment to advance their business opportunities. Our strengthened partnership with Gojek will focus on using an innovative, data-driven approach to change the status quo,” said Jamshed Kazi, UN Women Representative and Liaison to ASEAN. “By working together to optimize the use of technology and timely information, our ultimate aim is to empower some of the most disadvantaged women to overcome barriers to economic opportunities and ensure that no one is left behind, especially during these extraordinarily challenging times.”

UN Women works in close partnership with the Government of Indonesia and other stakeholders, including the private sector to plan their response to COVID-19 with a strong gender perspective. As part of these efforts, UN Women is engaging with private sector to integrate gender equality into business practices and culture through the application of Women’s Empowerment Principles and to enable women entrepreneurs affected by COVID-19 to have increased access to markets and finance, using online platforms such as UN Women Indonesia’s increasingly popular WeLearn.

Nila Marita, Chief of Corporate Affairs, Gojek, “As part of Gojek’s purpose to create social impact with technology, we are committed to supporting the economic empowerment of all those who have been underserved within our communities - this crucially includes women. We believe that women must gain equal access to economic opportunities in order for our society and economies to ensure inclusive and equitable growth. We are excited to strengthen our partnership with UN Women, and build upon our commitment to empowering women entrepreneurs through training programs and capacity building opportunities and ensuring the safety of women within our platform and beyond.”

Gojek’s women-focused initiatives encompassed Gojek Wirausaha a business skills capacity building program that has trained thousands of women entrepreneurs, and Gojek Xcelerate Women Founders, an accelerator program focusing on women-founded startups;   bystander intervention trainings with Hollaback! Jakarta that prevent sexual harassment, and nation-wide women safety campaigns that upgraded a number of Gojek’s shelters in major transit hubs to follow safety standards recommended by the UN Women report, titled After Dark: Encouraging Safe Transit for Women Travelling at Night.

In 2019, Gojek was the first on-demand tech company to roll-out a nation-wide bystander intervention training program for its driver-partners to recognize types of sexual harassment in public spaces and how to assist the victims. In the same year, Gojek was the only tech platform from Southeast Asia invited to share its experiences on empowering  women entrepreneurs at the Commission on Status of Women Meeting in 2019 at the UN Headquarter in New York. Gojek’s commitment in women empowerment was further acknowledged in Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s 2019 Gates Annual Letter, which testified on how women use Gojek’s technology and their mobile phones to build entirely new lives. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Gojek is also committed to accelerating the digitization of MSMEs in Indonesia so they can better adapt and thrive in an increasingly digital-reliant economy. With Gojek’s digital solutions, women entrepreneurs operating all types and scales of ventures can digitize their business process – from marketing, order processing, logistics, payments to administration.

The UN Women and Gojek partnership reflects growing efforts to partner with the private sector and to encouraging more companies to invest in women’s economic empowerment. Such investments are expected to accelerate progress towards gender equality, poverty eradication and inclusive economic growth in Indonesia.

1 National Bureau of of Statistics, 2018.
2 World Bank, 2016.