Women's Empowerment Principles: Equality Means Business. Empowering women to participate fully in economic life across all sectors is essential to build stronger economies, achieve internationally agreed goals for development and sustainability, and improve the quality of life for women, men, families and communities.So how do we empower girls and women? And what exactly is women’s empowerment? Surprisingly, there is no common definition of women’s empowerment. In fact, the word “empowerment” does not exist in most languages. Although the phrase “women’s empowerment” is used pervasively in the Gender Equality & Women’s Empowerment space (and beyond), it is generally in the context of issues — economic empowerment, political participation, and girls’ education.Furthermore most of the data that have been collected is on gender equality — or more accurately inequality — counting the number of boys vs. girls, men vs. women. There is dearth of information on women’s empowerment, particularly at the global level. Empowerment is the process of increasing the capacity of individuals or groups to make choices and to transform those choices into desired actions and outcomes.Empowerment is a process. Through the process, an individual becomes an agent of change. More simply put, it’s the “can do” factor, going from “I can’t” to “I can.” Economic empowerment is fairly straightforward to define; however, overall empowerment is quite a bit more complex. Economic empowerment is the degree to which a woman is able to participate as an economic actor in her community. By this I mean her capacity to buy and sell goods and services, influence producers and market trends, and control essential resources, such as financial or real assets, that facilitate those activities. Financial inclusion is at the heart of economic empowerment. Access to assets and financial services can represent freedom, leverage, influence, and opportunity for women. Whether she is a small producer from a rural community in Africa or a tech entrepreneur in Asia, Europe or America the ability to earn, save, spend, and invest money is essential for her successful economic empowerment.