Being Unstoppable—1 Year Later 

Women's economic empowerment is essential to the growth of strong, prosperous communities worldwide. Our partnership with The UPS Foundation to build pathways to prosperity has proven, time and again, that the economic engines driving our communities are mothers, wives, and daughters. They invest in their families, are entrepreneurs with a finger on the pulse of their neighborhoods, and believe in the value of hard work and determination.

In collaboration with UPS, the Unstoppable Women Initiative is addressing the greatest challenges faced by women in the market—and equipping local women with the tools and resources necessary to achieve independent success. The program was founded in India, where we have trained thousands of Banking Correspondent Agents (women trained to handle banking transactions and provide financial guidance to underserved populations) who have supported over 3.3 million women—and instigated a surge of economic activity in the communities where these agents work. Taking that strategy further, we expanded our initiatives supporting economic growth for women to Colombia, Nigeria, and Indonesia. 

As of 2024, this expansion has helped impact a total of over 5.4 million lives around the world. But no two communities are the same—and our global perspective requires a human-centered approach in each region of our work.  

Nigeria

In Nigeria, Opportunity’s Alice Lajwa has worked to strengthen partnerships with local microfinance institutions to help develop human-centered solutions for the hyper-specific challenges faced by women business owners in rural parts of the country. 

Through multiple visits and listening sessions with local women, we partnered to develop loan products specifically designed for women in various regions. Women like Rita, a shop owner in a small village, have utilized loans from the program to increase their inventory and expand their sales. Rita has also received financial literacy training, which helped her with record keeping and gave her better control, oversight, and management of her business.

Perhaps the biggest impact is that she now has the resources to send her children to school. It also means that goods are available to more people more often in her community, which has enhanced stability to the market.

Thanks to the loans in the past year, over 5,000 other women like Rita have been able to do the same within their own communities.

Colombia

In Colombia, the project is expanding its reach to women entrepreneurs with loans and essential financial services, prioritizing rural women with the largest access gap in Colombia to empower them to develop their businesses.

Many women microentrepreneurs are unable to receive loans due to a lack of collateral, so our focus has been on offering loan guarantees, which serve in lieu of traditional collateral and allow them to acces the much-needed loans.

In 2024, women across Colombia received over 1,000 loans to enable the continued success and growth of businesses that give women independence and the means to support their families and, often, employ other community members.

Indonesia

Women in remote areas of Indonesia often experience challenges accessing financial services simply due to geography.

For women like Anita, a longtime rice and vegetable farmer who sells her produce at a traditional market, there are many challenges due to the distance between her farm and the market. Without reliable modes of communication and transportation, she struggles with unstable pricing. Because she must sell what she brings to market, she is often beholden to whatever price is offered to her that day. Her produce can be priced unfairly low, and the daily instability makes it hard to forecast or earn a fair rate.

The expansion of our UPS partnership initiative has provided new solutions to extend high-tech, high-touch services to serve women like Anita in these remote regions.

By partnering with a local Indonesian co-operative, we developed new training and support specifically for groups, so that women can work together as they build their business and financial skills. One focus has been on improving the supply of goods and the prices paid for produce.

Anita’s savings group was trained on quality standards for rice, and they were linked with trusted business partners. She is now paid directly when she delivers her produce and gets a competitive and stable price for her rice. Through this program, she has nearly doubled her income and has experienced a new sense of stability.

Igniting Development Worldwide

Thanks to our partnership with UPS, women are experiencing a newfound sense of agency and are stimulating economic growth in communities around the world. In total, this initiative has already created 40,873 jobs worldwide. By addressing these conditions for systemic change collectively, our $2 million investment in 2024 generated over $18 million in impact—spurring economic development in underserved markets around the world.

Within just one year, the expansion of this work has fueled a wave of transformation across four different countries—proving the real impact of tearing down the financial and workforce barriers faced by women worldwide. The women we serve have become truly unstoppable agents of change in their communities. They drive economic growth, create jobs, and reinvest in their children’s education and healthcare—and they are just getting started.