This issue of our quarterly e-newsletter focuses on the wealth of research on women business owners and women's economic empowerment that's been published recently.

You'll want to download, bookmark, Digg, and/or StumbleUpon each of these impactful studies. Happy reading & social network sharing!

There are several new reports from the international economic development community - as well as a "declaration" - that should have a place on your physical or virtual womenabling reference shelf. Here's a list of these new reports, including links where you can download them for future reference and sharing with others:

• The World Bank's 2012 World Development Report on Gender Equality and Development, which gathers existing facts and figures as well as new research among 4,000 women and men in 19 developing economies. Read more at the link above, including the report's news release and such related materials as "The Little Data Book on Gender;"
• The World Bank's Women, Business and the Law initiative has published a new report, "Women, Business and the Law 2012," which looks at gender parity under the law in 141 economies across six topics, such as the ability of women to travel internationally, sign a contract, and manage property. The Middle East and North Africa region has the largest legal gender disparities;
• The Women in Business team at the International Finance Corporation, part of the World Bank Group, has a spiffy new e-publication, Women and Business: Drivers of Development, which highlights their womenabling efforts around the world; and  
• In mid September, womenablers from around the Pacific Rim gathered in San Francisco for the APEC Women in the Economy Summit. At the closing session of the summit, a San Francisco Declaration was issued. This nonbinding declaration is aimed at encouraging governments and NGO stakeholders in the region to more proactively engage in women's economic empowerment efforts. 

Here in the US, the Kauffman Foundation recently published "Overcoming the Gender Gap: Women Entrepreneurs as Economic Drivers," a report which points out some areas where women find themselves on the shorter side of an "entrepreneurship gender gap," including the fact that just 20% of women-owned firms exceed $100,000 in revenue 3 years after start-up, compared to 33% of men-owned firms. While perhaps too narrowly focused on high-tech and tech-transfer entrepreneurship, the report offers useful suggestions for action, such as:

• More funding for growth-focused educational programming efforts in NGOs (such as women's business centers perhaps?);
• Greater visibility for innovative women business leaders; and
• More gender diversity on the boards of high-tech companies. 

CLICK HERE to learn more and download that report.

Time was, corporations parked their womenabling efforts in their corporate social responsibility silos. Now, corporations are far more likely to view women-owned firms as important customers and suppliers than a population in need of charity.

We can date US corporate interest in women business owners as a market back to 1995, when the Center for Women's Business Research's seminal report, "Breaking the Boundaries," was published. That report, based on an analysis of the entire Dun & Bradstreet database, showed that women-owned firms were just as financially stable and creditworthy as the average US firm. The report's release resulted in a virtual stampede toward women-owned firms by US banks.

Now, a number of global corporations are taking a market development approach to supporting women's entrepreneurship - readying them to be more valuable links in their supply chains.

The most recent entry is Walmart, the biggest corporation on the planet, which recently announced a four-pronged Global Women's Economic Empowerment Initiative. One important prong: $100 million USD in grants to women's enterprise development efforts worldwide.

They join two other corporate giants, Coca-Cola and Goldman Sachs, in firmly planting a flag in the field of women as agents of economic change, rather than recipients of charity.

• Coke's initiative, 5 by 20, aims to empower 5 million women entrepreneurs by the year 2020, by adding them to their retail vendor sales force. They plan to announce other elements of the program soon, as well as the paths by which they will achieve their goal. Let's hope it includes women's business association capacity-building!
• Goldman Sachs' 10,000 Women initiative, a 5-year effort launched in 2008, has the aim of increasing the number of business school-educated women in developing economies, pairing them up with corporate mentors in developed economies and partnering with universities and other non-governmental organizations. To date it is active in 22 countries, and is partnering with 75 groups to reach their goal.  

Stay tuned, fellow womenablers - two more important research studies will soon be on the airwaves. You'll find easy links to them on womenable.com when they are available!