Recently I was fortunate to participate in Nesta's inaugural 'Challenges of our Era' global summit. The summit included contributions from NASA, USAID and The Gates Foundation, and it convened thinkers from diverse fields to discuss some of the big societal challenges which the world needs to solve. 

Nesta's Centre for Challenge Prizes has a long history of convening diverse groups to accelerate change and exploit opportunities presented by collaboration, dating back to the inaugural ‘Big Green Challenge’ in 2008.

The Empowerment of Women and Girls was one of the areas of focus that could be accelerated through innovative solutions in a future Nesta Challenge Prize. 

At the Summit we explored the links between women's economic empowerment and control of assets; freedom from violence; relationship choices; voice and representation. We also discussed the impact of traditions, stereotypes, social beliefs, entrenched social norms, attitudes and basic impunity in everyday life.

No-one can control their own future if they don't have secure employment. Decent work and decent pay is the most powerful thing any woman can have for her own empowerment. Yet in 2015 there remains deep inequality in rates of paid employment and decent work. Wage gaps persist; women are more likely to work in informal and part-time work, and occupational segregation and unequal responsibility for unpaid work persists globally. 

We know that gender equality has implications on broader economic development. Yet women frequently lack participation in organizations which can represent their interests, and they continue to be largely absent from key decision-making forums determining the allocation of economic and financial resources and opportunities.

Empowered women experience a lower prevalence of violence. The World Health Organization estimates that more than one in three of the world's women will experience physical or sexual violence in her lifetime. The direct costs of violence on economies are understood e.g. healthcare, policing etc. The indirect costs are important to understand because of the effect on women’s labour force participation, productivity and education. 

Relationship choices particularly ending what is obliquely known as child marriage are inextricably linked to economic empowerment, freedom from violence and education.

Girls continue to suffer severe disadvantage in education. In 2011 an estimated 31 million girls of primary school age were not enrolled in school. If girls are educated they are more likely to end up with decent work, less likely to be harmed and more likely to be healthy with autonomy to make reproductive choices. 

Lack of reproductive rights, choices and health care still leave 800 women dying in childbirth each day. And the risk of dying as a result of pregnancy or childbirth differs significantly by economic status.

In many parts of the world, women continue to face discrimination in relation to access to land, inheritance rights, housing, property and other productive resources and they're often excluded from formal financial services. 

As the group explored how a Nesta Challenge Prize might support solutions to some of these giant concerns, we discussed how innovators might address the stereotypes that place women and girls in narrow defined roles in society but allow men to move across any role. Sometimes, listening to people will lead to solutions that they formulate themselves. Other times, change needs to be forced in different ways through imposing policy and laws so people start changing toward actions that we want. Quotas are an example of this.

The group also discussed impunity. Countries may have police and laws against violence, but if the justice system doesn't work or if there's impunity against perpetrators what then? Why is it that in some places attacks against girls travelling to and from school are common and accepted and there are few consequences for the perpetrators? Attitudes and normalisation need to be proactively addressed.

Innovators will also need to consider different methodologies for change. Legislation is one of them. But when there's no system in place or capacity to implement laws what then? What community actions might be helpful? Sometimes the empowerment of critical people will accelerate change. It doesn't have to be through an NGO or a government it can be individuals who felt inspired and are empowered and supported to affect change and where communities understand the benefits it will bring them.

Considering these stark realities, the Summit participants proposed that a prospective challenge prize could look for ideas that would:

• increase the number of women in fairly paid agricultural jobs.
   
• empower communities to educate their girls.
   
• include more women in community discussions to achieve fair representation and break stereotypes.
   
• accelerate creation of replicable and scalable health centres that are safe spaces for women and girls.

Successful innovation via a Nesta Challenge Prize for Women and Girls would bring accelerated change for women and girls and a head start for the world to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals to be adopted by the UN in 2015. Nesta is keen to find partners to take this pressing prize forward.