What’s the best way to spur developing economies, asks The Dressmaker of Khair Khana author Gayle Tzemach Lemmon at TEDxWomen 2012? Allow women access to the same opportunities as men.

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon is the bestselling author of The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, about a young Afghan entrepreneur who helped a hundred women in her community find jobs while under Taliban rule. “For me,” Lemmon says in this exclusive video, “the story was always a universal story about survival and faith and what you do for the sake of those you love.”