Women's empowerment revisited: a case study from Bangladesh

This article explores the changing dimensions of women's empowerment over time in three Bangladesh villages where one of the authors has been conducting research since 1991. The article discusses theoretical issues related to the measurement of women's empowerment, and describes findings from a recent study in the villages exploring the current salience of indicators developed for a 1992 survey. In the article we discuss the types of social, economic, and political change that affect the measurement of women's empowerment; propose and explain a new set of indicators for the rural Bangladesh setting; and discuss implications for measuring women's empowerment in other settings.     

Microfinance and women's empowerment: A lesson from India

This article describes an NGO project intended to empower scheduled caste women working in the silk-reeling industry in India through the provision of microfinance. It documents the impact that the project had on their economic and social status over a period of time and highlights the negative consequences of excluding male relatives from playing any meaningful role. It suggests ways in which the project might have been made more male inclusive while still empowering women. At the same time, it acknowledges that even if the men's hostility to the project had been overcome, the women's micro enterprises were unlikely to have been viable commercially. This is because the project insisted that the women operate as a group in what was a high-risk area of economic activity, with no clear strategy as to how their work could be sustained.     

Women's empowerment in challenging environments: a case study from Balochistan

This article offers strategies for women's empowerment in conservative, tribal, and religious environments, based on an innovative programme in Pakistan. Mainstreaming Gender and Development (MGD) encouraged participants to build on their communities' strengths, minimised resistance among families and communities by including them in the development process, and succeeded in building a cadre of women activists. Drawing on its experience, the author questions the importance of collective action, suggests that the selection of participants should be based on aptitude rather than socio-economic status, and highlights the potential for women's empowerment in challenging environments.     

The Tamil people's right to self-determination

This article provides an overview of the crisis in Sri Lanka and states why an armed conflict has developed in the northern and eastern parts (north-east) of the country. The Tamils' accusations—of discrimination, denial of the right to self-determination, abrogated agreements and violations of international human rights and humanitarian law amounting to genocide by successive Sri Lankan governments—are supported by specific evidence given by international human rights and legal experts, international human rights non-governmental organizations and other relevant entities. The democratic parliamentary efforts and the non-violent resistance struggle of the Tamil people prior to the outbreak of war are traced over several decades. The article includes an outline of social and law and order achievements in the north-east under the de facto administration of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and concludes with some current international dimensions of the situation.     

Taking the power out of empowerment – an experiential account

This article traces the centuries-long evolution of the concept and practice of empowerment, its adoption by radical social movements, especially women's movements from the 1970s onwards, and its conversion, by the late 1990s, into a buzzword. Situating the analysis in the context of women's empowerment interventions in India, the article describes the dynamic of the depoliticisation and subversion of a process that challenged the deepest structures of social power. The ‘downsizing’ and constriction of the concept within state policy, the de-funding of genuine empowerment strategies on the ground, and the substitution of microfinance and political quotas for empowerment are examined and analysed.     

Towards a policy framework for the empowerment of social movements

As they move from responding to needs and demands to a more rights-based approach, some French NGOs are rethinking both their areas of work and their ways of working. ‘Empowerment’ has become a key concept in this changing context, although it is sometimes difficult to know how best to apply it and understand what it really means in an NGO setting. This article shares some thinking on empowerment, analysing its ‘object’ (individuals, organisations, networks, or movements) and the ‘process’ through which it is realised. Drawing on the author's own experience and on a brief literature review, it is illustrated by the examples of the international disability and US gay rights movements.     

Women's economic empowerment through microfinance in Cambodia

The use of microfinance to enhance income generation and job opportunities among the poor is a popular tool for governments and non-governmental organisations involved in raising standards of living in developing countries. Providing very poor families with small loans to invest in their micro enterprises, Village Bank empowers them to create their own jobs, increase their incomes, and increase their families' well-being. As women are more likely to spend the majority of their personal incomes on improving the family situation, this economic empowerment greatly benefits their children, who are generally more likely to attend school and have better nutrition.

Autonomisation économique des femmes à travers le microfinancement au Cambodge

L'utilisation du microfinancement pour améliorer la génération de revenus et les possibilités de travailler parmi les pauvres est un outil puissant pour les gouvernements et les organisations non gouvernementales qui tentent d'améliorer le niveau de vie dans les pays en développement. Les Banques villageoises, en fournissant aux familles pauvres des prêts destinés à être investis dans des microentreprises, confèrent à ces familles les moyens de créer leurs propres emplois, d'accroître leurs revenus et d'améliorer leur bien-être. Comme les femmes sont plus susceptibles de consacrer la majeure partie de leurs revenus personnels à améliorer la situation de la famille, cette autonomisation économique profite considérablement à leurs enfants, lesquels ont ainsi généralement plus de chances d'être scolarisés et mieux nourris.

Empoderamento econômico das mulheres através de microfinanças no Camboja

O uso de microfinanças para aumentar a geração de renda e oportunidades de trabalho entre os pobres é uma ferramenta popular para governos e organizações não-governamentais envolvidos em elevar os padrões de vida nos países em desenvolvimento. Oferecendo a famílias muito pobres pequenos empréstimos para que invistam em suas microempresas, o Village Bank as empodera para criar seus próprios empregos, aumentar suas rendas e intensificar o bem-estar de suas famílias. Como é mais provável que as mulheres gastem a maioria de suas rendas pessoais para melhorar a situação da família, este empoderamento econômico beneficia imensamente seus filhos pois, em geral, é mais provável que eles frequentem a escola e tenham uma melhor nutrição.

El empoderamiento económico de la mujer mediante microfinanzas en Camboya

Las microfinanzas son un mecanismo muy utilizado por los gobiernos y las organizaciones no gubernamentales para elevar los niveles de vida en los países en desarrollo dado que estimulan la generación de ingresos y crean más oportunidades de empleo entre los pobres. A través de pequeños préstamos para la inversión en microempresas, el Banco Village ofrece la posibilidad de que las familias más pobres generen sus propios empleos, aumenten sus ingresos y eleven su nivel de bienestar. Dado que son las mujeres las que invierten la mayor parte de sus ingresos personales en mejorar la situación de sus familias, su empoderamiento económico aporta grandes beneficios para los hijos, quienes en general tienen niveles más elevados de asistencia escolar y de nutrición.     

Developing indicators to assess women's empowerment in Vietnam

From mid‐1999 to mid‐2001, the authors carried out a qualitative study in rural Vietnam to explore relationships between gender equity and reproductive health. One of the study's objectives was to develop culturally appropriate indicators of women's empowerment, specific to the Vietnamese context. This paper describes the process of developing, testing, and refining the empowerment indicators, presents some of the findings, and discusses the methodological challenges that need to be addressed. The paper concludes by recommending a set of Vietnamspecific domains for assessing women's empowerment in the socio‐economic sphere as well as in reproductive health.     

Microfinance and women's empowerment: an ethnographic inquiry

Within the last two decades microfinance has been widely adopted as one of the best development strategies to reduce poverty and empower women in many developing countries. Drawing on ethnographic research undertaken in Ethiopia, this article elucidates the complexities of microfinance processes, and argues that current microfinance practice does not facilitate the participation of women in decision-making over the use and management of loans as well as the income they generate from running small enterprises. The article illustrates that women are engaged in running small-scale economic activities at home that produce low returns, and they have limited access to lucrative markets. It also demonstrates that due to a discriminatory household division of labour, women are overworked in their households and in their enterprises. Through engaging in a mode of representation (ethnography) that allows specific critical voices to be heard, the article contributes toward tempering the current enthusiasm for the widely expanding microfinance industry.     

Perceptions and practices of farmer empowerment in Tanzania

The purpose of this article is to review the implementation of various empowerment interventions in Tanzania. Data for the review are based on field visits to programmes/projects/organisations involved in implementing empowerment interventions in various regions of the country. These visits involved key-informant interviews, sample surveys, and focus-group discussions with farmers. The review highlights the perceptions of empowerment at the levels of project staff and practitioners/beneficiaries, as well as the approaches used by various organisations and projects in implementing empowerment activities. In addition the article discusses the factors perceived to lead to empowerment, as well as its consequences.     

Wake-up call for the Lowlands: Dutch counterterrorism from a comparative perspective

The Netherlands is one of the few countries in Western Europe that did not experience massive terrorist attacks and where counterterrorism actions did not feature prominently on the political agenda. Until quite recently, the Netherlands had neither emergency legislation for terrorist incidents nor a specific Act that criminalized terrorist offences. In response to the European Union framework legislation, a bill was produced that penalizes participation in a terrorist organization, flanked by a vast array of other measures. This article analyses the policy, institutional and legislative responses to terrorism in the Netherlands and compares these with responses from other European states. The events of 9/11, as well as the political and public anxiety over the murders of Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh, acted as a firm wake-up call for the Netherlands insofar as the threat of terrorism is concerned. Whilst most countries adopted an incremental approach to countering terrorism, the Netherlands witnessed a radical shift in criminal justice and law enforcement policy following these events.     

Democracy assistance and women's political empowerment in post-conflict countries

Democracy promoters around the world cling to the hope that assistance given to civil society organizations decreases the risk of civil war and will lead to democracy in post-conflict societies. A particularly promising segment of civil society in peacebuilding is women. Inspired by Welzel and Inglehart's “human empowerment: path to democracy” this study places democracy assistance to women in a broader mechanism which forms a theoretical foundation of this study. The case of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the author's insights from the fieldwork demonstrate that in order to assess the impact of democracy assistance on women's political empowerment the comprehensive women's political empowerment mechanism should be employed. The statistical examination, however, reveals that women's political activism is largely the function of legal empowerment and a country's political and socio-economic characteristics. The study also shows the limitations of current impact evaluation methodologies, and suggests better evaluation tools.     

The paradoxes of empowerment: gendering NREGA in the rural landscape of India

The growing importance of public works programmes (PWPs) as a social protection tool has attracted significant scholarly attention. However, despite the fact that the empowerment of marginalised communities is one of the key objectives of most PWPs, scant attention has been dedicated to this crucial issue. We contextualise these concerns in relation to India's Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). In particular, we propose two areas which are relatively unexplored. First, the methodologies currently used to research NREGA and PWP, more generally, need to be broadened. Second, the processes that lead to empowerment need to be researched empirically.     

Customary and contemporary resources for women's empowerment in Bangladesh

In Bangladesh, dramatic social and economic changes are transforming historical forms of patriarchy with various impacts on pathways to women's empowerment. We hypothesised contemporary resources would be more strongly associated with women's empowerment, as reflected in their influence in family decisions. In cross-sectional analysis, we found the contemporary resources of employment and membership in NGOs were most strongly and consistently associated with women's influence in family decisions. Education was only modestly associated, as were customary resources, including age and fertility. Programmatic efforts to enhance women's empowerment should consider the rapidly changing environment and the importance of women's economic participation.     

An endogenous empowerment strategy: a case-study of Nigerian women

In Nigeria women's empowerment is essential to improving their standard of living and protecting their right to participate fully in development. More effective strategies are needed for women to participate in decision making. There are both static and dynamic aspects of the concept of empowerment. The former may lead to exogenous power strategies, while the latter may lead to endogenous empowerment facilitated by the dynamic concept that regards empowerment as a bottom-up process that develops the capacity of individuals. This process can be accomplished in six stages that encompass awareness, skills and capacity assessment, capacity-building and skills development, participation and greater control in decision-making, action for change, and evaluation. Nigeria needs an endogenous empowerment strategy for women's effective participation within organizations that is based on the tenet that women can only protect their interests through effective participation in their organizations and that highlights awareness-building, skills-acquisition and capacity-building, and changing discriminatory norms. External agents can not empower women but can foster conditions conducive to self-empowerment.