Empowerment: Economic and Gender

Women empowerment and economic development are closely related: in one direction, development alone can play a major role in driving down inequality between men and women; in the other direction, empowering women may benefit development. Development policies and programs tend not to view women as integral to the economic development process. This is reflected in the higher investments in women's reproductive rather than their productive roles, mainly in population programs. Yet women throughout the developing world engage in economically productive work and earn incomes. They work primarily in agriculture and in the informal sector and increasingly, in formal wage employment. Their earnings, however, are generally low. Since the 1950s, development agencies have responded to the need for poor women to earn incomes by making relatively small investments in income-generating projects. Often such projects fail because they are motivated by welfare and not development concerns, offering women temporary and part-time employment in traditionally feminine skills such as knitting and sewing that have limited markets. By contrast, over the past twenty years, some non-governmental organizations, such as the Self-Employed Women's Association in India, have been effective in improving women's economic status because they have started with the premise that women are fundamental to the process of economic development.

The paper considers the concept of empowerment and its application to the analysis of gender issues

Policy Research Working Papers, 2014

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

Gender is defined as socially constructed roles, relationships and learned behaviors of male or female.

2002

The book was prepared after extensive discussions, beginning in February 2001, on the empowerment framework and strategic actions that should be supported by the World Bank at the country level, involving consultations with over 700 people inside and outside the Bank. They included government officials, Bank staff, other donor representatives, and members of civil society in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam, as well as staff of the Asian Development Bank, the World Health Organization, the World Conservation Union, and the U.N. High Commission on Human Rights. The framework was further discussed within the Bank, as well as at a World Bank Institute-sponsored regional workshop on empowerment held in Hungary with participants from nine countries of Eastern Europe. A second regional workshop organized by the Latin America and Caribbean Region and he ld in Peru provided additional feedback. The framework was also discussed with external advisors on culture and empowerment and with the Social Development Board. Helpful feedback was also received from participants at two Bank-wide review meetings chaired by Nicholas Stern,

Empowering women in the society means facilitating women to participate equally in the society and at workplace, providing equal access to resources and meaningful participation in decision making. When the participation of women increases at workplaces, it results into economic development in the country as it leads to more wealth creation and employment generation. This paper aims at exploring certain key factors that will affect the women empowerment. In order to describe the relationship between those key factors and women development, the data will be collected by conducting interviews for few homemakers and women entrepreneurs. It is an empirical study which concentrate on the in-depth understanding of respondent's behavior and the reasons causing their behavior by interpreting data non-statistically. The present paper makes an attempt to provide detailed explanation about the effect of some key factors on women empowerment. It will also provide the information about the initiatives of the Government for empowering women and how the women empowerment leads to economic growth and development of the nation.

2011

IDS, Sussex http://www. ids. ac. uk/ …, 2008

SUMMARY This paper proposes a framework for how empowerment can be conceptually understood and operationally explored. It makes recommendations for forthcoming areas of work within the POVNET Work Programme on empowering poor women and men to ...

Securities Board of Nepal 28th year Anniversary Publication, 2020

2018

The Growth and Economic Opportunities for Women (GrOW) program is a multi-funder partnership between the United Kingdom's Department for International Development, the Hewlett Foundation, and the International Development Research Centre. GrOW aims to fill the knowledge gap by providing evidence to inform social and economic policies that improve poor women's lives while promoting economic growth. GrOW also promotes the use of research by decision-makers and seeks to enhance the research capacity of young and Southern-based researchers. This GrOW Program Report summarises research findings of 14 projects in 50 countries, which will be articulated in greater depth in the program syntheses. These focus on measurement of women's economic empowerment, links between gender equality and growth, the care economy, and constraints to labour market participation.