Empowerment

In the past decade ‘empowerment’ has emerged as a key goal of development, particularly in relation to women.  Empowerment has been defined as, “the expansion of assets and capabilities of poor people to participate in, negotiate with, influence, control and hold accountable the institutions that affect their lives” (Narayan 2001). There has been a rapid expansion in the number of development initiatives that have empowerment as their stated goal, yet empowerment can and does mean different things to different people and defining what empowerment means, how it can be achieved and measured is an area of ongoing debate in development circles.

In the broadest and most simple sense, empowerment is equated with the ability to make choices and to act on those choices – to exercise ‘agency’.  Alsop, Bertelsen & Holland (2006), authors of the World Bank publication, Empowerment in Practice: From Analysis to Implementation, define empowerment as “the process of enhancing an individual’s or group’s capacity to make purposive choices and to transform those choices into desired actions and outcomes”.  In order for people to make and exercise choices, the social and institutional environment or “opportunity structure” needs to be conducive to the exercise and fulfillment of those choices.  An individual's or community’s assets and access to resources – material, psychological and social - also influence the degree to which they can exercise their agency and make use of opportunities.  Development initiatives such as women’s credit and training schemes provide examples of projects which seek to ‘empower’ women by providing them with access to finance and opportunities to pursue alternative livelihoods, thereby increasing their skills, capabilities, confidence and status.  Such approaches, which bring together individuals from marginalized groups in partnership with institutions such as credit providers, are in keeping with the view that agency alone cannot lead to empowerment, but must be combined with an enabling institutional environment. 

Discussion and debate about empowerment centre on competing definitions of empowerment and how it can be achieved and measured.  Malhotra et al. (2003) have proposed that empowerment occurs along six different dimensions: economic, socio-cultural, familial/interpersonal, legal, political and psychological.  By extension, a multi-faceted approach to empowerment is required, rather than one-off development projects that focus on one activity, such as microcredit or employment.  Whether empowerment influences development outcomes or poverty reduction is also an area of research and debate.  Empowerment is viewed by many commentators as having an intrinsic value, regardless of whether it plays an instrumental role in fostering development.  The intrinsic value of empowerment is linked to a rights-based approach to development and the principles of justice, fairness and equality for all members of society.  Others view empowerment as also having an instrumental value that is borne out in studies linking increases in women’s education levels with lower fertility rates, which has been associated with increased economic participation and productivity.   Thus increasing people’s empowerment – their access to resources and assets and ability to make and exercise choice – can facilitate and encourage other development outcomes.  However viewed, the proliferation of programs and initiatives that seek to empower people has created the need to define and measure empowerment in order to assess and evaluate their effectiveness.

Part of the difficulty in establishing links between empowerment and development outcomes lies in creating indicators and measuring such a variable, qualitative concept.  While women’s empowerment in a given society may be suggested by examining quantitative indicators - such as the proportion of women that are literate, represented in politics or in well paid employment - measuring a person’s self-esteem, ability to make and exercise choices, or assessing the value of different choices, requires a qualitative approach.  The relative nature of empowerment also makes it difficult to measure by quantitative indicators alone.  While formal national institutions may appear to provide enabling environments by legislating against inequality and discrimination, informal institutions – local customs, values and laws – may not. Equally, while people may feel empowered within their own homes or community, they may find this diminishes in other realms or in relation to other groups or institutions in society.  Measuring empowerment thus requires a multi-dimensional and context-specific approach, to allow for the complex interplay of resources, assets, institutions and other social factors that underlie both inequality and empowerment, and the different understandings of empowerment that exist in relation to different activities and domains across societies and cultures. Arguably, the meaning and the measure of empowerment should be determined by the people being “empowered” themselves, who are best placed to assess whether a development program has led to changes in their self-confidence and status, or ability to make choices.

Kabeer’s (1999) approach to measuring empowerment involves the analysis of three inter-related dimensions: access to resources (the preconditions for empowerment), agency (the ability to use these resources to bring about new opportunities) and achievements (outcomes).  This relational understanding of empowerment is currently regarded as one of the most effective and also helps to temper the expectation that particular development initiatives alone can ‘empower’ people.  The empowerment of people that experience social marginalization, discrimination or exclusion may take considerable time and changes across a range of spheres and institutions – political, social, cultural, legislative, and economic – to be realized.  As such, most commentators agree that like development, empowerment should be approached on a broad front and viewed as a long-term process of building capability, rather than an end product or goal.

 

Sources and online resources:

Alsop, R., Bertelsen, M.F. and Holland, J. (2006) Empowerment in Practice: From Analysis to Implementation, Washington, DC: The World Bank, http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTEMPOWERMENT/Resources/Empowerment_in_Practice.pdf (Accessed 9 Feb. 08)

Commission on Women and Development, Brussels (2007) The Women Empowerment Approach: A Methodological Guide http://www.atol.be/docs/publ/gender/women_empowerment_approach_CVO.pdf (Accessed 9 Oct. 07)

Esplen, E. with Brody, A. (2007) Putting gender back in the picture: rethinking women's economic empowerment - overview and annotated bibliography, BRIDGE Bibliographies: Number 19, BRIDGE, http://www.bridge.ids.ac.uk/reports/BB19_Economic_Empowerment.pdf (Accessed 16 Jan. 08)

Jakimow, T. (2006) ‘Empowering women in India: A critique of the Self-Help Group Blueprint in India’, Participatory Development Working Paper No. 06/02, September 2006, ANU Masters of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development Program, http://rspas.anu.edu.au/maapd/papers/wp-06-02.pdf (Accessed 16 Jan. 08)

Kabeer, N. (1999) ‘Resources, Agency, Achievements: Reflections on the Measurement of Women’s Empowerment’, Development and Change Vol. 30: 435-464.

Kilby, P. (2006) ‘Questioning empowerment: lessons from women’s groups in India’, Participatory Development Working Paper No. 06/03, September 2006, ANU Masters of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development Program, http://rspas.anu.edu.au/maapd/papers/wp-06-03.pdf (Accessed 16 Jan. 08)

Malhotra, A., Schuler, S.R & Boender, C. (2003) Measuring Women’s Empowerment as a Variable in International Development, Washington, DC: The World Bank, www.icrw.org/docs/MeasuringEmpowerment_workingpaper_802.doc (Accessed 20 Feb. 08)

Mayoux, L. (2006) Women’s Empowerment through Sustainable Micro-Finance: Rethinking “Best Practice”, http://www.enterprise-impact.org.uk/pdf/WomensEmpowermentthroughSustainableMicrofinance.pdf (Accessed 9 Oct. 07)

Mosedale, S. (2005) Strategic Impact Inquiry on Women’s Empowerment: Report of Year 1, Atlanta: CARE, http://www.enterprise-impact.org.uk/pdf/StategicImpactInquiryonWomensEmpowerment.pdf (Accessed 15 Feb. 08)

Moser, A., (2007) Gender and Indicators Overview Report, Bridge Cutting Edge Pack, London: Institute of Development Studies, http://www.bridge.ids.ac.uk/reports_general.htm (Accessed 9 Oct. 07)

Narayan, D. (2001) Empowerment and Poverty Reduction: A Source Book, Washington DC: The World Bank, http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTEMPOWERMENT/Resources/486312-1095094954594/draft.pdf (Accessed 20 Feb. 08)

Podems, D. (2005) Evaluation of Women’s Empowerment in the Swayamsiddha Project, CIDA/IDRC/BAIF Development Research Foundation, http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-94817-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html (Accessed 9 Feb. 08)