Women's economic empowerment good practice

[Rachel Wareham]

Dear all,

I am looking for examples of recent good/bad practice for women's economic empowerment. If anyone has any practical examples of what works and what works less well - especially through the fora of vocational and skills training, I'd love to hear from you.

It is to support project design of women's centres for vocational training and skills development for vulnerable women in conflict affected rural areas of the Caucuses.

Many thanks in advance, Rachel

[Getaneh Gobezie]

Dear Rachel

Thank you for this ...  The UN-FAO just share a new book with 15 ''good practices'' on gender and economic empowerment of women (see link below).... On the top of these 15 good practices is the Gender Action Learning System (GALS)

With Oxfam-Novib and IFAD we have been implementing 'GALS, originally in Uganda and other African countries ... I have delivered various trainings on GALS in Africa (Rwanda, Zambia), and did an evaluation for Oxfam Novib in Uganda,  .... Using ''ruralfinance'' (esp. groups) as an entry point, the proposed approach is not only to facilitate discussion between men-women on gender (e.g why do you like, or dislike of being a particular sex, and why, etc possibly leading to a consensus on better practices at household level), but also to include ''indicators'' in selecting proposals for micro-loans, prioirity being attached for tjhose with ''improved practices'' at household-community level .... 

I did a summary of the GALS approach for a UN-Women ''expert group meeting'' in Ghana (link below, paper also attached)

https://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/csw56/egm/Gobezie-RP-2-EGM-RW...

As I indicated above, the GALS tool is now selected as one of the 15 ''good practices'' by UN-FAO in their recent book:

 

GENDER TRANSFORMATIVE APPROACHES FOR FOOD SECURITY, IMPROVED NUTRITION AND SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE

http://www.fao.org/3/cb1331en/CB1331EN.pdf

I hope this would be helpful ... and I am happy to get your feed backs...

Getaneh ([e-mail])

[Rachel Wareham]

Dear Getaneh,

This looks super useful. Many thanks indeed. I will contact you by email as well.

Warm regards, Rachel

[Sevinc Rende]

Dear Rachel,

You may want to check SADA Women's Cooperative in Gaziantep, Turkey. Here is their web site > https://sadacoop.com/

This is a women's coop that extends beyond the promise of economic empowerment - it also operates as a center of social work through which women can access information on public goods and services.

all the best,

Sevinc

[Rachel Wareham]

Dear Sevinc

Thank you so much this is very useful to see this model.

Rachel

[Rituu B Nanda]

Hi Rachel,

This comes from my experience of implementation and evaluation. Thanks for making me reflect.

What does not work- lone focus on economic empowerment

What works- start from helping the women realise their own strengths, others realising the strengths of women, a common dream of the community. When this environment is created economic empowerment will flourish. So in a nutshell use a ecological lens, strength-based approach and start from social to economic empowerment. eg domestic workers in India they did not value themselves, they said that their families did not value the work they do, so could we expect them to negotiate salaries with their employers. See a blog I wrote https://aidscompetence.ning.com/profiles/blogs/community-life-compe...

Am happy to have a call if the above strikes a chord. All the best!

[Rachel Wareham]

Dear Rituu

Many thanks for your reflections and also for the link below from the UNW Webinar. 

Maybe we can schedule a call next week - if we can do it towards the end of the week then we will have our initial field research information in which can contribute to our conversation.

Warm regards, Rachel

[Rituu B Nanda]

UN Women Webinar on 25 Feb 2021 “Evaluation Lessons on Women Economic Empowerment (WEE)” to discuss lessons from our 2nd series of UN Women ESA Evaluation Knowledge Products produced in 2020.

We are pleased to share the recording from our recent webinar “Evaluation Lessons on Women Economic Empowerment (WEE)”. A Big Thank You to the panelists and the 30+ participants! The webinar recording is available here.

Best regards,

Caspar

 

Caspar Merkle

Regional Evaluation Specialist

UN Women Regional Office for Eastern and

Southern Africa

[Rachel Wareham]

Thank you Caspar this is very useful.

Warm regards, Rachel

[Prakash Kumar]

Dear Rachel,

 

I have been working on poverty alleviation program since last ten years especially women based community institutions such as SHGs and it federation. We have several livelihood interventions.

 

I would love to provide help if you clarify some sub sectors as well.  

 http://www.brlps.in/

With Regards!  

Prakash Kumar,

Senior Manager- Institutional Capacity building,

Bihar State rural livelihood Promotion Society, Jeevika

East Champaran, Bihar , India