An evidence paper for the DFID PPA Learning Group on Gender:

What Works to Achieve Gender Equality, Women’s Empowerment and Rights?

1. Introduction

‘For me empowerment is the ability to create a new situation, a new condition, a new act, a new story for women in society. This gives us power…’ Cristina Buarque, Secretary for Women’s Policies, Pernambuco State, Brazil[1]

This discussion paper examines evidence in support of interventions which work to bring about change on gender equality and women and girls’ empowerment. It is guided by examples of effective interventions provided by members of the DFID PPA Learning Group on Gender together with recent evidence on what works to achieve gender equality, women’s empowerment and rights such as the Pathways of Women’s Empowerment (‘Pathways’) programme[2] and recent reviews of evidence of effective interventions in areas such as education, violence against women and girls (VAWG) and economic empowerment.[3]

The following key definitions inform the Theory of Change and this evidence paper.

Box One: Definitions
Empowerment: involves the ability of a woman to control her own life. This means not only having equal capabilities (such as health and education), access to resources and opportunities (such as employment) but also the agency to use those capabilities, resources and opportunities (such as through leadership opportunities and participation in political institutions),whether at the individual, household, community or societal level.[4] Empowerment encompasses social, economic and political empowerment. Full and equal empowerment requires that all people have voice – meaning the capacity to speak up and be heard in public and private spheres and the agency to shape and share in discussions, discourse and decisions that affect them.[5]
Social empowerment: involves changing society so that women are respected and recognised on the terms by which they want to live, not on terms dictated by others and so that women have a sense of autonomy and self-worth.[6]
Economic empowerment: is women’s capacity to contribute to and benefit from economic activities on terms which recognise the value of their contribution, respect their dignity and make it possible for them to negotiate a fairer distribution of returns.[7]
Political empowerment: is about equity of representation in political institutions and enhanced voice of marginalised women so that women engage in making the decisions that affect their lives and the lives of others like them.[8]
Gender equality: is the situation where women and men are recognised as equal and are treated equally with the same status, power, resources, responsibilities and opportunities for fulfilling their potential.[9]
Women’s Rights:are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages, although not yet recognised in all societies. This includes objectives which are not necessarily covered by the term gender equality such as promoting women’s rights to live free from fear of gender based violence, or to have control over their reproductive lives.[10]Gender Mainstreaming: [I]s a strategy for recognising women's as well as men's differing concerns and experiences and ensuring these are an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres so that women and men benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated.[11]
Transformative approach: Interventions that seek to target the structural causes as well as the symptoms of gender inequality leading to a lasting change in the power and choices women have over their own lives, rather than just a temporary increase in opportunities.
Women’s rights organisations:Women-led organisations working to advance gender equality and women’s rights.[12]

Case studies included in each section are illustrative examples of promising approaches and are not intended to suggest that other interventions are necessarily ineffective. It is also important to note that interventions should always be guided by the following core principles:

Listening to Women / Understanding what works to empower women must begin with listening to local women and be generated from women’s own experiences. There is no one size fits all approach. Women and girls should be supported to articulate what will transform their lives in the long term and to become the agents of their own empowerment..Supporting and partnering with women’s rights organisations is essential for external actors to understand the most effective ways to navigate existing local power structures and the challenges and risks facing women.
Context matters / Interventions must be designed according to each specific context. What works in one country or community context to transform the lives of women will not necessarily have the same impact in another context. For example, the Pathways research found that the success of interventions such as primary education and microcredit initiatives are contingent on time as well as location.[13] While a recent review of girls’ education research studies concluded that an understanding of local, national and global context is key to the success of interventions.[14]
Assessing Barriers / Interventions must take into account the multi-dimensional structural barriers and power relations which impact on women’s lives. This should include an assessment of barriers to women’s social, political and economic empowerment in each context including often overlooked forms of insecurity such as sexual harassment, gender and sexuality norms and control of women’s mobility.[15] Any possible backlash as a result of women’s empowerment programming must also be identified and steps should be taken to mitigate any potential risks for women.
Addressing Intersectionality / Interventions must acknowledge the multiple discriminations which women and girls can face and respond to the different ways in which gender inequality intersects with other inequalities such as race, disability, caste, age and sexuality to further marginalise particular groups of women. These intersecting identities contribute to unique experiences of oppression and impact on access to rights and opportunities so that eachwoman and girl experiences discrimination differently.Interventions should meet the needs of marginalised women including disabled, rural, indigenous, elderly, ethnic minority and widowed women.

The evidence base in relation to women’s empowerment is still evolving and there are a number of existing gaps and limitations which impact on an assessment of effective interventions:

a) Evidence is limited in relation to some intervention types. For instance, a review by ODI of evaluations of women’s economic empowerment interventions found that the majority of empirical evidence was focussed on financial service products with limited evaluation of projects working on legal and regulatory frameworks, unions, and fair employment and asset provision.[16] There were also a limited number of evaluations looking at the economic empowerment of adolescent girls.

b) Evaluations tend to measure short term change (one year or less) which limits analysis of longer term impacts such as changes to social norms. For example, a World Health Organisation review of 58 interventions to engage men and boys in achieving gender equality in health found that relatively few projects with men and boys go beyond the pilot stage or a short term timeframe;[17]

c) Evaluation of interventions have tended to focus on the individual level and overlook impacts at the household, community and societal levels; and

d) Data collection, indicators and the quality of evaluations differ widely making comparison between different interventions challenging. For example, a recent review found that out of 254 empirical evaluations analysing the economic empowerment of women and girls, only 28 per cent were of a high enough quality to be included in the review stage.[18]

2. Women’s Empowerment and programming approaches

The core of empowerment involves the ability of a woman to control her own life. Kabeer defines empowerment as ‘a process of change during which those who have been denied the ability to make choices acquire such anability.’[19]Women’s empowerment is a multi-dimensional process that involves many aspects of life including economic power, safety and security, education, health and well-being, family relationships and political participation and influence.Each of these dimensions may impact on the other. Interventions to achieve gender equality, women’s empowerment and rights must be situated within a gender analysis to understand each specific context which covers social, political and economic empowermentand which considers the continuum of inequality in both private and public spheres.

The various approaches to gender programming interventions are set out in Figure One. To create real and sustainable change for women and girls, interventions must be gender-transformative. This means that they must reflect a lasting change in the power women and girls have to exercise choices and agency over their own lives by addressing the underlying structural causes of gender discrimination. The need for transformative programming is supported by the Pathways research programme which found that ‘a broader transformative model that addresses the structural constraints that women face in their everyday lives is the most effective framework for women’s empowerment in the long term.’[20] Similarly, a recent review for DFID into the evidence to support various interventions targeting VAWG concluded that gender transformative approaches are more effective than interventions focussed on attitude and behaviour change.[21] At the other end of the spectrum, it is important to ensure that interventions do not reinforce or take advantage of gender inequalities and stereotypes in pursuit of a project outcome. Programmes which take an ‘instrumentalist’ approach to gender equality – presenting women’s rights as a route towards achieving other development goals, rather than as an end in itself – run the risk of being gender exploitative if they ignore or reinforce the root causes of gender inequality.Gender Programming Continuum[22]

As set out in the Theory of Change, it is useful to consider four different levels of intervention:

  1. Individual level (the intimate realm of power) – interventions which focus on influencing an individual’s self-confidence, self-esteem, knowledge or self-awareness.
  1. Household level (the private realm of power) – interventions which target relationships within the domestic sphere including within the family, within marriage or within sexual relationships.
  1. Community level (the community realm of power) – interventions which aim to change social and cultural norms, values and practices which condone or reinforce gender inequality at the community level.
  1. Societal level (the public realm of power) – interventions which seek to influence formal institutions, laws, policies and practices to support and promote women’s rights and empowerment as well as strengthening institutional capacity and accountability.

This paper considers each of these levels of intervention in turn but it is important to note that change is rarely confined to one level. Interventions may target more than one level or changes in one level may inadvertently contribute to change in another. Further, if programmes are designed carefully supporting empowerment in one domain – economic, social or political –they can have wider positive effects across different kinds of empowerment. For instance, in a cash transfer programme through a mobile banking system in Malawi, Pathways researchers noted women beneficiaries receiving identity documents to access their economic entitlements under the transfer scheme felt strongly politically empowered by the legal recognition of these documents.[23]

Measuring Empowerment
What is empowering to one woman is not necessarily empowering to another. This can make evaluating programme impact challenging. However, the following overarching principles have been found to increase the effectiveness of evaluation approaches seeking to measure transformative change for women and girls:[24]
Contextual gender analysis which considers gender-related norms and behaviours should form part of evaluation design.
Monitoring and evaluation systems should be developed and agreed with partners and women’s rights organisations.
Mixed method evaluations, using both qualitative and quantitative indicators to complement each other, and multidimensional indicators, have been proven to most effectively capture transformative change.
Tackling gender discrimination which involves changing social norms can be a very slow process and requires measurement of long term impact.
Participatory approaches to evaluation can provide a forum for women to voice their concerns and articulate their needs and experiences. The process of defining women’s rights issuesin order to select indicators can itself be empowering - generating increased awareness and impacting on attitudes in the community.[25]

A growing body of evidence suggests that multi-level holistic approaches which combine a number of interventions are the most effective for achieving women’s empowerment. For example, a recent review of 169 girls’ education research studies suggested that a mixture of combined interventions is most effective for improving gender equality and enhancing girls’ education.[26] Similarly, a rapid review for DFID into the evidence on the effectiveness of VAWG interventions concluded that multi-component interventions are more effective than single component interventions to prevent VAWG.[27] A long term approach is also necessary for sustainable change. Five years should be the minimum period in order for programmes to deliver longer lasting effects on gender inequality and a project length of ten years would enable more sustainable interventions and the development of a knowledge base about processes of change.

Plan International’s PRAAC programme (see below) provides insight into the interrelated processes of change that can contribute to increased gender equality. These include interventions which target the individual level including women’s and men’s consciousness, and women’s access to resources, together with changes at a broader level such as informal cultural and social norms and exclusionary practices and formal institutions.

Multi-level approach to Gender equality strategies in the PRAAC Zimbabwe program[28]
Promoting Rights and Accountabilities in African Communities (PRAAC) is a five-year (2011-2016), multi-country program implemented by Plan International Kenya, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Gender equality strategies form a core component of PRAAC and the programme has taken a multi-level approach.
For example, in the Zimbabwe programme, participatory learning and action activities formed the starting point for understanding the perspectives and experiences of diverse groups of women and men in the communities. Further work included rights awareness sessions on discrimination against women and girls including the right to live free from violence, sexual and reproductive health rights, and women’s economic and farming rights.The program has also delivered training and ongoing mentoring for community volunteers, traditional leaders and public servants on anti-domestic violence laws, other relevant laws (such as divorce and inheritance laws), gender-based violence and counselling methods. A key strategy of the program is to engage with men around gender equity issues: as well as training for male community leaders which included identifying and supporting male gender equality advocates in the communities and facilitating community dialogues.At the same time, PRAAC worked with local service-provider partners and community volunteers to support marginalised women’s and girls’ access to mediation and counselling services, to traditional village courts or police and the legal system. At the national level, policy-influence work has involved media monitoring of GBV in the press, briefing parliamentarians and heads of department, facilitating civil society-government stakeholder forums and other engagement (in coalition with civil society partners) around gaps in the implementation of the Domestic Violence Act.Project experience in the first two years is beginning to show evidence of changes in gender attitudes, norms and practices. Project participants have reported a reduction in domestic violence, changing attitudes among leaders and community members around VAWG, shifts in gender relations within the household, and a broader acceptance of, and increase in, women in community leadership roles.

It is also essential that programming which is focussed on women’s empowerment identifies and mitigates any potential risks to women which may occur, particularly in the initial stages of empowerment initiatives. For example, in the short to medium term, violence against women may not be reduced and mayin fact be exacerbated when women’s control over economic assets, including paid work, increases.[29] Similarly, women can be specificallytargeted for violence as they increasetheir participation in public life andpolitics such as voting in elections or standing as candidates.[30]Women human rights defenders and women’s rights organisations also frequently face backlash, particularly in a context of growing political and social conservatism and a resurgence of fundamentalisms.[31]Appropriate steps must be put in place to mitigate and respond to these risks such as support for network building and coordination between groups so that no one group or individual is targeted and protection mechanisms for women human rights defenders.[32]

3. The importance of supporting women’s collective organising[SS1]

Supporting collective action and women’s rights organisations is integral to a transformative approach. The Pathways research found that interventions aimed at supporting women’s capacities to act together and creating supportive relationships among women are much more likely to have a transformative effect than interventions aimed at individual women.[33] Similarly, a growing evidence base demonstrates the reach and transformation that ispossible when long term and serious investment is made in women’s organisations working to build women’s collective power for change.[34]

Women’s organising is critical to identify and challenge the patriarchal structures which prevent women and girls from enjoying and exercising their full human rights. It is an intensely political and long-term process which must be led by women and girls themselves.[35] Women’s rights organisationsfocus on women-led solutions that are firmly rooted in local communities, contexts and needsand are expert at delivering programmes that are appropriate to women’s multiple needs. They also provide a unique gateway to reach marginalised women (including disabled, rural, indigenous, elderly, ethnic minority and widowed women) and understand the challenges facing women at the household and community level, such as childcare, household responsibilities and community attitudes towards women’s rights.