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This article explores the economic empowerment programs for women in the Solomon Islands and the obstacles they encounter due to cultural norms surrounding entrepreneurship. The programs aim to enhance skills in areas like bookkeeping and business management, but the article argues that they often overlook the social and cultural factors that influence entrepreneurship in the Solomon Islands. It examines two key themes: the challenges of refusing credit requests from family members and the intersection of cultural notions of success with business. The article stresses the importance of striking a delicate balance between commercial and cultural economic agencies and highlights the additional layers of negotiation and conditions that women entrepreneurs face. It emphasizes the need to involve men in economic empowerment programs to raise awareness and support women's leadership in business. The article also suggests the necessity of a culturally sensitive approach in designing and implementing these programs, as well as incorporating culturally based indicators in monitoring and evaluation processes. [Extracted from the article]

Equitable futures depend upon better employment outcomes for young women. We use a skills ecosystems approach to explore how youth skills development programs can maximise their impact in highly gendered societies and labour markets. While improving employment outcomes and incomes for young women, BRAC's STAR program cannot withstand Bangladesh's deep-rooted and socially restrictive norms and practices. Short-term successes are diluted as family pressures and commitments take precedent over young women's economic lives. Adding a temporal dimension to the concept of skills ecosystems, these findings highlight that maintaining these impacts requires constant renegotiation and advocacy to challenge the structural obstacles within households and labour markets and within national policies and investments that constrain their longer-term economic empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can NGOs implement rights-based gender equality programs when donor focus on the area is shrinking? This paper explores how one development program has made strategic choices incorporating the interests of multiple stakeholders, addressing donor interests while simultaneously addressing the needs of local communities. It examines the evolution of BRAC's Polli Shomaj, a rural women's civil society organisation designed to challenge power structures through collective action in rural Bangladesh. It draws on interviews with program staff and existing program literature to find that over time, BRAC leadership has narrowed its program focus to shed its broad transformative agenda to focus solely on gender equality through a combination of service delivery and rights-based approaches. The paper suggests that while it is possible for NGOs to promote gender equality through a combination of rights-based and service-delivery approaches, greater focus is needed on challenging power structures to bring about lasting structural change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BRAC's focus on women and community organisations in the 1970s was lauded as bringing forth "a quiet revolution." We explore the evolution of BRAC's selected programs that built community forums and argue that while BRAC successfully retained its focus on women's inclusion, its approach to collective empowerment is marked by contradictions. The shifts in funding structures that emphasised individual empowerment, the organisation's emphasis on scaling up programs at the expense of investing in building community organisations, and the accommodation of patriarchal norms to prevent backlash from local actors – all resulted in trade-offs, limiting programming on collective empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grounded in a qualitative case study design and relying on key informant interviews and focus group discussion, this study assesses the influence of the cassava dough enterprise on women's economic empowerment in a rural Ghanaian community. Women in the study community are marginalised in accessing arable land, which is a critical livelihood asset. Cassava dough processing, which is a women-dominated activity, has become an alternative and lucrative business for women. Women's engagement in cassava dough processing is driven by myriad factors that are rooted in their sociocultural settings and gender norms. Women engaged in cassava dough processing and sales have enhanced their economic empowerment through increased access to regular income, improved financial autonomy and saving behaviour, and contributed to community development. The study recommends the need to prioritise policies, programs, and interventions that create an enabling environment for community-based women's economic empowerment strategies in poor and vulnerable communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the state of women's empowerment in fishing communities in the Bicol Region, the Philippines. Using the Alkire-Foster (AF) methodology, the results revealed that the ability to participate in making decisions related to productive resources (e.g. boat, fishing gear, fish processing equipment) and having access to and control over such resources were the key factors that contribute to women's disempowerment in the study area. Furthermore, women were found to be in a less favourable position due to lower levels of formal education, large household size, limited sources for livelihood diversification, patriarchal norms shaping household headship, and meagre share in household income. On a positive note, control over household income and leadership in the community emerged as sources of women's empowerment. Drawing on these findings, efforts to empower women should focus on providing them more access to formal and informal education, social infrastructure, microfinance services, and labour-saving technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women and girl safe spaces (or "safe spaces") are increasingly being implemented in contexts of forced displacement. With little research on safe spaces, their design and implementation has often relied on toolkits and practice guides that standardise how empowerment is defined and pursued within them. Drawing on my feminist ethnography of a safe space for Syrian refugee women in Beqaa valley, Lebanon, I share four women's stories of (dis)empowerment in and because of the safe space. These women's stories highlight the unintended negative consequences when meanings attached to empowerment are imposed by the organisation or not shared among women. Embracing collective self-determination over definitions of empowerment and its pursuit, instead, enables women to negotiate, organise, and work together to determine the shared meaning and future direction, because having collective power over the definition and pursuit of empowerment is also having power over what is deemed possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent development of mabé (half-pearl) aquaculture has enabled new livelihood opportunities for remote coastal communities and peri-urban areas of Fiji and Tonga. This article explores how specific mabé projects have provided socio-economic benefits to individuals and groups engaged in mabé aquaculture and handicraft production and considers how these benefits contribute towards women's empowerment. We examine both the economic dimensions of empowerment as well as more intangible aspects of agency. While mabé aquaculture and the production of mother-of-pearl handicrafts in Fiji and Tonga is currently limited by market constraints and is reliant on government and donor support, women and men can earn supplementary incomes that are important for supporting diverse rural livelihoods in a manner that is culturally compatible and rewarding. Importantly, social and cultural aspects of these initiatives enabled many women to think differently about themselves, their capabilities, and their aspirations for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peer education has been a popular strategy in health promotion campaigns willing to reach large populations at manageable costs. The modality has been critiqued for engaging a poorly trained and cheap workforce; however, it is still broadly utilised in development programs. By focusing on qualitative data obtained from program stakeholders for the final evaluation of an intervention to address child marriage in Nepal that made use of peer educators, this article explores how properly supported peer education programs may lead to women's empowerment, activism, and cultural change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This editorial discusses various topics related to gender and development in different countries. It covers subjects such as women in sport in South Sudan, enterprise development in Nigeria, STEM education for women in Bangladesh, violence against women in Mexico, women's empowerment in fishing communities in the Philippines, and more. The articles highlight barriers and challenges faced by women in these contexts, as well as potential solutions and areas for improvement. The editorial also includes a reflection on the Oxfam Novib Inclusive Language Guide and a book review. [Extracted from the article]

This study focuses on the implications of various work environments on women's empowerment based on a survey of women employed in various occupations in a remote urban area. The results reveal that women employed in employer's enterprise outside the employer's dwelling are more likely to make or influence financial and non-financial decisions within the household. These women are also more likely to influence social decisions outside the household. Women engaged with home-based traditional industries are less likely to influence decisions. Women associated with SHG, trust, voluntary organisations, or federations more likely to make or influence decisions. Access to alternative employment has a positive association with decision-making. Women employed in employer's enterprise outside the employer's dwelling and women not having any specific workplace are more likely to consider a different profession for their daughters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women's empowerment is recognised as an important strategy to foster gender equality. Its achievement requires an approach that targets normative and structural drivers of gender inequality. Nigerian women continue to face socio-economic challenges and are unable to exercise their agency within their homes. We evaluated a cluster-randomised control trial that aimed to increase women's household decision-making by working with couples in three critical areas: spousal relations, and financial and reproductive decision-making. The trend overall suggested gains in some domains of decision-making but the results were mixed. More research is needed for improved context-specific measurement of decision-making as well as programme adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development projects play a crucial role in kickstarting and promoting women's empowerment in agriculture. This paper is a conversation starter on how women can be included in the agenda to mechanise agriculture in Africa. It investigates the potential of empowering women as vital actors in the mechanisation value chain, by analysing the perceptions and experiences of the trained women tractor operators. The findings showed that the involvement of women in mechanisation pushed them beyond their comfort zones and offered them a new self-identity with new opportunities previously reserved for men. It also broadened their social capital through the formation of an association for women operators which ensured their representation at a local and national level. For young women, being an operator is the only alternative they have to one day owning a tractor-for-hiring service business because they do not own land or have capital, which is often a precondition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discrimination and subordination of women have contributed to lower economic and social development levels for women, especially in developing countries. Empowerment of women enables them to gain control of their lives by increasing their participation in the economy and all levels of decision making. This study used mixed method research to examine the social and economic empowerment of women experienced in farming groups. The groups have contributed to women's empowerment. However, the individual abilities of women are vital for empowerment to occur among members. Development support organisations should focus on improving women's capabilities alongside the mobilisation of group establishment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One criticism of how women's empowerment is operationalised in development interventions is the lack of consideration of its context specificity. This quantitative study investigates how women participants in development projects in Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam perceive the meaning of empowerment and the associated positive effects of participating in empowerment activities. The findings indicate that women's ideas of empowerment differ according to their cultural, economic and social contexts as well as from donor-driven definitions. Both similar and distinct positive effects of participating in empowerment activities are felt, highlighting the importance of incorporating what women prioritise when planning empowerment projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many NGOs in India strive to empower women to lead through various programmes, but their effectiveness in the participants' lives is not known. This article reports on a descriptive cross-sectional study that used authentic leadership theory to explore an NGO's self-help group programme's ability to empower women by building their leadership capacity and self-efficacy to lead. Participants reported an increased capacity and self-efficacy to lead in their daily lives. Women who were in the programme for a longer period reported greater self-efficacy to lead, as compared to those who recently joined, showing the significance of women's empowerment programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development programmes centred on microfinance have experienced varied levels of success, especially in Bangladesh. Although impact assessments of these development interventions conclude that poor participants' access to credit is enhanced, the same empirical analysis reveals less encouraging results on women's empowerment and community transformation. Food for the Hungry's Family and Community Transformation (FCT) programme represents an alternative model to the traditional microcredit approach to development by emphasising internal savings, holistic training, and the build-up of community-wide social capital. Group graduation to sustainable independence takes a joint commitment of up to ten years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores key elements of women's empowerment based on findings from fieldwork in South Sulawesi, Indonesia. It argues that efforts to promote women's empowerment should recognise that empowerment requires women to make their own strategies to suit their particular circumstances. A conceptualisation of empowerment is proposed and this framework consists of 4Cs (capability, confidence, choice, commitment) and 3As (awareness, achievement, acknowledgment). The 4Cs and 3As reflect the personal, relational, and multidimensional aspects of empowerment. The framework talks uniquely to the context where women in this study live, and particularly how they engage in an empowerment project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The international development community is focusing on women's empowerment as a key means of achieving high-level development goals. In this context, many development programmes, such as Feed the Future, take a market-based approach to empowerment focusing on access to and control over resources as the primary drivers of change. This kind of empowerment programming, however, often loses sight of power relations which structure access to resources and opportunities. This article, therefore, explores the limitations of economic-based approaches to empowerment that permeate the international development space, and provides strong evidence that a broader multi-dimensional approach is needed to support women's empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parivartan Plus is a structured sports mentoring programme for girls, implemented in a Mumbai slum where social expectations around gender-appropriate behaviour and good parenting restricts girls’ mobility and visibility in public spaces. This article presents practice-based learning from developing and implementing programme theory to empower girls in achieving changes in their everyday social interactions at home and beyond. Gender and social norms theory were combined with local practical wisdom to turn main implementation challenges into opportunities. The article reflects on the strategies that gave visibility to, and achieved community endorsement for, the erosion of restrictive gender norms while ensuring community safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy poverty is a major challenge in the developing world, with an estimated 1.2 billion people lacking household electricity. Although energy poverty affects both men and women, the burden of household energy supply disproportionately affects women in low-income countries in the developing world. This article examines the impact of a women-oriented solar lighting social enterprise, Solar Sister, in Tanzania for both solar entrepreneurs and customers, demonstrating that solar lanterns positively impact household savings, health, education and women’s economic productivity and empowerment. Our study argues that Solar Sister’s approach is successful because of its explicit gender lens. Providing energy access to women translates to a pro-woman, pro-child, and pro-family development intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article determines the extent to which the food insecurity status of women in South Africa can be reduced by participating in gardening around the homestead, using survey data from 207 women farmers. A household food insecurity average score index and an empirical model that accounts for observed and unobserved factors contributing to food insecurity were employed. The findings reveal that participating in the programme worked to reduce the food insecurity of women significantly, and also show other policy factors that need to be taken into consideration to reduce food insecurity. We recommend that policy interventions towards promoting high participation by women are a sustainable strategy to address food insecurity and to achieve the 2030 agenda targeting an end to poverty and hunger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]