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This paper reports on the activities of the Women in Fishing (WIF) programme which aims to The article reflects on the obstacles to womens participation in both an initial meeting on the theme of social security rights of fisher women and also in the women's associations formed as a result of the meeting.
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This article based on a case study of the use of REFLECT in Bangladesh, suggests that when REFLECT is linked to a savings and credit programme it can promote a change in women's status.
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This article outlines an approach to help communities explore market opportunities for their business ideas using PRA tools, that were piloted with the Itoseng Sewing and Knitting Women's Group in South Africa. A three month action learning book keeping and marketing course was held for 18 women, many of whom had low levels of literacy and from these the women developed a marketing plan for their business. In this paper some of the marketing tools used that were adapted from PRA methods are described.
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This IDS Source Pack aims to give an introduction to micro-finance and micro-enterprise and provide a comprehensive listing of other good sources of information on the subject. An introductory article by Christian Sorenson gives an overview of the subject. This is followed by some readings which include: a look at how to identify the poorest clients around the world; details of how participatory monitoring and evaluation can strengthen a street youth micro-entrepreneurs programme in the Dominican Republic; and information about the work of a rural women's bank in India. The last section gives details of around twenty recommended materials on micro-finance.
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This study reports on the problems faced by rural Pakistani women to engage themselves in various income-generating activities, such as poultry and sewing. These activities are important in improving women's status as 'earning' family members in the household, as well as positively impacting on household security and children's nutrition. The participatory approaches used included semi-structured interviews, causal flow diagrams, and problem ranking of activities. The main finding presented is to provide proper marketing facilities and credit to purchase electric sewing machines for the further expansion of enterprises.
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A group of development analysts had a dialogue about labour market, trade and poverty issues in 2004. They preceded the dialogue with exposure to the realities of the lives of six women from the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) in Gujarat, India. The struggles faced by these women provided the frame for the technical dialogue that followed. This is a compendium of personal and technical reflections of the analysts involved in the exercise. While the personal reflections focus on the experience of the participants, the technical reflections give an economic analysis of the situation of the women. The exercise was part of the Cornell-SEWA-WIEGO exposure and dialogue programme aimed at starting a dialogue between mainstream economists, SEWA activists, and WIEGO (Women) researchers around key assumptions of neo-classical economics and neo-liberal economic policies, which trouble ground level activists and researchers working on issues of employment and labour. This project is described in an appendix in this document. An epilogue examines the use of exposure methodology for dialogue and key issues.
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Research shows that the more resources reach the family through women, the greater the impact on poverty reduction. Therefore, if the main objective is to reduce poverty, CCGD (Collaborative Centre for Gender and Development) of Kenya, argues that there is a need to mainstream gender equity in the budget to ensure that more resources reach the households through women. This paper examines the task of CCGD to ensure that gender is taken on board in the National Economic Policies, e.g. PRSP (Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper) and the subsequent national budgets. The CCGD project of engendering budgetary policies is built on recommendations made at a workshop organised by the CCGD in 1997 where a dialogue between the government and other stakeholders in order to influence budgetary policies and processes to mainstream gender was launched. Since then and after a recommendation from the at the time Director of Planning in the Ministry of Planning and Development to focus where the distribution of resources takes place, women NGOs in Kenya have been concentrating their efforts on the activities of the Ministry of Finance and Planning. For the last three years the project has been implementing the programme on engendering the national budget and economic policies. The paper analyses the project and its implementation and lessons learned, and gives recommendations for the future.
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The article argues that strategic planning is crucial for tackling poverty, and looks at the anti-poverty strategy and plan of action in Bulgaria. The article first describes poverty in Bulgaria, and how low levels of income and low levels of employment make women particularly vulnerable. The author looks in detail at the anti-poverty strategy and plan of action as strategic planning tools, and argues that the planning processes have to be made fully participatory and reflect the vision of the poor and vulnerable people. To achieve this, the author suggests that NGOs and CSOs have to be supported further through training in strategic thinking to enable efficient and effective participation in planning processes.
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