Resources

The economic and political empowerment of women continues to be a central focus for development agencies worldwide; access to medical care, education and employment, as well as women’s reproductive rights, remain key factors effecting women’s autonomy.  This book explores what women are doing to change their own personal circumstances, and it provides an in-depth analysis of collective action and institutionalized mechanisms aimed at changing structural relations.

This practitioner research, carried out by women’s empowerment organisation FAMM Indonesia, brings the voices of young women – a group consistently excluded from decision-making spaces about the allocation of local government resources – into the conversation about social accountability. Barriers to young (especially unmarried) women’s participation in public spaces include the prevailing view that doing so violates social norms, young women’s often low level of education, and family expectations. Many young women have internalised their marginalisation and lack the confidence to participate in community forums.

This paper describes participatory action research carried out in partnership with eight grassroots Indonesian women’s NGOs. Preliminary focus group discussions laid the foundation for a series of movement-building initiative workshops to strengthen rural young women’s leadership capacity, encourage critical awareness and develop their roles as community organisers. Young women’s social engagement can generate criticism and backlash, which may lead to their losing interest in public forums. As well as empowering participation in formal meetings, the research suggests that young women can overcome closed spaces through building on informal relationships and collaborations. And young women’s involvement in producing creative content (print, audio and multimedia) for use in community organising is used to strengthen their self-esteem and abilities.

The paper ends with a reflective conversation between Niken Lestari of FAMM and Francesca Feruglio of MAVC. They discuss the kind of capacity-building needed to enable young women to overcome barriers to their engagement in local governance spaces, and thus fulfil their own declared potential to contribute much more to the development of their communities.

'Voices of the Poor' is a series of three books that collates the experiences, views and aspirations of over 60,000 poor women and men. This second book of the series draws material from a 23-country comparative study, which used open-ended participatory methods, bringing together the voices and realities of 20,000 poor women, men, youth and children. Despite very different political, social and economic contexts, there are striking similarities in poor people's experiences. The common underlying theme is one of powerlessness, which consists of multiple and interlocking dimensions of illbeing or poverty. The book starts by describing the origins of the study, the methodology and some of the challenges faced. This is followed by an exploration of the multidimensional nature of wellbeing and illbeing. Most of the book comprises the core findings - the 10 dimensions of powerlessness and illbeing that emerge from the study - and is organised around these themes. These include livelihoods and assets; the places where poor people live and work; the body and related to this, accessing health services; gender roles and gender relations within the household; social exclusion; insecurity and related fears and anxieties; the behaviour and character of institutions; and poor people's ratings of the most important institutions in their lives. These dimensions are brought together into a many-stranded web of powerlessness, which is compounded by the lack of capability, including lack of information, education, skills and confidence. The final chapter is a call to action and dwells on the challenge of change.

Participatory methods and approaches are being adopted by many conservation-development organizations within the Central African sub-region. This paper details some of the limitations and challenges of participatory methods in light of the authors ten years of experience of working for agricultural and conservation organizations in Cameroon. One difficulty encountered is whether participatory processes actually revealed genuine community problems. Often, the true priorities of the community would lie beyond the scope and mandate of one development organization. Another major impediment is the minimal participation of women, whom, even when present at PRA sessions, are limited in participating due to social conventions. In conclusion, the author urges caution in the use of participatory methods and approaches.

Indonesia is in a process of moving from authoritarian to democratic rule, and to more decentralised forms of governance. This paper sheds light on efforts to open space for women's participation in politics through the work of PPSW, a Jakarta-based women's NGO which helps women to change the way they think about themselves, and to analyse and understand gender relations at all levels of society from household to national government. It discusses the long-term process required to strengthen women politically; advocacy that involves education, consciousness raising and empowerment at the most basic and individual level.

This pack contains four documents drawing together the themes of gender and participation. It has also been translated into Arabic. The documents are as follows: (1) Gender and Participation - Overview Report (Supriya Akerkar) 31 pp. This report looks at convergences between approaches to gender and to participation, how these have been played out, and how they have been or could be constructively integrated into projects, programmes, policies and institutions. (2) Report Summary 4 pp (3) Gender and Participation - Support Resources Collection (Emma Bell and Paola Brambilla) 43 pp. This includes summaries of key resources, practical examples of approaches from around the world, examples of what tools used in participatory development can achieve and networking and contact details of relevant organisations. (4) Development and Gender In Brief - Gender and Participation (Issue 9)

This information pack is provided to give an introduction to gender and citizenship. It contains three documents: an overview report, a supporting resources collection, and the InBrief, Bridge Bulletin, Issue 14 on Gender and Citizenship. The report looks at the importance of both citizenship and gender to development theory and practice. It discusses key debates in the literature on gender and citizenship and attempts to illustrate how reframing citizenship from a gender perspective can introduce broader rights and political participation as development goals. It also highlights how understanding the ways in which different groups define and experience citizenship can enable development actors and the citizens they work with to make such rights and participation a reality. The supporting resource collection is made up of summaries of key texts, case studies, tools, guidelines and other materials relating to gender and citizenship. Networking and contact details, and links to web resources are also included. The included issue of InBrief looks at the ways in which working with ideas of citizenship can help promote gender equality. An approach to development that starts from the perspective of people as citizens can enable development actors to support struggles for rights and participation in decision-making for those marginalised on the basis of gender. This involves re-framing citizenship rights and responsibilities to include the needs of women and to ensure their access to policy and institutions. Case studies and articles include experiences from Egypt, Bangladesh, Mexico, Namibia, India, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and Rwanda.