Women's Economic Empowerment

Evidence Review of Women’s Groups and COVID-19: Impacts, Challenges, and Policy Implications for Savings Groups in Africa

It has been more than a year since COVID-19 lockdowns began, and economic recovery is a top priority for governments, donors, and international financial institutions (IFIs) worldwide, including in sub-Saharan Africa. Targeted investments that increase community resilience and spur economic growth will mitigate some of the negative economic consequences of this crisis. Investment in women’s economic resilience and social support is para- mount, considering that the crisis may reverse recent progress in gender equality. Around the world, women’s groups, such as self- help groups, savings groups, and health groups, play an important role in communities; evidence shows promise in their role in promoting women’s empowerment and economic outcomes. They encompass many models, but all bring women together around a shared purpose, such as financial inclusion, livelihoods, health, and women’s rights.
This brief focuses on one specific type of women’s group in sub-Saharan Africa: savings groups. Savings groups are a common form of women’s group and serve as a reliable mechanism for people in sub-Saharan Africa to save money. Members of savings groups pool small weekly savings into a common fund, which members can then borrow against, creating opportunities for investments and women’s empowerment. Savings groups show mixed, but promising, results in improving economic and social outcomes. This brief, written by a consortium of researchers and practitioners, presents emerging evidence from studies in diverse African contexts— with a deep dive into Nigeria and Uganda—on how COVID-19 has affected savings groups and how these groups have helped mitigate the pandemic’s negative consequences in sub-Saharan Africa.
This report is 23 pages long. Read More...

Baseline of “Mujeres en Empresa” project

This Baseline Report of the Women in Business-Strengthening the Approach Project provides information on the initial values ​​of the project indicators within the entire results chain, at the level of result, effect, process and product. This project corresponds to a third implementation phase that runs from April 2020 to March 2022, after two previous stages and successive development. The purpose of this project is "To scale the business entrepreneurship models of women developed by the project, through investment and commitment from the public and private sectors", through an intervention in 34 districts located in three regions ( Piura, Junín and Huancavelica).
The baseline of the project was carried out between the months of August and November 2020 and provided relevant starting information for the project. A major scale challenge represents women entrepreneurs who in a proportion less than 20% apply business management practices in the 34 districts targeted by the project. This population has a high level of informality, low educational level, medium-high poverty level of deprivation and is located for the most part in urban areas.
This report is 124 pages long. Read More...

Evaluation finale du Programme d’Amenagement du Delta Interieur du Niger (PADIN-II)

The Inner Niger Delta Development Program (PADIN-II) in the Mopti Region has been implemented in 24 Communes classified as vulnerable in four Circles of the Mopti Region in Mali. The program, lasting more than five years (Sept. 2013-June 2019), was implemented by a number of stakeholders: technical services and governorate, municipal authorities, NGOs and farmers' organizations. The NGO CARE-Mali was the main operator of the program, which was funded by the Embassy of the Netherlands in Bamako to the amount of 7.87 billion FCFA. The goal was to improve the living conditions of 20,000 households (or 120,000 people) of agro-pastoralists and fishermen in the Inner Niger Delta (DIN) and Sourou. The report is 104 pages long. Read More...

Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Program II 2016-2019

The Women-Girls Empowerment and Civil Society Governance Project (PEF-GS) called MAAYA DANBE in the local language, is funded by the Norwegian government through CARE Norway for a period of four (04) years (2016-2019) and aims to empower women and girls facing poverty, inequality, violence and social exclusion to claim and realize their human rights. The report is 82 pages long. Read More...

Beyond Economic Empowerment The Influence of Savings Groups on Women’s Public Participation in Fragile and (post) Conflict-Affected Settings Every Voice Counts

Women’s meaningful participation and influence in public processes in fragile and (post) conflict-affected settings (FCAS) is not only necessary to achieve inclusive development but is a fundamental human right. Unfortunately, in most contexts, men are overrepresented in decision-making and women do not have equal voice in the decisions that affect their lives. Some evidence suggests that the economic empowerment of women opens up opportunities for them to participate in public decision-making processes. One such means for economic empowerment in FCAS is savings groups. Savings groups are small, community-based groups that can provide members a safe space to save money, take small loans, and make investment decisions. Globally, women have made advances in improving their income and access to savings, as well as increased their entrepreneurial endeavours as a result of their participation in savings groups. Research also shows that women’s participation in savings groups improves their confidence, skills, and ability to influence household decision-making. This prompts the question: do these benefits of women’s participation in savings groups extend into the public sphere? In other words, does women’s participation in savings groups influence their public participation1 and decision-making? Through a mixed methods investigation across five countries (18 villages) in Africa and South Asia (Burundi, Mali, Niger, Pakistan, and Sudan), using CARE’s Gender Empowerment Framework, this research investigated the differences in outcomes between women who participate in savings groups under three CARE programmes: Every Voice Counts (EVC), Women on the Move (WoM), and Latter Day Saints Charities (LDS) Recovery Support for Vulnerable Households programmes [74 pages]. Read More...

RAPPORT DEFINITIF BASELINE PROSPER II Thriving Cocoa Community Cargill

Cette étude dont l’objectif était de déterminer la situation actuelle des ménages producteurs de cacao dans les treize (13) nouvelles communautés sélectionnées du Projet PROSPER II sur les quatre (04) axes d’intervention du projet : (i) la gouvernance communautaire ; (ii) l’inclusion financière et des compétences entrepreneuriales des femmes ; (iii) la diversification des sources de revenus des ménages agricoles incluant la nutriton ; (iv) les solutions alternatives communautaires au travail des enfants ; afin que puissent être mesurés les changements qui interviendront après les trois (03) prochaines années de mise en œuvre, en utilisant la même approche, a démontré que la situation actuelle desdits ménages n’est guère réluisante. C’est ce que l’analyse des résultats combinés aux sources sécondaires et primaires notamment la collecte de terrain et les discussions de groupe nous permet d’indiquer. [97 pages]. Read More...

A Social Impact Analysis of CARE’s ‘Enhancing Women’s Voice to STOP Sexual Harassment ’ Project

The Enhancing Women’s Voice to Stop Sexual Harassment project (STOP), an initiative of CARE Australia, has been working since 2017 to prevent and address the under-reported problem of sexual harassment in mainland Southeast Asia’s garment sector. At the time of writing, STOP is the only initiative that addresses this issue on a multi-country scale within the sub-region. Operating across a pool of garment factories in four Mekong countries—Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Vietnam—STOP aims to enhance women’s voice and economic rights at both the national and factory levels. Based on a socio-ecological model of violence prevention, CARE Country Offices (COs) are working with participating factories to create workplaces where female workers feel safe and experience less SH through the implementation of standardised SH reporting mechanisms and rigorous training programs. Supported by CARE Regional staff, each CARE CO engages with relevant country, regional and international stakeholders to strengthen the national regulatory environment to promote laws, policies and mechanisms to address SH in the workplace.

In 2018, CARE Australia commissioned a consortium of researchers from UNSW Sydney and UNSW Canberra to undertake an independent evaluation the STOP project and provide a separate Social Impact Assessment (SIA) focused on Cambodia STOP as the particular case study. The SIA is intended to complement the findings of the Final Evaluation (FE) of the STOP, as implemented in the other three project sites. The SIA and the Final Evaluation should be read as two parts of a single whole. The UNSW team drew upon a range of evaluative sources including factory surveys, focus group discussions and key informant interviews with factory workers, middle management and government officials. A conceptual framework is also advanced in order to better capture the nuances of social impact and gender transformation, and to provide a rigorous basis on which to evaluate STOP’s development and implementation in Cambodia. [94 pages]. Read More...

Integrated GBV prevention and response in Northeast Nigeria Endline Report

Context The ECHO-GBV prevention and response is an integrated GBV and livelihood project which was implemented as an entry point for CARE Nigeria into GBV-standalone initiatives. The project was funded by European Commission Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid (ECHO) under the supervision of CARE France. The project anticipated to provide direct service to displaced vulnerable women, men, girls, and boys and vulnerable host community members in Bama and Ngala, majority of the project participants were women and girls and indirectly benefits to the larger community. The intervention was anticipated to reach a total of 7,832 project participants. The global objective of the project was to contribute to the protection of the lives of vulnerable women, men, girls, and boys most affected by the crisis in northeastern Nigeria. The specific objective of the project was to enhance the access of newly displaced, vulnerable women, men, girls, and boys to life-saving GBV prevention and response services through coordinated, principled humanitarian support and community-based prevention activities. The project had six expected results:
• R 1. GBV prevention, care, and response services available and accessible to newly displaced individuals and vulnerable host community members at risk of or affected by GBV.
• R 2. Awareness, knowledge, and application of humanitarian principles and SEA prevention and response principles improved among humanitarian actors and security forces.
An end-line study was conducted as a part of the project monitoring and evaluation strategies and framework to review its projects before, during, and after the post-implementation phase. The endline was conducted by CARE Nigeria in August 2020 [31 pages]. Read More...

Building Sustainable Livelihoods for Refugees and the Poor, especially Women

The project “Building Sustainable Livelihoods for Refugees and the Poor, especially Women” is a sixteen-month’s project that was implemented by CARE Jordan between April 2019 and July 2020 and funded by Rotary International. The project focused on building the capacity of 175 Jordanian and Syrians entrepreneurs in order to create and accelerate local businesses through conducting small business building and mentoring sessions and distributing toolkits.
The project was implemented in East Amman area which is classified as one of the less fortunate areas in Jordan.
The overall goal of this project was building the capacity of entrepreneurs, community leaders, local organizations, and community networks to support economic development in impoverished communities; developing opportunities for productive work; and reducing poverty in underserved communities. [53 pages]
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ESTUDIO DE SATISFACCIÓN SOBRE SERVICIOS PROMOVIDOS POR EL PROYECTO ALMA LLANERA – INTEGRACIÓN SOSTENIBLE DE REFUGIADOS Y MIGRANTES VENEZOLANOS Final Evaluation

CARE Perú viene ejecutando desde setiembre del 2019 el Proyecto Alma Llanera (el Proyecto) en las regiones de Lima, Callao, La Libertad, Piura y Tumbes con el objetivo general de mejorar la autosuficiencia y la integración de los/as refugiados/as y migrantes venezolanos/as vulnerables en Perú a través de un mayor acceso a los servicios de protección, salud mental y apoyo a medios de vida.
El objetivo general de la investigación ha sido medir el nivel de satisfacción de la población atendida por el Proyecto ante los niveles de seguridad en y alrededor del lugar donde habitan, así como con los servicios de protección, salud mental y apoyo psicosocial que ellos/as o sus familias reciben del Proyecto y/o del Estado. 98 pages. Read More...

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