Women's Economic Empowerment

Chomoka Savings Group Member Insights

Results from rapid surveys with 269 Chomoka members who use the Chomoka savings app to manage their group savings and record keeping from the Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLA). Some key results are:
* 35% said their quality of life was "very much improved"
* 30% spoke of investing in an existing business, and 16% investing in a new business.
* 36% said crop revenue very much increased, and 35% said crop production very much increased. Read More...

KUKUA NI KUJIFUNZA (GROWING IS LEARNING) PROJECT

the knowledge and skills acquired by participating women farmers brought positive changes in their lives. About 72.5% and 61.87% of the female and male respondents respectively reported that the trainings were useful in their day to day lives while 27.5% and 37.35% respectively reported that the trainings were very useful. However, 0.78% of female respondents reported that the trainings were not useful. Enabling gender equality and empowering vulnerable and rural small-scale women farmers was an important aspect in the KnK project. Consequently, rural small-scale women farmers were the most targeted in the KnK project. Out of 341 respondents from 15 villages, 260 (76.2%) were female, and 81 (23.8%) were male. People with disabilities were 101 (2.6%) out of the 3,825 direct participants of the KnK project.
Participants in the KnK project were given an opportunity to engage in soya production as one of the strategies to eradicate malnutrition. During the endline evaluation process, it was revealed that a high proportion of the KnK participants (99.2%) engaged in soya beans production. Before the KnK project, soya was not ranked as a food crop implying that farmers did not know its nutrition value, and that the crop was not considered as a reliable source of household income. The endline evaluation revealed that farmers realized the value of soya crop production, in terms of nutrition value and source of income. The mode of operandi of the KnK project laid a solid foundation that could make it sustain for years to come. The legacy of the project in terms of knowledge and skills acquired by participants, as well as the positive changes in their lives, may encourage them to sustain
activities implemented during the project. In fact, there is cause for participants to continue to engage in economic and social activities implemented by the KnK project. The KnK project had good institutional arrangements in place, and this made it easier to coordinate the project activities. Strong partnership with other stakeholders contributed significantly to overall performance of the project. Read More...

LEFTEMAP SISTA II: PROMOTING WOMEN’S ECONOMIC JUSTICE AND ENDING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS IN VANUATU

The Leftemap Sista II (LS2) project has been implemented by CARE Vanuatu since 2017 with funding from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) Australia NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP). The project purpose is “to support women, young women and girls, including those with disability, in rural and remote areas of Vanuatu to realise their rights to live free from violence, have increased economic opportunity and capacity to participate meaningfully in decisions that affect their lives in peace time and disaster.”1 CARE International in Vanuatu (CARE Vanuatu) commissioned a formative evaluation of the project in November 2021. The formative evaluation was required to assess progress against project outcomes for promoting women’s economic empowerment and reducing tolerance of VAWG and to produce actionable recommendations to inform the design of follow-on programming in line with the CARE Australia ANCP Design Framework.

The LS2 project has been implemented in Tafea - the southern-most province of Vanuatu – in 11 communities on the islands of Tanna and Futuna. The Tafea islands are characterised by their geographical isolation, environmental vulnerabilities, including a high risk of natural and geological hazards as well as slow onset hazards such as drought, strongly traditional culture, and limited service delivery by national government across all sectors – especially on the outer islands. Since the project Mid-Term Review in 2019, the LS2 project has been implemented to deliver two long-term outcomes, focussed on:
Outcome 1 – Women, young women and girls in Women’s Economic Livelihoods (WEL) groups in Tafea have increased access to and control over decision-making on economic resources at the household level.
Outcome 2 – Reduced tolerance of Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) and better access to services for survivors. Read More...

Foster good health and economic resilience (in the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond): Integrated Programme to Reduce the Medium-term effects of COVID-19 (IPIC) in Sudan

This is the final evaluation for the Kassala state-implemented "Foster Good Health and Economic Resilience (in the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond): Integrated Programme to Reduce the Medium-Term Effects of COVID-19 (IPIC)". The evaluation's goal is to assess the project's impact on the targeted beneficiaries and to assess the project's level of achievement, as well as to provide project stakeholders with information about the project's performance in relation to its stated objectives, from January 2020 to December 2022.
Relevance: The project was found to be relevant and responding to the real needs of the targeted communities. The selected communities are among the most vulnerable people in the state, with the majority of them living below the poverty line. According to the baseline survey conducted in October 2020, most of the targeted beneficiaries (53%) have incomes ranging from 10,000 to 20,000 SDG’s per month, which is equivalent to 22 to 44 USD.
Efficiency: The project was carried out with good and acceptable efficiency; the project completed 100% of its planned activities with a high level of participation from the targeted communities and important institutions, particularly the state ministry of health.
Effectiveness: The project was determined to be very effective and resulted in many changes among the targeted persons, as well as a substantial contraption for preventing COVID-19 and reducing its harmful influence on the targeted people, as evidenced by the fact that:
During the project's implementation period, a total of 47,268 people received COVID-19 knowledge and capacity building. This includes all people in the targeted areas, with the possibility of duplicate counting because some people received the awareness more than once. These capacity building and awareness programs were carried out through the execution of awareness campaigns, and the trained community outreached played important roles in disseminating information to their community members. The community outreached were carefully selected with gender (50% women) in mind, and they were trained and provided with the necessary COVID-19 prevention items.
The evaluation witnessed high level of impact and effectiveness in health sector, this ensured by the feedback of all consulted people by direct interviews, FGDs and KII interviews, in addition to the observation of the evaluation team. Different sorts of support offered to the three health facilities enhanced access to health care for 3015 HH (21,105 people), this representing all HH in the three villages.
Read More...

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

Promoting women’s meaningful participation and influence in governance processes in fragile and (post) conflict-affected settings (FCAS) is necessary to achieve inclusive development. Existing evidence suggests that by economically empowering women, they will be able to better participate in public decision-making processes. One such mechanism for women’s economic empowerment in Sudan is through Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLA), which are savings groups that offer women a space to come together to save money, take out small loans, and make investment decisions.
The mixed methods study conducted in seven villages across three states (East Darfur, South Darfur, and South Kordofan) sought to answer the research question “To what extent does women’s participation in savings groups affect their public participation in governance or decision-making processes?” Additionally, this study investigated the differences between women who participated in VSLAs under the Every Voice Counts (EVC) and Latter Day Saints Charities (LDS) Recovery Support for Vulnerable Households programmes as well as the differences from participation in different community groups (VSLAs, community advocacy groups, and other community-based organisations). These comparisons helped to offer an explanation of how different programmatic approaches from civil society and different community groups did or did not affect women members’ public participation.
Through the findings of this study, it can be concluded that indeed women’s participation in savings groups (VSLAs) affects their public participation in community governance structures and decision-making. The extent, though, is dependent on a variety of factors including the gender composition of the VSLA, the support of family and community members, the support and resources contributed by programmes and partners, social norms and exclusionary practices within the communities, and the will of the women members themselves. Read More...

Inspiring Married Adolescent Girls to Imagine New Empowered Futures (IMAGINE)

Each year around the world, almost 13 million girls under the age of 20 give birth, nearly 1 million of whom are younger than 15 (1). Child marriage is a strong indicator of early birth; 90% of adolescent pregnancies in the developing world are to girls who are already married; and married adolescents are more likely to experience frequent and early pregnancies than their unmarried peers (2, 3). Adolescent girls who undergo early marriage (often defined as prior to age 18) and subsequent rapid birth are more likely to experience a host of negative physical, mental and economic outcomes, including complications during pregnancy and delivery, higher rates of maternal mortality, and poor educational and economic outcomes for both themselves and their children (2-5). Read More...

LIVELIHOODS FOR RESILIENCE ACTIVITY

In October2019, CARE Ethiopia commissioned Care Plc. to conduct repeated annual intermediate result (IR) assessment of the Livelihoods for Resilience Activity over the coming three years, corresponding to the fiscal year of the project from 2019-2022. The study involves assessing project’s intermediate result that have been achieved based on the key performance indicators using information collected randomly selected project participating households as well as conducting multiyear trend analysis of changes in the well-being of project participants based on panel data are collected from 400 households . Read More...

AFED results reports (calculation methods and conclusions)

This report is set up to illustrate the calculation details of each intermediate and immediate outcome indicator and changes to some indicators of the project's performance measurement framework based on several data collection tools (interviews, questionnaires, focus group, survey, document review, survey and rolling profile). Below are the details in order of the indicators in the CMP. Read More...

SISTEMATIZACIÓN DE LA ESTRATEGIA DE MEDIOS DE VIDA Y EMPRENDIMIENTOS CON MUJERES REFUGIADAS Y MIGRANTES

El Proyecto “Alma Llanera”, para el logro de sus objetivos, puso en marcha cinco (05) procedimientos: evaluación inicial, regularización de estatus migratorio/validación de grados títulos, fortalecimiento de capacidades en emprendimiento/empleabilidad, seguimiento (inclusión laboral/desarrollo de emprendimientos) y evaluación de salida. Parte de estos procedimientos han pasado por una reestructuración con el fin de encaminar los esfuerzos que respondan a las condiciones causadas por la pandemia (COVID – 19). Read More...

Modelling Catalytic Impact at CARE

CARE has set an aspirational catalytic impact target of 200 million people. Catalytic impact is a new impact category that comes from Vision 2030’s focus on impact at scale. CARE defines catalytic impact as the “sustainable impact through the independent adoption or funding of solutions by governments, donors, the private sector, or open replication that originated with CARE and/or its partners”. CARE’s contribution to catalytic impact is indirect. That means it is the impact of our work after our direct programming efforts end or impact, as an indirect effect of our work. Read More...

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