Women’s economic empowerment: Avoiding solutions to the wrong problems
The term ‘women’s economic empowerment’ (or WEE) is increasingly ubiquitous in development programs, particularly among, but not limited to, those applying a market systems development (MSD) approach.
With this increasing profile, more projects are looking to engage in and report on women’s economic empowerment. However, without the right analysis, assumptions are often made about why women are not, or cannot, engage in economic activities. This can lead to the development of solutions for the ‘wrong’ problems.
In this blog we share with you the importance of undertaking WEE assessments, which can be standalone or part of a market systems or impact assessment. We draw on two project examples where WEE assessments revealed a mismatch between project team perceptions and the reality as reported by women.
Why does this matter?
Let’s look at a hypothetical scenario.
In a tourist destination in country X, very few women work in hospitality, despite the local industry desperately seeking staff and it being one of very few options for formal, local employment.
Project A assumed this was due to a culture that discouraged women working outside of the home. Interventions were therefore focused on creating activities that women could do at home to supply the tourism industry (handicrafts, produce etc).
Project B identified that women were not working in hospitality because of stigma associated with the industry combined with a lack of education/skills pathways.
The Project B team worked with community leaders to address the stigma and they also connected tourism industry partners with a vocational college to create short courses designed to meet the skills gap identified by local employers in the industry. Women enrolled and close to 100% of female graduates found jobs.
Project A directed resources at the ‘wrong’ problems, and, while some women may have benefited, an opportunity was missed. Project B identified the real ‘problems’ and designed solutions accordingly.
So how did our hypothetical Project B identify why women were not working in the local tourism industry?
The answer is simple. Research.
Research to challenge perceptions
Let’s move on from the hypothetical to reality. We look at two actual project examples of how quality research applied in an assessment challenged project assumptions of women’s economic empowerment issues.
Project 1: Balancing responsibilities.
A market assessment was undertaken across a selection of urban and peri-urban economic sectors in Liberia, with a focus on young adults (18-35 years). Sectors included maintenance services, food processing, agro-processing, renewable energy, waste management and micro-enterprises (ranging from beauty parlours to small shops and food stalls).
The market assessment challenged the below project team perceptions.
Outcome
The project now had new, important pieces of information. They better understood the incentives and ability of women in the demographic and urban/peri-urban locations to work and they identified the need for women to be able to balance economic activities with household responsibilities.
Importantly, women were finding ways to create economic opportunities and the project worked to build on already accepted local solutions that allowed women to engage in economic activity.
The assessment provided the project with new, more accurate information, allowing the project to work with industry and women to find tailored solutions to issues such as balancing household responsibilities with employment and income-generating opportunities. For example, a mobile booking app is being considered for services such as catering and tailoring, which would allow women running their home-based business to both market and manage bookings while balancing duties at home.
Project 2. Where are the men?
In Ethiopia, an impact assessment was undertaken as part of a routine monitoring trip to verify program monitoring data in relation to low levels of women’s participation in mobile banking activity.
With boots-on-the-ground, the project assumptions that women were not participating were immediately challenged. Women were everywhere, shopping, bargaining, negotiating and using the mobile banking app.
The question quickly became, Where are the men?
The project was supporting a mobile banking intervention that allowed users to register for the bank’s mobile phone app, which is then used to pay for day-to-day expenses. As people needed to register the details in order to access the services, a significant amount of user data was generated.
Registration data revealed that the majority of users who had signed up were men. It was subsequently assumed that women could not access the mobile banking service and the project began to seek a solution to this issue of women’s access.
However, field observations immediately challenged this aperception that women were not accessing or using the mobile banking service.
Outcome
The assessment resulted in a more accurate picture of how the mobile banking service was being accessed and utilised by men and women. The project now understood that access to mobile banking was generally not an issue for women (recognising there would be instances where some women would not be granted this access by men).
Importantly, the project adjusted its monitoring approach and began collecting data on: how many members within a household were using and for what purpose; ease-of-access; and how households manage who it was used by and for what.
This provided a richer, more useful dataset that gave a fuller picture of the access, use and impact of the mobile baking interventions.
Short-term investment in quality research leads to better solutions
The barriers women face and the opportunities they are presented with are best understood through a targeted WEE assessment underpinned by strong research practices. Solutions should never be based on assumptions, and assumptions are best verified or corrected through evidence.
WEE assessments can be done reasonably quickly as the quality of the assessment lies in the research strength of the assessment team, not in the quantity of data collected. Key research strengths include the ability to adapt questions when in the field, to know what questions to ask, how to probe for further information and how to verify and validate responses across interviewees.
These research skills will not always exist within a project team from the outset and they are best built through practical experience. Bringing in an experienced researcher to undertake an assessment while building the skills of your team is an investment in your project, in your team and, most importantly, in the women striving for economic empowerment.