Women Empowerment – Committed Actions
Empowerment of women started receiving committed actions from various governments. It was also perhaps because empowerment of women was identified as a powerful means for the end – gender equality. Social Summit (1993) in Copenhagen and the International Conference on Population and Development (1994) in Cairo witnessed the increasing commitment towards the empowerment of women from various governments.
The clear Action Plan of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing 1995 stands as a landmark for operationalization of the commitment. It is towards seeking “empowerment and advancement of women, including the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief, thus contributing to the moral, ethical, spiritual and intellectual needs of women and men, individually or in community with others and thereby guaranteeing them the possibility of realizing their full potential in society and shaping their lives in accordance with their own aspirations”.
As a part of the action plan, the Beijing Conference put women’s access to credit on the international agenda. For the majority of women, credit is much more than access to money. It is lifting them from poverty and improving their position in family, community and society.
In order to create access to credit for women various governments launched various models of micro-finance. In India, the SHG – Bank linkage program came out as a successful model of micro-finance.
Author(s) Details:
Janaki Thenneti
Aurora’s PG College, Osmania University, Hyderabad, India.
Recent Global Research Developments in the Empowerment of Rural Women
“Sustainable Livelihoods for Rural Women’s Economic Empowerment”:
- This policy brief discusses experiences and ways forward from the Joint Programme on Rural Women’s Economic Empowerment. It emphasizes the importance of increasing rural women’s access to and control of resources to achieve sustainable livelihoods. The program supports rural women’s organizations and provides financial literacy training [1]. You can read the full brief here.
“Rural Women Entrepreneurship: A Systematic Literature Review and Beyond”:
- This study reviews literature on women entrepreneurship, focusing on rural contexts. It analyzes 192 documents published in Scopus journals over the last 20 years. The research sheds light on the challenges and opportunities faced by rural women entrepreneurs [2].
“Empowerment of Rural Women: Place of Adult Education”:
- This article explores the role of adult education in empowering rural women. It discusses perspectives, the status of women, and international dimensions of empowerment [3].
“Women Empowerment for Rural Development”:
- This document provides insights into women’s empowerment from a rural development perspective. It covers various aspects related to rural women’s progress.
“Exploring the Impact of Self-Help Groups on Empowering Rural Women”:
- This research aims to predict how rural women’s empowerment increases due to their involvement in self-help groups (SHGs). It also investigates whether SHG participation moderates women’s empowerment.
References
- Sustainable Livelihoods For Rural Women’s Economic Empowerment
https://mptf.undp.org/sites/default/files/documents/sustainable_livelihoods_jp_rwee_policy_brief.pdf - Aggarwal, M. and Johal, R.K. (2021), “Rural women entrepreneurship: a systematic literature review and beyond”, World Journal of Science, Technology and Sustainable Development, Vol. 18 No. 4, pp. 373-392. https://doi.org/10.1108/WJSTSD-04-2021-0039
- Empowerment of Rural Women: Place of Adult Education
- https://ijcrt.org/papers/IJCRT2106861.pdf
