Long Summary:
Governments and NGOs are now seeing the importance of measures which help women in the informal sector to increase their incomes, gain access to financial services and training, and ensure their greater participation in national economies and processes of economic development. This paper looks at the economic empowerment strategies which are being used by NGOs to employ women in South Asia, and discusses and evaluates the various methods used by these groups. The goals of the groups studied include increasing income and social security, access to services such as training, and improving participation in democratic and economic processes.

The paper divides the strategies employed into the following categories:

1. financial interventions – including credit and investments.

2. enterprise development – skills and training

3. information and marketing strategies

4. unionising

5. consciousness raising

Financial interventions and the problems associated with them are the strategies which are covered most extensively in the paper. Many micro-credit initiatives have resulted in problems regarding financial sustainability and dependence on donors. Some organisations have addressed this problem by becoming banks and generating income in this way. However, the paper advocates alternative strategies such as those followed by organisations which have wanted to remain social institutions and have organised savings and credit circles, or those which have provided services ‘graduating’ clients to banks. The paper cites the example of the Nari Nidhi credit fund in Bihar, India which has an explicit long-term objective of enabling poor women to have access to formal banking institutions.

Savings are highlighted as a crucial way of moving towards economic self- sufficiency among groups. The Co-operative Development Fund (CDF) in Andhra Pradesh is cited as an example of a successful initiative to promote saving or ‘thrift’, and one which has the potential to foster a state-level federation of women’s thrift co-ops. Cooperatives have been used as powerful instruments which help women to control their means of production. Co-operatives are also particularly useful in the South Asian context since they are eligible for government financial and policy support.

Enterprise Development

The paper points out that it is not only the lack of capital which inhibits women’s involvement in economic activities. There is also the need for access to training and technologies, which could be provided as part of an enterprise development plan. One such plan is the Aga Khan Rural Support Program (AKRSP) in Northern Pakistan which provides different level packages which facilitate the movement from subsistence-level to commercial production. Women in the community are trained to be trainers, and community leaders are targeted due to their ability to mobilise other women. Some organisations such as SEWA (Self Employed Women’s Association) in India are combining financial interventions with enterprise development, and others such as BRAC (Bangladeshi Rural Advancement Committee) are also directly providing employment opportunities.

Marketing Strategies, Unionizing and Social and Political Strategies

These further strategies are employed to give women better access to and information on markets and market conditions. In addition to market-training and information provision, unionizing helps make women’s participation in economic processes more effective at the individual level, and at the level of labour enforcement bureaucracy and national policy. Collectives such as those of agricultural, artisan, livestock and ecological regeneration workers, can empower those in rural areas in the face of poor employment regulation. The building of alliances and networks has proved to be crucial in putting pressure on employers and unresponsive local institutions.

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