Milissão Nuvunga, PhD Candidate at the School of Global Studies
Opening Note: The issue of climate change was initially addressed by natural scientists and, until recently, the natural sciences have dominated research and the production of knowledge about climate change. Today, we will discuss climate change from the perspective of the social sciences.
What is Empowerment?
- Empowerment is the enhancement of one’s ability to make strategic life choices.
o Examples include the right to choose whether to get married and have children.
o Empowerment helps people to overcome institutional and cultural barriers.
o Empowerment functions on two levels that of the individual and society.
- Different barriers/ constraining factors to empowerment exist in different regions.
o For example, the caste system is a constraining factor in Asia while religion is a more significant constraining factor in Africa.
- In general, it has been found that women’s empowerment benefits individuals and societies.
- Problems arise in measuring the outcomes of empowerment projects because the results of empowerment are very fuzzy and difficult to research.
- Another problem is that empowerment allows someone to do something but does not determine what they are going to do.
o For example, you can empower women with the knowledge that excessive meat consumption is harmful to the environment but it doesn’t mean they will stop consuming meat.
o The anticipation of positive empowerment outcomes is simply wishful thinking.
The Economic Empowerment of Women
- This topic raises several questions including:
o Why do women need economic empowerment?
o What are the results?
o Is it possible to measure the success/failure of empowerment projects?
- Economic empowerment gives women a stronger bargaining position at the household level.
o This translates into non-material benefits such as respect and increased self esteem.
o It also translates into material benefits including jobs outside of the home and access to markets.
- Economic empowerment also helps women to challenge and change cultural norms.
- Economic empowerment increases mobility and facilitates freedom and choice.
- Micro-Credit and the Grameen Bank
o Usually when we talk about women and economic empowerment, we talk about micro-credit.
o Micro-credit programs sponsored by the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh demonstrated that women capable of participation in market transactions.
o The Grameen Bank and its founder received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 “for their efforts to create economic and social development from below” (Nobel Prize Committee).
o Micro-credit and the Grameen Bank also reveal weaknesses in banking and financial systems.
These institutions exist because commercial banks don’t lend money to impoverished women.
o Unfortunately, the success of the Grameen Bank did not translate into structural changes in the financial systems of Bangladesh and other developing countries.
- A case of empowerment in India:
o An NGO taught basic accounting practices to female street vendors in India.
o This allowed women to keep track of business finances as well as household finances.
o It was recently reported that the India women who the NGO had taught were blocking traffic by sitting in the middle of a local road.
o These female protesters said that they would not move until they spoke with the provincial commander of the police.
o When the provincial commander arrived, the women complained that their household finances were in disarray because their husbands were spending too much money on alcohol. This was because the local police chief was corrupt and allowed the illegal production of alcohol in the area. This illegally produced alcohol was then sold for very little money.
o As a result of the protests, the local police chief was fired.
o This is an example of how the economic empowerment of women led to political mobilization and change.
- The economic empowerment of women is not simply a matter of gender but one of class.
o Rich women consume and pollute and disempower poor women.
o To make conditions better for poor women, you have to make conditions worse for rich women.
3 Dimensions of Power
- Three dimensions of power include direct power, institutional power and discursive power.
- Empowerment projects can give women the power to say no, the power to challenge institutional structures and the power to address ways of being.
- It is important to question the dimensions of power addressed or targets by interventions.
The Environment and Climate Change
- The environment and climate change are institutionally regulated.
- These institutional arrangements are governed by international organizations such as the UN and WMO.
o These institutions coordinate actions and policies.
o They have identified the need for mitigation (primarily in rich countries) and adaptation (primarily in poor countries).
Women and Climate Change
- Women are major producers of agricultural goods worldwide. Thus they are influenced by and exercise influence over the environment.
- When the climate changes, the conditions in which women live and work also change.
- How will women adapt to climate change?
o This question has not been well discussed. Researchers are just beginning to investigate this question.
o So far, the focus has been on higher, political levels.
o It is important to examine national adaptation plans of action (NAPA). Unfortunately, women are often ignored in these plans especially when it comes to operations.
- Women are vulnerable to climate change and natural disasters for several reasons.
o Women are more vulnerable to stresses and situations caused by natural disasters.
o Women work with agriculture and have a lesser ability to recover from disaster.
o Women are not as protected from disasters in their homes.
o Women possess less social capital than men.
- Because of their roles in the household, women are more vulnerable to environmental changes.
o Women cook, care for children and the elderly, gather wood, use and inhale pesticides, collect water, etc.
o Women usually have less free/ leisure time.
- Poor women generally do not have access to institutions that regulate the environment and climate change.
o You won’t see many impoverished women from developing countries at the climate change conference in Copenhagen.
o As a result, poor women possess little to no institutional bargaining power on international and national levels.
The Difficulties of Policy-Making
- If you are a policy-maker and someone tells you to empower women, what do you think?
o You can think that women should be empowered because they have intrinsic value as human beings.
o Or you can think that women have instrumental value.
o It is much easier for policy-makers to think instrumentally.
o When policies are designed to promote women’s intrinsic value, debates arise about equality vs equity and the issue becomes complicated.
o Of course, there is a problem with instrumental thinking. Instrumental thinking promotes women’s power to improve households but not to make strategic life choices.
Drawing Conclusions from Regional Examples
- The results of empowerment projects vary greatly according to regional and cultural contexts.
- In Northern Vietnam, women are most vulnerable because of poor sanitation. In Bangladesh, housing is a much bigger problem than sanitation.
- The only conclusion that can be draw after examining regional projects is that institutional inaction yields vulnerability. In other words, vulnerability is not a sign of women’s inability to achieve what they want but a sign of institutions failing to take action to improve the lives of women.
Possible Solutions
- We have to start looking at the state as the coordinator of development.
o Problems are created by the inaction of state actors.
o We cannot shift responsibility away from the state and towards NGOs because NGOS cannot implement policies at the state level.
o The state can apply positive local outcomes to national settings.
- We need to improve coordination between government officials/bodies, NGOs and donors.
- One very practical way of empowering women is to provide them with daycare for their children.
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