From the video interview above I question the concept of empowerment as a push or pull concept. From The Green Belt movement founded by Waangari Maathai, empowerment is more about pull than it is about push. The Green Belt Movement has organised it's activities around women at the grassroots with the intent of creating a "trickle up". This trickle up idea which you can also refer to as the bottom approach has been centered around mobilization of these women at the grassroots. Mobilization in itself is an act of empowerment because it brings a group of women together, with shared interests. Empowerment is not just a case of increasing the women's economic capacity, but provide an arena where this women can learn together and grow together. As they learn new skills, they are also made aware of their role as women in the community. As Kate Young pointed out in her article, not all women are aware of the inequalities they face. Some of these inequalities have been reproduced for such a long time that they are seen as natural. The Green Belt Movement has helped in building consciousness among grassroots women and men. This conscious building may be one of the reasons that the movement has been sustainable and successful, as the members own the projects. I also think that another form of mobilization that can be empowering is when women at the grassroots organize themselves without 'outside' help. In Kenya we have what we had the concept of chama which means group. A group of women would come together and would each give an agreed amount of money and each member would take turns at getting the money. Through this these women have been able to invest. What started at the grassroots has now become national as women in the upper classes forming the groups as well. Banks even give loans to these groups to invest. Here is a short clip on one of these groups http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MX3YuvLMEs
The Green Belt Movement (GBM) is an interesting example of community-based empowerment – particularly the empowerment of women. The website (http://www.greenbeltmovement.org/who-we-are) for GBM indicates that it was founded by Maathai “to respond to the needs of rural Kenyan women” (para. 1) who indicated that environmental conditions were imperiling their livelihoods. It started, in other words, out of women’s experiences and identified needs.
ReplyDeleteChant and Sweetman (2012) discuss the trend of “smart economics” in development rhetoric, noting that many development initiatives that aim to integrate women into development focus on the economic advantages that women’s involvement will have. Gender equality is not pursued because it is valuable in its own right, but rather, because it has the potential to contribute to and expedite economic development. Interestingly, the mission statement and core values of GBM do not mention economic outcomes at all. The organization’s mission is to “strive for better environmental management, community empowerment, and livelihood improvement using tree-planting as an entry point” (para. 3). Their values include environmental stewardship, self empowerment, and “accountability, transparency, and honesty” (para. 4). What is more, in the video that Traci posted, Maathai talks about the incentives for participating women: rather than receive “a bowl of money” for their work raising saplings, the women were given “a token of appreciation.” Granted, this token was money, but it seems the focus of GBM is livelihood—a more holistic approach to well-being—rather than economic prosperity specifically.
Part of the Green Belt Movement initiative is “Community Empowerment and Education” (http://www.greenbeltmovement.org/what-we-do/community-empowerment), a 3-4 day seminar that entails asset-mapping of the community and equipping participants with the skills necessary to mobilize the community. In light of Mosedale’s (2005) framework for assessing empowerment, which includes “identifying constraints to action” (p. 252), it is interesting that these seminars “encourage individuals to examine why they lack agency to change their economic, social and environmental circumstances” (para. 2). The seminars, then, serve as a type of consciousness-raising exercise, which many of the authors we have read thus far argue is imperative for change.
I am really impressed with the leadership skills of Wangari Maathai (I hope that is the correct spelling). Women like her are a classic example that the perception that women in Africa are trodden over by men and that they are helpless in need of help is very far from the reality on the ground. It is true that many women are victimized in Africa (as they are in many parts of the world) and that there is urgent need for changes in Policy, legislation and resource allocation but it also true that women have the agency to change their own status and that of other members of society.
ReplyDeleteThe one statement that she made in this interview which I think is so profound is that change does not happen overnight and therefore a certain level of patience is required to have positive results.
Although I agree that this is a good example of a bottom up approach, I also noticed that an external trigger is very important and if you look at it critically this trigger is a part of "the top" in terms of sophistication in conceptualization of the interventions and mobilization of community support.
I like the point that Kabeer makes in Chapter 3 (page 55) about the significance of social relations in ascribing a meaning and a place to people and to things which for me is a key point to consider. People in different parts of the world live in complex social settings with their own meanings and understanding of what is right as well as how life can move forward progressively.
The onus is on change agents to take time and understand how local communities function on a day to day basis and find out ways to effectively promote change paying attention not only to the end goals but also the process of getting there, because as shown in the interview with Wangari both are equally important and should be given due consideration during planning.
The way to approach gender and development in Malawi may not be same as gender and development in India so it is imperative that local knowledge and wisdom should be incorporated by change agents to achieve positive and sustainable results.
The practices used by the Green Belt Movement and the Graamen Bank that Kabeer describes have shown themselves to have great potential in empowering women, by working as a collaboration between “external agents” and female community members though. However, a concern of mine before this class that was reinforced by an article I read by Ryan Watkins (2013) is what happens when these practices, such as micro-lending and tree planting, get coopted and perverted as “best practices” by various development organizations. In Kabeer’s discussions of micro-lending amongst Bangladeshi women she shows that the women’s needs for loans are diverse and very much respected. While I was in the Peace Corps, promoting the creation of community banks (similar to micro-loans but where funds were raised by the community members themselves), was recognized as a very successful practice and was encouraged amongst all volunteers. However, one time a consultant hired by Peace Corps HQ was arguing that these projects weren’t successful unless the community members were taking out loans for the “right” reasons such as for agricultural production and not everyday expenses or gifts for Christmas. It seemed that this “best practice” was being coopted institutionally and manipulated with what HQ wanted to see regardless of local realities and interests. I argued profusely that it was the organizing power of community banks themselves that was the measure of progress rather than what was done with the loans. This seems to be a common theme in class discussion, where in many cases ideas and practices that are locally entrenched and empowering get coopted by the mainstream “development” discourse, and the empowering effects these practices have, by being transplanted without evaluating local contexts and interests, are diminished.
ReplyDeleteWatkins, Ryan"Performance Improvement: A Key to Success in International Development Projects.(Report)." Performance Improvement no. 1 (2013): 29.