THEME: When combined with income-earning opportunities, women's groups can play an important role in women's empowerment.
In the part of India where IFAD supported the Tamil Nadu Women's Development Project, landlessness was a major problem. Many women therefore worked as agricultural wage laborers. The project gave them an alternative by enabling them to operate their own small businesses. Financial services were provided to women organized into Thrift and Credit Groups (TCGs). According to the study, not only did these became cohesive, homogeneous and well-functioning groups of poorer women, but they also came to perform other important roles for the women: A type of social security system or coping strategy in situations in which women and their families are highly vulnerable. For instance, the TCGs encouraged regular savings and provided women with access to small loans for food purchases during family food crises. Such access prevented the women from relying on moneylenders, landlords or middlemen, who charge a high rate of interest. A communication and problem-solving forum on community issues, which women would never tackle on their own. For instance, the women in the TCGs exerted pressure at the village level to fight against alcoholism, which was depleting the income available for buying food for their families. A means of empowering women at the household level to deal with long-standing inequities and even violence. The groups generated a type of extra-household power, which gave women leverage at the household level. Women said that the group, together with their improved incomes, helped increase their control of assets and decision-making power and improved their intra-family status. Some women even expressed the view that they no longer had to fear beatings by their mothers-in-law or husbands. "Now I have a group, so I am not worried. Women are strong together to deal with this." A mechanism for increasing women's self-esteem, which in turn gives the women courage to deal with new situations. Traditionally, women had passively accepted their position in the household and society as an inferior one. But with their new sense of economic power, enhanced by the encouragement they received from one another in the TCGs, women began to develop their self-esteem. They acquired greater mobility and were more at ease in visiting banks and conversing with the bank officials who came to the village. A platform for expanded future action. The study felt that there was considerable future potential for expanded group activities. Over time, they could begin to address major problems and inequities, at both the community and the household level, e.g., land rights, marketing constraints and intra-household allocation of food (whereby women deny themselves). Women's groups, such as the TCGs or others, can provide a springboard for women's empowerment and economic development. Groups plus income-earning opportunities for women provide a double-barrel approach which is needed to overcome long-standing cultural norms in a patriarchal society. In cultures where women are more comfortable working exclusively with each other, rather than with men, this 'women only' approach has merit. Adapted from: Nandini Azad. 1996. Engendered Mobilization - the Key to Livelihood Security: IFAD's Experience in South Asia. Rome: IFAD. Siddiqur Rahman Osmani. 1998. Food Security, Poverty and Women: Lessons from Rural Asia, Part I. Rome: IFAD/TAD, February. Asia and Pacific Division/IFAD, PCR. 2001. Andhra Pradesh Tribal Development Project. Rome, IFAD |
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A
1996 IFAD gender and food security study reviewed and compared experience
under three IFAD-supported projects in South Asia. It concluded
that the projects contributed to household food security when they
were able to increase women's access to resources and their control
over decision-making in the household. While increased women's income
was certainly important, the study found that belonging to a group
was equally or even more effective.