In the opinion of poor rural women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, both training and small income-generating activities can contribute to their empowerment.

Between 1997/98 and 2002, the Belgian Survival Fund financed the Support for Women’s Groups in North Kivu project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The long civil conflict in this part of the country has resulted in millions killed or dying from disease and malnutrition. The project involved three main activities: community development (through a Fund mechanism), energy-saving stoves and social forestry. It was targeted exclusively at existing associations of poor rural women in North Kivu in eastern Congo. The project was evaluated in November 2002. Emphasis was placed on evaluation from the point of view of the beneficiaries themselves and of the people who had worked directly with these beneficiaries. To achieve this, a participatory workshop approach was employed. Even the main indicators of effectiveness and impact, such as empowerment, were defined from the perspective of these people.

The evaluation concluded that women’s empowerment had benefited substantially from the three project components. Empowerment had occurred at the level of the household, the level of the association and probably also at the level of the rural community, though this was less clear. Women at the workshop defined increased empowerment as:

• appreciation by their husbands of themselves and their contribution;
• ownership of more assets;
• access to credit; and
• the gaining of more self-esteem.

Women viewed both the training received and the project-financed income-generating activities as adding to their empowerment. The training activities associated with the community development component were seen as most important and as contributing at both the household and the community levels. This revolved around monthly training sessions arranged by the animatrices (programme training agents). According to the women, training had:

• improved the management of the women’s associations to which they belonged;
• helped women feel more at ease in expressing themselves, which increased their self-esteem;
• facilitated meetings with members of other associations outside their own villages; and
• improved their own household management and their management of the income-related activities that had been supported by the project.

The evaluation mentions that the women’s associations actually mobilized their male labour force to build health centres and grinding mills. How much of this can be directly attributed to the project under evaluation is unclear. Apparently, women did not specifically say that this leadership in community initiatives contributed to their empowerment.

The income-related activities were considered as next in importance after training in terms of empowerment. These small but important activities mainly concerned goat keeping (58%) and small trading activities (26%), followed well back by others such as dressmaking, food milling, aquaculture, rabbit keeping, pig keeping and crop production. Most often, such activities are conducted on an individual basis. Collective activities were tried, but did not turn out to be very profitable. The project therefore shifted the emphasis to individual activities.

Goat keeping generated the highest profits, according to the women. Goats were received by 70% of the members of the associations. The off-spring of these goats were then given to the remaining non-recipients in the association. Women viewed goats as a promising business. They were particularly proud of this enterprise because, up to that time, goat keeping had been considered a man’s domain (unlike in many other cultures). Women in North Kivu could not have such valued assets. Goats also fit very well with the needs and restricted labour capability of vulnerable older widows, as caring for goats is relatively easy.

Such income-generating activities were seen by women as empowering in that they:

• increased women’s bargaining power at the family level, with husbands and sons now taking the women into consideration;
• gave women an important role in helping to pay family school fees and health care costs (for which the “goat savings” were often used);
• contributed to women’s sense of empowerment because the women now own assets formerly controlled by men (such as goats); and
• provided women with work opportunities.

In this case, the women seemed to define their empowerment primarily in terms of economic and social relationships at the household level and in terms of their own self-esteem. New roles they undertook were particularly empowering. The project apparently contributed to a trend in women’s empowerment that was already under way in this area and was influenced by the fact that men were losing their pre-conflict economic leadership and that women were increasingly assuming the responsibilities and tasks formerly carried out by men. In such situations, where society is generally in flux, prescribed gender roles can also change more readily.

Adapted from: Democratic Republic of Congo: Support for Women’s Groups in North Kivu, Completion Evaluation Report, Rome: IFAD, November-December 2002.

 

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