There is no standard definition of women’s economic empowerment and the term is often used loosely. From the literature reviewed for this report, it would appear that the majority of efforts to measure women’s economic empowerment programmes focus primarily on quantitative outcomes - such as increased access to credit or increased revenue - even where the stated objectives ...» more
Service delivery
Land and Property Rights Interventions
The literature here provides a guide to existing concerns and approaches to the promotion of pro-poor outcomes through land and property rights. Generally, there is increasing emphasis on both the impacts upon women and the need for interventions to be designed and implemented with gender sensitivity. There is also a strong emphasis on the need to locate land and property ...» more
New ICTs for Development
This short report provides a list of new information and communications technologies (ICTs) being used to enhance development outcomes. The use of ICTs among poor people is growing rapidly. In 2009, there were an estimated 2.2 billion mobile phones in the developing world and 305 million computers. In 1998, two of every 100 inhabitants in developing countries was a mobile phone ...» more
Inclusive Growth
Various barriers and constraints to poor people’s participation in growth are identified in the literature. These include:GeographyLimited investment in human capitalPoor healthLimited assets and access to creditEconomic insecuritySome of the literature argues that facilitating access of the poor to growth is insufficient to obtain inclusive growth; attention must also be paid ...» more
Civil Society and Excluded Groups
There is a dearth of comprehensive studies that look precisely at the ‘value added’ of working through civil society to reach excluded, marginalised and vulnerable groups. This helpdesk research report thus relies on a range of more general literature on civil society and thematic and country case studies, drawing out information and findings on positive impacts from civil ...» more