Empowerment Community of Practice Newsletter, April/May 2005

A. Featured Article: Empowering Women Leaders in Indian Local Governance*

I. Introduction

As a Muslim woman in rural India’s traditionally male dominated society, Kanubano may not seem like a likely leader. Her panchayat, or governing village council, has only three women representatives. Two of them are too intimidated or embarrassed to attend council meetings, often leaving Kanubano as the only women among a somewhat suspicious group of men.

But Kanubano is undeterred, and men in her village know it. The men who serve on the panchayat with her acknowledge, although perhaps somewhat reluctantly, that she is a force in their community. "She is not afraid of anything," comments one of her male counterparts. He adds pointedly, "She doesn’t even obey her husband."

Kanubano’s election to the village panchayat is a direct result of a relatively recent Indian law, called the 73rd Amendment, which changed the face of local governments. In 1992, the Indian national government passed an amendment to their constitution mandating more inclusive local governments. In addition to earmarking a certain percentage of seats to members of underrepresented castes, the 73rd Amendment stated that 33% of seats in village councils were to be reserved for women. For the first time, women and other traditionally marginalized groups would essentially have "seats at the table."

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 B. Featured World Bank Publications on Empowerment

Title: Growth and Empowerment
Author: Nicholas Stern, Jean-Jacques Dethier, and F. Halsey Rogers

Despite significant gains in promoting economic growth and living conditions (or "human progress") globally over the last twenty-five years, much of the developing world remains plagued by poverty and its attendant problems, including high rates of child mortality, illiteracy, environmental degradation, and war. In Growth and Empowerment, Nicholas Stern, Jean-Jacques Dethier, and F. Halsey Rogers propose a new strategy for development. Drawing on many years of work in development economics -- in academia, in the field, and at international institutions such as the World Bank -- the authors base their strategy on two interrelated approaches: building a climate that encourages investment and growth and at the same time empowering poor people to participate in that growth. This plan differs from other models for development, including the dogmatic approach of market fundamentalism popular in the 1980s and 1990s. Stern, Dethier, and Rogers see economic development as a dynamic process of continuous change in which entrepreneurship, innovation, flexibility, and mobility are crucial components and the idea of empowerment, as both a goal and a driver of development, is central. The book points to the unique opportunity today -- after 50 years of successes and failures, and with a growing body of analytical work to draw on -- to pursue new development strategies in both research and action.

Title: Measuring Empowerment: Cross Disciplinary Perspectives
Author: Various/Edited by Deepa Narayan

Poverty reduction on a large scale depends on empowering those who are most motivated to move out of poverty—poor people themselves. But if empowerment cannot be measured, it will not be taken seriously in development policy making and programming.

Building on the award-winning Empowerment and Poverty Reduction sourcebook, this volume outlines a conceptual framework that can be used to monitor and evaluate programs centered on empowerment approaches. It presents the perspectives of 27 distinguished researchers and practitioners in economics, political science, sociology, psychology, anthropology, and demography, all of whom are grappling in different ways with the challenge of measuring empowerment. The authors draw from their research and experiences at different levels, from households to communities to nations, in various regions of the world.

Measuring Empowerment is an invaluable resource for planners, practitioners, evaluators, and students—indeed for all who are interested in approaches to poverty reduction that address issues of inequitable power relations.

For more information, please contact ssullivan@worldbank.org

Also, for information on a five country study on measuring empowerment, please see: http://www.worldbank.org/empowerment

C. Featured External Events

Event: World Bank – Civil Society Global Policy Forum
When: April 20 – 22, 2005
Where: World Bank Headquarters Washington DC

The World Bank – Civil Society Global Policy Forum was held in Washington, DC on April 20 – 22, 2005. The Forum brought together some 200 civil society leaders, government officials, parliamentarians, donor agency representatives, and Bank staff.

The first full day of the forum, which was held at George Washington University, was thematic in nature and focused on the quality of implementation and development impacts of the PRSP process at the country level. The discussion on the second day was relational in focus and centered on analyzing the evolving nature of Bank – Civil Society engagement at the global level.

The Forum, which was organized in collaboration with CSO representatives, was the first time that the World Bank has convened such a multi-stakeholder set of actors to discuss Bank – civil society relations at the global level.

A summary report from the Forum will be prepared and discussed with CSO representatives and will be released within a couple of weeks.

For more information, see   here.

 D. Calendar of Events

More events

 E. Announcements/Points of Interest

Call for Papers:

The Conference themed Hope: Probing the Boundaries will be held on Monday 8th - Wednesday 10th August 2005 in Prague, Czech Republic. This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary conference aims to explore contemporary definitions, meanings and expressions of hope. In particular, it will seek to examine the individual, social, national and international contexts within which hope emerges as well as its counterpart, hopelessness. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 13th May 2005. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 15th July 2005.
For details, see: http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/ptb/hope/h1/cfp.htm

The Development Research Centre on Citizenship, Participation and Accountability, or Citizenship DRC, is an international research partnership exploring new forms of citizenship. It involves a network of researchers and practitioners working with research institutions and civil society organisations located in 7 different countries – Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa and the UK. The Citizenship DRC is coordinated from the Participation Group at the Institute of Development studies at IDS. See there April newsletter here: http://www.drc-citizenship.org/

The Governance and Anti-Corruption unit of WBI, is offering a number of upcoming courses, such as Open and Participatory Government at the Institutional Level (May-August 2005) and Governance, Community Empowerment and Social Inclusion in Latin America (May-July 2005)
For more information, click here.

An online e-discussion forum, hosted by the Community Empowerment and Social Inclusion group of WBI, started Monday, the 18th of April, 2005. The discussion forum aims to elicit views, ideas and recommendations from experts worldwide on the role of traditional structures in local governance to enhance local development. The discussions cover the four following topics:

1) Dynamics of traditional structures [April 18 – April 22],
2) Organizing the roles of traditional structures [April 25 – April 29],
3) Traditional structures and local development [May 9 – May 13],
4) Towards an enhanced role for traditional structures [May 16 – May 20]

To register as a participant for this event please go to the following link and enter the required fields. Thereafter, you will be sent a confirmation email that you have been accepted as a participant to the discussion forum: http://info.worldbank.org/etools/devforum/TSLG/reg.htm.
Each discussion will be moderated and then summarized by Mr. Nicolas Garrigue, whom is an anthropologist and has been a part of the project team working on this project entitled "Traditional Structures in Local Governance (TSLG)". For more information on the project you can visit the project’s website at: http://info.worldbank.org/etools/docs/library/109847/SD_Communication/epublish/zip_files/tslg/index.html

The Conflict and Community Development Research and Analytical Program is an initiative of the Social Development Unit of the World Bank, Jakarta. Through mixed methods empirical research and grounded analysis, the program plans to explore further evidence on conflict in Indonesia, as well as the nexus between conflict, poverty (alleviation) and development. The aim is to improve the design of development programs, projects and policies aimed at reducing poverty and managing conflict.
For the first time, the Conflict and Community Development team’s publications, reports, case studies, resource materials and methodologies are accessible on-line, at www.conflictanddevelopment.org.

The paper, Issues and Options for Improving Engagement Between the World Bank and Civil Society Organizations, which was discussed and endorsed by the Board in January, was launched publicly at the World Bank Civil Society Global Policy Forum. The paper is a joint product of ESSD, EXT and OPCS. The paper provides a useful analysis of how the Bank relates to civil society and a road map for engagement globally. http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/CSO/0,,pagePK:220469~theSitePK:228717,00.html

Please visit the IFC-GEM second quarterly Women in Businessnewsletter designed to keep businesswomen in touch with key events, relevant research and, most importantly, each other!http://www.ifc.org/ifcext/enviro.nsf/Content/Gender-News-April2005Glo

As part of a new programme, the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) is looking for short case studies on the topic of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs): Evidence and Policy Influence. The case studies should be simple stories, based on existing knowledge, which describe episodes where CSOs have engaged with policy processes, the nature of the impact they have had (if any), the reasons why and the relative role of research-based evidence in the process. The cases should be 1500 words long and ODI will provide US$1500 for successful cases. Proposals should be 500 words long. The priority is for cases from authors in developing countries.
http://www.odi.org.uk/RAPID/Projects/PPA0104/Index.html

 F. In the News

Community Media: A Vital Tool for Rural Development

Indigenous Woman from Peru Returns Home to Train Community

Rural Women: Key to India's Development?

Civil Society - Key to Middle East Peace

Empowerment: Necessary but not Sufficient to Stop Trafficking of Women 

In Post-Election Iraq, Women's Hope Restrained

Radio Used to Save Lives in Afghan Dam Collapse 

Use ICTs to Address Rural Poverty and Unemployment: Indian minister

 To Contribute

We are happy to receive your suggestions and/or contributions. If you would like to make a submission, please send an email to empowerment@worldbank.org or call 202-458-7599.