Conference Schedule
Poverty Eradication, Women Empowerment and Local self-governments
Women are increasingly seen as an important part of the international development agenda. Empowering women and promoting gender equality are enshrined as global development objectives within the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It is widely agreed that poverty and disempowerment go hand-in-hand. It is acknowledged as income poverty goes down, so do women become more empowered.
In Indian Scenario, due to lack of adequate representation and existing structural inequality women never gain access to production factors, resources and assets. They get few benefits from the changes that follow development and are often excluded from participation in policy-making, since their views are considered of secondary importance. These facts are undeniable, and examples are legion.This situation is the result of the social mechanisms of control and regulation of the dominant production systems, as well as of established approaches to the design, implementation and evaluation of development programmes and projects. On the one hand, attitudes and opinions have not yet fully come to terms with the fact that women make up for half of the population. On the other hand, the analytical methods and decision-making mechanisms underlying development choices do not yet incorporate gender related issues. From the Fifth Five Year Plan (1974-78) onwards there has been a marked shift in the approach to women’s issues from welfare to development.
In recent years, the empowerment of women has been recognized as the central issue in determining the status of nation. Many Development interventions which focus on “practical gender needs”, including women’s income and material assets, are being carried out aiming to reduce poverty and to increased female empowerment. Micro credit and women’s savings groups are examples of interventions which, through a focus on practical gender needs, aim both to reduce income poverty and contribute to women’s empowerment..
Despite the empowerment of women widely being viewed as a “good thing”, the question of how development interventions can contribute to making progress along the long and winding road of female empowerment, and so enable women to make more choices about their own lives, is a contentious and debated area. Critics of this view, on the other hand, argue that such an approach fails to address the root causes of disempowerment, notably women’s unequal position in society relative to men. It burdens women with additional responsibilities; they are already responsible for running the household, and this increasingly has to be combined with income generating activities. Rather than development working for women, women are working for development.
Instead, it is advocated that development agencies focus on “strategic gender needs”, including removing institutional discrimination and claiming rights from the state. These are normally achieved through collective action and bottom-up struggles. Development activities facilitate the achievement of strategic gender needs through uniting women, raising their awareness, and encouraging their mobilization so they receive what they are entitled to and begin to overturn the unequal structures within society. One such experiment is Kudumbashree.
The Kudumbashree, state poverty eradication program of Kerala which formally began in 1998 has a beautiful plot to explain behind their success. The success of how it could bring more women into political front. The model made a difference by transforming these women from “target” to “subject”. Unlike the other poverty alleviation program, Kudumbashree has a multi prolonged design that rests on economic empowerment and social development strategies. It recognizes that capacitating women to understand and exercise their rights is a basic requirement for the success and sustainability of any poverty eradication program. It has adopted a different strategy wherein through the empowerment they tried to bring in changes thereby protecting the rights of women. The association of the Kudumbashree with the local self-governments aided to bring out the communities interests, strengthening the process of decentralization. Thus the women got to realize their rights and entitlements.
The proposed international Conference on “Poverty Eradication, Women Empowerment and Local self-governments” aims to bring together conceptual, policy-level, academic and field-level experiences across the globe to a common platform and add value to the debates and discussions on existing models of involvement of women and women leadership in poverty Eradication.
Sub themes include
ü Women Collectivization and Poverty Eradication
ü Poverty Eradication and Natural resource management
ü Poverty Alleviation- Socio economic interventions