Women and girls must have the agency to exercise their voice, choice, and leadership. As per the J-PAL research paper titled ‘a practical guide to measuring women’s and girls’ empowerment in impact evaluations’ a woman’s agency is defined as ‘her ability to set goals and act on them, to make decisions that matter to them, and to participate in the economy and public life, to be able to advance ourselves on these subjects.’
Measuring and defining agency has two parts
1. Direct indicators
2. Indirect indicators
| Direct | Indirect |
| 1. Power Within | 1. Family domain a.Timing of marriage and childbearing b.Contraceptive use |
| 2. Household decision-making | 2. Economic domain a.Labor force participation b.Income generation from entrepreneurship |
| 3. Freedom of movement | 3. Political and community domain a.Participation in politics and community decision-making b. Voting behavior c. Participation in groups and ties in the community |
| 4. Freedom from violence |
In this blog, I am more focused on sharing our experiences of the indirect indicator of agency i.e. ‘political and community domain’ where women have the agency to raise their voice by protecting their right to freedom of expression and ensuring that women are at the table when important decisions are taken. We are facilitating this by supporting civil society and women’s collectives to take leadership in this area and to build strong communities.
Promoting women’s leadership
As part of JSW Foundation fellowship, I am working on the fellowship project ‘Strengthening Gram Panchayat and women’s empowerment’ in Sawangi village which is 40 Kms from Nagpur district. To realize this our focus has been on leveraging interventions that support agencies in the community. These are enlisted as
- Information sharing: planning for exposure visits in model villages in the Vidarbha region
- Community mobilization: enhanced participation in Mahila Sabha and Gram Sabha.
- Empowerment/ life/soft skills: building understanding on gender, safety audit with adolescent girls
- Facilitating entrepreneurship opportunities for women groups: 20 SHGs members have started livelihood initiatives i.e. mushroom, petticoat stitching
- Supporting inclusive and violence-free political processes and political leaders
- During this fellowship, we supported women’s organizations to ensure their participation in governance processes, including drafting, implementing, and monitoring village development action plans
We also facilitated women’s participation in key decision-making processes and in finding solutions for key issues faced by the village such as political rights and power sharing, organized dialogues, and consultations, and promoted other platforms to build women’s networks and bring together various stakeholders to organize and share their experiences, expertise, needs, and priorities.
Participate in cultural activity in the Gram Panchayat
Impact:
1. Strengthening of women’s collective
Women in Sawangi village have formed themselves as collectives, specifically providing skills and technical assistance to support diverse women’s organizations to promote a better understanding of the rights of all women and girls. This has facilitated a shift in the exercise of women’s agency & leadership throughout the village by organizing the community
2. Strengthening panchayat institutions through women
In Sawangi Mahila Sabha meetings were very irregular due to unawareness and lack of collectives, Various activities to promote women’s participation in Mahila Sabha and Gram Sabha led to the first Mahila Sabha meeting in the Panchayat. This was possible only because the women collectives took the initiative to work together with all the women and girls and worked on engaging stakeholders.
Key learnings:
Working on the project through this fellowship offered me an experience that has made a profound influence on my journey as a development professional. Some of my key learnings are
- Power within could be the first starting point for a fellow like me to embark on this journey. This is my own believe in this journey, on my strengths and understanding of areas to focus
- The inclusion of women in decision-making is the starting point to influence a significant change in the community. This has to be at the domain of family and community
- Strong women collective is required to nurture agency and leadership and help them take deep roots
- For ensuring agency, the intervention that influences multiple domains i.e. information, capacity building, income opportunities, political leadership
Reference:
This article was used to build the framework of this blog
https://www.povertyactionlab.org/page/what-works-enhance-womens-agency
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