As MDG 3 Initiative Embarks on its Final Phase, Midterm Review Provides Guidance for the Road Ahead.

In an effort to track the progress and continuing obstacles to women's empowerment in its three-year MDG 3 Initiative, the Huairou Commission recently solicited the help of British review firm The IDL Group to write a midterm report with information provided by participating partners. Moving into the final phase of the initiative supported by the Dutch Foreign Ministry, the Huairou Commision is both inspired by the many successes of its member groups and dedicated to address the recommendations put forth in the review, the highlights of which are shared here.

According to the reviewers, "The MDG3AI should be highly praised for its dedicated contribution to supporting grassroots women's empowerment." The initiative has had "an impact on the partners beyond their individual projects, introducing them to new methodologies, as well as enhancing their organizational capacity and approaches." The IDL Group encourages the Huairou Cmmission to establish an overall monitoring and evaluation framework in consultation with its grassroots partners, in an effort to better measure the full impact on all indicators of empowerment.

The empowerment framework women leaders are applying through the MDG 3 Initiative deliberately expands the focus of progress beyond the official indicators set out by the Millennium Development agenda. The latter tracks the ratio of girls to boys in primary to tertiary education, the share of women in wage employment in the non-agricultural sector, and the proportions of seats held by women in the national parliament. More specifically, the MDG 3 Initiative aims to address the underlying prerequisites for women to assume leadership roles in their communities, including knowledge of policies, recognition of women's groups, and self-esteem. "Self-respect and self-esteem are often underrepresented in building women's strengths as role models, " says a leader of GROOTS Kenya in Gatundu in her evaluation. "A woman who is empowered has self-respect."

Mid-way results

Participants it the MDG 3 Initiative identified four areas for women's empowerment: governance and leadership, accountability, organizing and grassroots investment, and resource sovereignty. Progress was booked in all areas, as women gained access to land titles and credit, increased the responsiveness of local government to community concerns, and increased their advocacy base through peer exchanges across groups and regions.

Examples of change

In Ghana, where the custom is for men to inherit family land and where unequal land distribution continues to be an underlying cause of poverty, women from the Grassroots Sisterhood Foundation (GSF) successfully lobbied the heads of the Customary Land Secretariat (CLS) in Tamale to include three women in each of the three Chief Courts for decisions on land. They also supported the creation of a gender desk to cater to women's concerns and participation in the CLS. Seven leaders from CLS partner Grassroots Rural Women have accessed lands totaling 120 acres through engaging their traditional leaders for the allocation of land for farming and are leading in advocacy for security of tenure. There is an expectation that more groups will be allocated land in the coming year.

In India, Swayam Shikshan Prayog (SSP), has increased the quality and access to services in their communities, most notably healthcare and banking. By training women to become health promoters and by forming health governance groups, SSP's women hold health providers accountable for delivering high-quality health services to traditionally underserved constituencies. In addition, the SSP federation has worked along with local banks in an effort to extend banking services to poor communities. In the course of this campaign, 80 women leaders reached out to a total of 36 commercial banks to help locals set up bank accounts at zero balance.

Uganda's Community-Based Organization for Child Welfare (UCOBAC) trained 20 grassroots women to approach 180 elected officials to discuss women's participation in decision-making processes. In 2009-2010, the organization mobilized grassroots women to survey and map women`s political and decision making participation, resulting in an evidence-based advocacy document to support participation and engagement in decision-making bytwo groups of women: elected or appointed and grassroots women.

These examples speak to changes in attitude and increases in responsiveness of government toward women, most notably government recognizing and actively seeking women's expertise. All of these are indicators of progress, as defined by women in the Initiative.

Out of the four main areas of empowerment, the review found that participants placed more emphasis on governance and leadership than on the other three areas for empowerment. This suggests that grassroots women consider real empowerment to come from changes in the space of engagement.