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Project Record

Background:

The Research Programme Consortium on 'Women's empowerment in Muslim contexts: gender, poverty and democratisation from the inside out' (WEMC) was formed to address this knowledge gap - that is, 'how to achieve women's empowerment', especially in the face of disempowering forces, old and new.

WEMC defines women's empowerment as an increase in their capacity to make autonomous decisions to challenge or transform power relations that impede gender equality. It contends that conventional development interventions ignore power structures standing between women and the state.

Intended Outputs:

The RPC's new knowledge is communicated effectively and persuasively, through diverse means and products, to key policy makers, implementers, decision- makers, development practitioners, and other agents of change.

The capacity of civil society groups and networks is developed in ways that enhance their critical analyses of changing environments, as well as their growing engagement for women-centred transformations in policy and practice.

The RPC's ground-breaking, high-quality and coherent new knowledge transforms understanding of women's empowerment in Muslim contexts, with particular relevance for the MDGs and the Beijing Platform for Action.

Progress and Impact:

The programme is fulfilling its purpose of generating a "growing critical mass of civil society expertise engaged in policy debates for long-term changes in policies and practices that promote women's empowerment in Muslim contexts". In fact the achievements already far exceed the initial targets set, and are reflected in the successful implementation and integrated outcomes of the research, communication and capacity building dimensions of the programme.

The WEMC has produced a vast array of materials – publications, working papers and videos – that have added a new and valuable dimension to the notion and understanding of empowerment as a "relational, qualitative phenomenon shaped by contesting forces, not a quantity to have in incremental amounts". About 50 papers and/or policy reports in both English and local languages have been produced, not including a variety of multi-media products - a number way above the set targets. The WEMC's findings directly challenge the way the term 'empowerment' has been appropriated by funders and development agencies, which seek to 'measure' a dynamic process almost impossible to quantify. The majority of the research outputs are of high quality, but the capacity of some partners to produce research outputs needs to be built to meet the same standard.

The WEMC programme has adopted a transformative action research methodology, which has in turn proved to be an empowering process for all involved in the research process, most particularly for the grassroots women who are the subjects of the research. They demonstrate the interesting possibilities when research itself is positioned as a form of action and advocacy, and when research subjects are viewed as change agents, rather than external actors alone. These methodologies provide a counterbalance to more traditional research approaches, which are not only extractive, but widen the gap between research and action, and tend to target external elites, rather than the populations they serve.

The communications work has been interesting and exciting. A coherent communications strategy was developed during the inception phase to ensure that the communication of research findings was fully embedded into the overall research programme. There has been continued discussion and consultation and the strategy continuously updated. The strategy has ensured that the communications activities are highly participatory, involving key audiences in planning and identifying core messages. Communications activities have taken place at the micro level with women in the research sites, at the meso level to influence local policy and decision makers, and to a lesser extent at the national and international level. The range of media used - from academic articles to film and radio - has been impressive. There are clear indications that the new knowledge generated by the WEMC’s research has been communicated effectively and persuasively.

The programme has made great progress in building its partners' capacities and enhancing many skills, though more focus is now needed on building analytical skills to draw out research insights, distil key messages, and in conceptualization. The results of the effort made to build organizational capacity are both evident and impressive. The programme has further recognised the need to go beyond individual and organisational capacity to address the challenges of the political, social and regulatory context in which they work.