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This report in Bangla focuses on a project which interviewed members of the Chittagong Hill Tracts communities to examine their views on mainstream media and how it was failing in portraying their everyday lives. …

There have been a number of debates in Bangladesh, as well as elsewhere, as to whether women's experience of paid work is empowering or simply exploitative. The Bangladesh survey was designed to explore these hypotheses with a view to clarifying a) whether it was primarily the kind of work (pay, location, hours, independence of activity) which might differentiate women's experiences of paid work or whether it was the possibility for new relationships and networks that made the main difference. If the former, we would expect home based work for little pay, carried out on an irregular basis to offer least possibility of empowerment. If the latter, we would expect that it would be women's membership in different kinds of groups and associations, which might encompass home-based microfinance activities, to make the significant difference. …

This chapter explores the contributions that paid work can make to creating pathways of empowerment for women in Pakistan. It draws on the case of Pakistan’s government-run Lady Health Workers Programme (LHWP), which employs almost 100,000 women across Pakistan as community health workers who act as a vital link between communities and primary health care. …

This paper is intended as a contribution to the agenda-setting activities of the Pathways of Women's Empowerment RPC. The paper is concerned with Pathways' theme of empowering work, more specifically with women’s access to paid work and the pathways through which such work might translate into empowerment. This focus on the transformative potential of paid work can be seen as one strand in a broader research agenda on the material dimensions of women's empowerment, an agenda which would also include women's property rights, access to credit, social transfers, skills training and other kinds of economic resources. However, different resources have their own forms of materiality in that the changes associated with them are likely to take concrete shape through somewhat different pathways in women's lives. …

This paper explores the contradictions and contestations that characterize debates about the relationship between paid work and women’s empowerment. It suggests that this absence of consensus appears to reflect differences of context. It reflects other factors as well. It reflects changes in the social meaning of work over time. …

Drawing on household survey data collected in Egypt, Ghana and Bangladesh as part of the Pathways of Women’s Empowerment Research Partners’ Consortium, this report provides insights into the ‘resource’ pathways that enhance women’s agency and thereby contribute to the inclusiveness of the economic growth process. Moreover, it looks at the the extent to which the structure of economic opportunities, generated by a country’s growth strategies, translated into positive impacts on women’s lives in these three country contexts.  …

Palestinian women's political participation is marked by the Israeli occupation and a volatile political situation. This article argues that the political chaos following the Oslo Agreement of 1993 has led to civil society fragmentation and the marginalisation of certain groups. However, women's traditional involvement within the Palestinian national movement led to their assumption that society would adopt a non-gender biased perspective during elections. Disappointing results led to the formation of a coalition to campaign for a quota system. …

Can research on empowerment be in itself empowering to those that take part in it? If so, how might that research be constructed and conducted, and what kind of empowerment might researchers and research participants experience? This article explores a series of research initiatives in Salvador, Brazil, that sought to integrate transformative feminist principles into the study of women's empowerment as part of an international research programme involving researchers from Latin America, the Middle East, South Asia, West Africa, the UK and the USA. We reflect on debates about epistemology and methodology that gave rise to the design of these projects and on the research journeys that these designs brought into being. Contrasting research projects with very different foci, methodologies and participants, the article explores insights from these initiatives for feminist research on empowerment. …

This case study outlines Pathways approach to communications. The key findings and action points suggest ways of thinking about communications which can ensure it is both an integral and stronger part of the research process.  …

Pathways researchers talk about their view on the concept and term 'empowerment' in the light of the findings from their research. …

Final synthesis report from the Latin American Hub of Pathways of Women’s Empowerment (Pathways) - an international research and communications programme that has focused for the five years from 2006-2011 on understanding and influencing efforts to bring about positive change in women’s lives. After an introduction to the Latin American research projects within the four research themes, the report analyses selected research. Highlights from the LA Hub are given along with a detailed list of research outputs. …

Final synthesis report from the Middle East Hub of Pathways of Women’s Empowerment (Pathways) - an international research and communications programme that has focused for the five years from 2006-2011 on understanding and influencing efforts to bring about positive change in women’s lives. After an introduction to the Middle East research projects within the four research themes, the report analyses selected research. Highlights from the ME Hub are given along with a detailed list of research outputs. …

Development’s emphasis on women’s empowerment has been welcomed by some as a return from the fog of “gender equality” and the blind alley of “gender mainstreaming” to a sharper, clearer concern about the injustice, discrimination and lack of opportunities that women the world over experience. But the straight talk about power that was once part of feminist discourses of empowerment has given way as development agencies have taken up the term. Today’s softer, more conciliatory, calls for women’s empowerment have none of the rough edges of older demands for justice and equality. …

This is a short news article about this high profile meeting held at the UK Houses of Parliament where Pathways convened to celebrate the launch of its synthesis report, and to mark its move from a consortium to a network. The event was hosted by Baroness Glenys Kinnock and this article includes a podcast of the event. …

This paper presented to the 'Pathways: What are we Learning?' Conference held in Cairo from 20-24 January 2009, aims at identifying and analysing pathways/conditions/possibilities of women’s empowerment related to the application of Maria da Penha Law (Law no. 11. 340/2006), the first Brazilian federal law to combat domestic violence against women. Maria da Penha Law rises from thirty years of struggles led by Brazilian women and feminist movements. …