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Following the round of UN Conferences on Women from the 1970s to the 1990s, many states in the developing world established national machineries to first 'integrate women into development', and later to spearhead the task of gender mainstreaming adopted in the Beijing Platform for Action.  …

This article looks at the issue of domestic violence from the perspective of African experience, and examines the impact of attempts to address it by legal means. It poses three questions: 1) what are the similarities and differences in the experiences of African countries that have attempted to pass domestic-violence legislation; 2) what lessons have been learned in the process; and 3) how do attempts to pass such laws connect to the lived realities of ordinary women? …

This paper discusses how the concept of ‘empowerment’ and specifically women’s empowerment, has been constructed in different literatures and the insights that these may offer for Pathways’ research programme. In particular the paper explores how different understandings of women’s empowerment shape capacity for action, by women themselves as well as by diverse policy actors. …

Successive post-independence governments have embraced women’s empowerment in one form or another, either because of their own ideological positioning, or because of demands by their ‘donor friends/partners’ and/or organized domestic groups and NGOs. What has emerged is a varied landscape on women’s rights and empowerment work comprising the state bureaucracy, multilateral and bilateral agencies, NGOs, and women’s rights organisations, with their accompanying discourses. In the Ghanaian context, Nana Akua Anyidoho and Takyiwaa Manuh look at what the discourses of empowerment highlight, ignore or occlude, the convergences and divergences among them, and how they speak to or accord with the lived realities of the majority of Ghanaian women. Given that the policy landscape in Ghana is highly influenced by donors, they ask which discourses dominate, and how are they used for improving women’s lives in ways that are meaningful to them. …

In 2007, the West Africa Hub of the Pathways in collaboration with ABANTU for Development organized a three-day gathering with district assembly women to talk about their experiences in the 2006 local elections in Ghana. The aim of the dialogue was to create the opportunity for the local female politicians to reflect on their experiences in participating in the local elections. They were encouraged to link these experiences to their life histories as a way of exploring the meaning and sense they have developed about participating in the election process and how it may have empowered them. …

Feminist activists have looked to the law and to law reform as a key instrument for advancing women’s rights because of the broad reach of the law and its ability to produce social change, especially for less powerful and marginalised groups in society who have used legal reform to compensate for their lack of power (Lobel 2007). But as "while the formal rules can be changed overnight, the informal norms [i. e. "norms of behaviour, conventions and codes of conduct"] change only gradually. …

Understanding what works to promote, support and sustain ‘women’s empowerment’ calls for a greater appreciation of what the term means to different policy actors in different contexts. In Ghana, there is a strong commitment to women’s empowerment from government administrative officials, particularly female staff. However, there appears to be limited knowledge about the dimensions, pathways and strategies for women’s empowerment within government and the bureaucracy. Officials often base their interventions on a desire to address women’s individual situations rather than on analysis of the deeper-rooted structural constraints that women face, and remedies that might address them. …

In 2006, women constituted only 5 per cent of elected members and about 35 per cent of appointed members in 97 out of 110 district assemblies.  In this chapter, which is based on life history interviews with 32 elected and appointed District Assembly Women held by the Ghana Hub in 2007, Professor Manuh explores the personal biographies and factors that have enhanced opportunities for them to gain access to political power, including their backers and mentors at local level, and how this influences their agendas as assembly women as well as their experience of politics, how they perceive their roles and the kind of power they claim, and what they can do with it once they are in office. …

This paper presented to 'Pathways: What are we Learning?' Conference held in Cairo from 20-24 January 2009 is derived from the authors’ larger project on policy discourses and practices on women's empowerment in Ghana by leading institutions and actors in the state, civil society and the donor community. The overall aim of the study is to understand and ultimately influence the conceptions of women's empowerment in Ghana, and the strategies and actions flowing from these. In this paper, the authors focus on the Ministry of Children and Women's Affairs (MOWAC), the designated central government agency for 'mainstreaming gender' into national development plans. Operationally, MOWAC sees itself as the coordinator and guide for other ministries and government agencies on gender issues and concerns. …

The 1995 Beijing conference was a pivotal moment for legitimating women’s rights work in Ghana, and served as a powerful framing for women’s empowerment. This article explores the Beijing conference and examines its influence on popular notions of and efforts to promote women’s empowerment. We argue that the discursive context provided by the conference shaped popular narratives about women directly and also through its influence on the ideas and practices of public institutions and civil society. There is greater acceptance that women have rights that should be promoted and protected, and that there should be institutions and systems to which they have recourse. …

This special issue of 'Development' picks up some of the contentions and contestations that have accompanied the uptake of 'women's empowerment' by the development industry. Contributors reflect on their own personal and political engagement with the term and what it has come to represent. …

The assembly is a sort of District Council in Ghana. Its members are 70 per cent elected and 30 per cent - of which half must be women - appointed. This research project asked: How did the women get into office? How was getting into office a catalyst for participation? What results did they gain in office for themselves and their communities? …

This project involved looking at policy texts of organisations (civil society, donor agencies and government) dealing with women's issues to see what kind of empowerment is present in the texts. What ideas do they have? How are they conceptualised? What strategies do they use to bring about empowerment? …

The Pathways West Africa Team took the opportunity of participating in the 51st Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association in Chicago in November 2008 to convene their annual Dialogue on Empowerment. The theme of the panel was 'Women’s Empowerment and Development Policy'. Members of the team presented on the Pathways West Africa work. The session was well-attended and provoked a lively discussion. …