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Report in Bangla on the research which interrogated the significance and relative impact of donor funding on women organising at global, national and local levels. The researchers did not assume that successful organising by women required external funding, but rather sought to clarify the conditions under which external financial support to women's organisations and groups had a positive impact on women's empowerment as well as the conditions in which successful mobilising is achievable without such support. This was a comparative research with Ghana, where one of the components examined the role of international development agencies in supporting women's organisations. …

This chapter attempts to give an overview of the trends in research, thinking and programmes in Pakistan from 1975 onwards in the area of women’s empowerment and bodily integrity in order to understand what makes change happen. It also identifies drivers of change and enabling factors, and discusses what women in Pakistan have done to establish their rights and the implications of this. Secondly, it seeks to identify areas that need to be explored through further research. The author considers the concept of empowerment, the definition of bodily integrity, and examines the social constructions of the woman’s body in Pakistan. …

This paper deals with two related themes: bodily integrity and women’s empowerment in the Indian context. Delving into both the politics of gendered culture and sexual politics (the politics of the body) it argues that the dichotomy between the woman’s body and the mind is a synthetic one and socially constructed. The identification of women with their physical bodies is the root cause of their oppression in a patriarchal culture and society like India. Most often women are denied the rights to emotional, mental, psychological and physical spaces. …

This chapter makes an attempt to probe into the politics of women’s voice in Bangladesh. The chapter argues that there are structural factors within the state and society that act as barriers for women in Bangladesh to vocalise their opinions in the public sphere. Yet parallel forces are at work at national and international levels that enable women to create their spaces and voices despite these structural limitations. …

One of the pathways of women’s empowerment is participation in workforce. In Bangladesh one of the first areas which saw mass employment of women outside paid work is the family planning and health sector. It is thus important to explore how these women workers have been able to negotiate and challenge gender norms within their families and their communities and have become role models for the younger generation. The purpose of the research was to explore to what extent women health workers have become agents of change in an environment which restricted their movement and opposed their exposure into the public sphere. …

Health has been a sector that is traditionally considered appropriate for women’s employment as it is consistent with their caring role. However in the South Asian context, women community health workers are in fact challenging various social constraints and stereotypes by being engaged in regular employment, in coming out of their homes, being mobile in their communities and fulfilling a socially valued role. A qualitative research study was carried out from March 2008 to explore how women health workers have been instrumental in bringing social change into their communities, whether their role as paid workers has empowered them as women, and if there are discernible changes in gender relations as a consequence of their work. The Bangladesh study compared Government women health workers with non-government women health workers of pioneering programmes in three locations: ICDDR,B; Ganoshathya Kendro and BRAC. …

In this chapter the authors discuss how feminists in Brazil have responded to the challenge of dealing not only with tensions from existing inequalities within their ranks, but also with the task of devising strategies to channel very diverse women’s demands. They look at the national conferences for women held over the last decade  - the Conference of Brazilian Women (2002), and the I and II National Conferences of Public Policies for Women (2004 and 2007, respectively) – and examine their products: the Feminist Political Platform and the I and II National Plans of Public Policies for Women.  …

This chapter examines the context in which diverse forms of women’s activisms thrive in Egypt today. It is a politically volatile context, in which political space expands and contracts in unpredictable ways. It is also a context in which women’s national machineries are making claims as the principle actors mediating between the international community and the state on gender matters, and between state and society. …

The South Asia Hub of the Pathways of Women’s Empowerment research consortium held an inception workshop based on scoping papers on the themes of ‘voice’, ‘work’, and ‘body’. The purpose of the research is to seek to identify discourses and interventions that have led to the greater empowerment of women, based on these three themes. The papers in this book are culled from that inception workshop and give an idea of the mosaic that forms the lives of women in the heartland of South Asia. Three main arenas of activism and interventions emerge from the papers. …

This introductory chapter provides a brief discussion on conceptual debates on voice and the assumptions that the authors interrogate using empirical evidence. The broader contexts within which feminist activism and voice are organised are discussed. It focuses on the various influences on feminist activism: NGOisation/ professionalisation ; increase in transnational networks and links; rise of conservative forces; creation of participatory/democratic spaces; increase in donor’s epistemic power to shape feminist agenda; and how these have influenced feminist voice in the selected countries. …

This introductory chapter provides a brief discussion on conceptual debates on voice and the assumptions that the authors interrogate using empirical evidence. The broader contexts within which feminist activism and voice are organised are discussed. It focuses on the various influences on feminist activism: NGOisation/ professionalisation ; increase in transnational networks and links; rise of conservative forces; creation of participatory/democratic spaces; increase in donor’s epistemic power to shape feminist agenda; and how these have influenced feminist voice in the selected countries. …

This book explores the role that religion, culture and society play in the social and political positioning of women. The collection of essays in the book aims to capture the variety of policies, discourses, debates and interventions that have influenced the lives of women in South Asia and to identify those that have led to greater empowerment of women. The contributors assess the current situation and provide a rallying call for progressive politics that is committed to universal values. The essays also review as well as show us the new directions that are opening up new pathways for women to traverse. …

This book explores the role that religion, culture and society play in the social and political positioning of women. The collection of essays in the book aims to capture the variety of policies, discourses, debates and interventions that have influenced the lives of women in South Asia and to identify those that have led to greater empowerment of women. The contributors assess the current situation and provide a rallying call for progressive politics that is committed to universal values. The essays also review as well as show us the new directions that are opening up new pathways for women to traverse. …

This report focuses on the results from research on case study organisations and donors, conducted in Bangladesh. Five women-headed WROs were chosen as case studies. Research included interviews with donor staff, document review, and validation workshops. This report synthesizes their findings and reflections based on the case studies, around three key questions: How have donors affected women’s organisations’ work and ways of working? What are WROs doing to raise resources outside of donor funding and what are the types of work they do which is not donor funded? What are the emerging pathways? The report includes an analysis of Bangladesh’s context and developments from 1995 to present, the national development-aid scenario, the influence of the Paris Declaration and attempts towards donor harmonisation; a presentation of the five case-study organisations; an analysis of the experiences of the organisations before they received donor funding; sections on “Life with and without Funding”; a presentation of the situation from the perspective of the donors; and conclusions from the research and presents issues of sustainability. …

A case study report of the organization BNWLA, under the umbrella of inter-country research on ‘Mobilising for Women’s Rights and the Role of Resources’ undertaken by The Research Programme Consortium (RPC) on Pathways of Women’s Empowerment. The case-study organisations were chosen to capture the diversity of different types of women’s organisations in Bangladesh which include small associations, professional networks, and NGOs. The case studies were compiled following the collection of background materials, individual interviews, and a day long reflection exercise which was carried out using participatory techniques. The case study gives a background of the organization, its institutional process, its national and international context, its timeline, its agenda and relationships, its resources, its ways of organising, mobilising and the changes that have taken place, its relations with the government, crises/conflicts with donors, and an analysis. …