Women & Economy: The Politics of Empowerment
By Bushra Zulfiqar
The last two decades have witnessed an increasing emphasis on women’s empowerment as gender has moved at the centre of contemporary development debates. International commitments like the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) have brought women’s empowerment as an extremely important component of all development interventions across the globe. Women’s empowerment has been approached with a variety of rationales such as women’s empowerment through improved access to educational opportunities, women’s empowerment through participation in the political process and provision of economic opportunities including but not limited to micro-credit programmes. However the market or economic participation approach towards women’s empowerment is highly debatable.Read More »Women & Economy: The Politics of Empowerment