FROM January 2012, EASSI in partnership with DSW (an NGO with headquarters in Belgium) will implement a Project titled Women and Girls' Empowerment (WOGE).

The Project is aligned with the priorities of Eastern African governments.  Ethiopian priorities are laid out in the Plan for Accelerated Sustainable Development to Eradicate Poverty, and policies such as the National Policy on Ethiopian Women. Kenya’s Vision 2030 places special attention to investment in women and youth. The same is true of Tanzania’s National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty, the Tanzania Development Vision 2025, and the National Women and Gender Development Policy. Uganda’s National Development Plan promotes cross-sectoral empowerment of women, by improving access to resources such as credit, business skills and market information.

In all countries, however, there is a disconnect between policy and reality.  In Tanzania, government is committed to women’s empowerment, but estimates that 60% of women still live in absolute poverty.  Regionally, girls have little say in decisions affecting them; e.g. many are pushed into early marriage. 49% of Ethiopian girls are married by the time they reach the age of 18, as are 26% Kenyan girls, 41% Tanzanian girls, and 46% Ugandan girls . Additionally, most women work in the informal sector, but female-owned small enterprises report only 57% of the income earned by their male counterparts.  Their businesses tend to be smaller, are less likely to grow, and have less capital investment than male-owned firms . In turn, trade provides 60% of non agricultural self employment  with women constituting the largest proportion of informal traders. Most women traders are small-scale traders, yet regional trade agreements promote large trade, which is dominated by men.

In Eastern Africa women are poorer than men. For example, in Rwanda, about 50% of women live in poverty in 2010, in Uganda they are about 46% and in other Eastern African countries they range around 30%. On average, women and girls are about 22% poorer than they were in the mid-1970s.The table below gives a trajectory indicating poverty levels among women and girls over the last 15 years (since the enactment of the Beijing Platform for Action in 1995). It shows that poverty levels are getting higher .  These high degrees of poverty are explained by women and girls’ low economic self reliance.

EASSI is a pioneer with vast experience in the advancement of women’s rights and gender equality. With this partnership with DSW, an expert in young women’s economic empowerment, the project is to leverage the unique and complementary nature of the partnership arrangement between the two organisations. The programme brings important new elements to EASSI’s portfolio.

Research in the region shows that investments in girls have a great impact on economic growth and the health and well-being of communities. When women and girls earn income, they reinvest 90% of it into their families, as compared to only 30 to 40% for a man . This means proactive measures that empower women and girls are urgently needed in order to make progress towards overall development and the achievement of the MDGs in Eastern Africa. Thus, this programme’s central objective is to contribute to poverty reduction by strengthening women’s and girls’ voices for economic self reliance.

Thematic Innovations

A key feature of WOGE is a shift from targeting women more generally to a specific strategic emphasis on female youth.  Young women can be drivers of change in their countries and communities, but they face the dual challenges posed by age and gender. Indeed, since women are a dis-empowered majority and young people an invisible majority, girls and young women stand at the interface of gender and generation. They have far less power and resources than older women and are even more invisible than adolescent boys and young men. The programme draws on DSW’s core expertise in youth programming in East Africa to address this critical dimension of women’s empowerment.

Additionally, this initiative is unique in integrating two types of interventions that are often carried out independently: life skills development and civic education. These two approaches reinforce one another, fostering the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values which will enable women to participate as active and informed citizens.

The multi-sectoral approach that will be used in this programme addresses several livelihood challenges faced by women and girls.  These include access to finance and trade, access to information on the existing legislations and policies and the working environment.  The programme will introduce trade fairs so that women traders in the informal sector can access markets for their goods, while also working with women media associations to highlight women and girls’ trade issues.