CLP’s Experience Measuring Women’s Empowerment: Lessons Learnt and Results Welcome: Thank you to gender-working group for allowing us to come and present and UST for hosting Apologies for the absence of other CLP team members CLP coming to an end and after a decade of work we have a lot to share. We recently published a series of lessons learnt briefs which focused on a variety of thematic areas, one of which was women’s empowerment This gender working group is a key audience for disseminating lessons learnt Quick overview of structure of presentation

Approach to Measuring Women’s Empowerment LF Indicator Survey Questionnaire Scorecard Grounded in conceptual framework Rich data Context-specific Community input Too time consuming Low response rate Subjective understanding of women’s empowerment Difficult to assess whether empowered Not adequate Measurement based on one indicator Some indicators only apply to women in male-headed households Donor requirements meant there was a need to be able to measure and assess the extent to which CLP was empowering women on the chars Approach 1: Originally our LogFrame only accounted for women’s self-confidence as the sole indicator of women’s empowerment- not adequate and not the full picture Approach 2: In 2010, our IMLC unit began researching how other projects were monitoring women’s empowerment; based on this and internal discussions, a 200 question survey measuring around 50 indicators was developed; Approach 2: In 2012, this approach was overhauled; IMLC did a literature review and decided to base our conceptual framework to measuring women’s empowerment on a document from DFID’s Social Development Advisor - used World Bank’s definition of empowerment: a process of enhancing disadvantaged individual’s or group’s capacity to make choices and transform those choices into desired actions and outcomes; literature also suggested women’s empowerment was highly contextual, therefore CLP set out to replace our old approach with one that took into account that women’s empowerment is context-specific and sought input from chars communities on their definition of women's empowerment Use of participatory fieldwork to define women’s empowerment indicators> 25 focus group discussions with both men and women from the chars conducted> used a stratified sample of participants who had not yet received CLP support, were at the time receiving CLP support, and participants who’s support period had ended + both male and female-headed households were included as well as frontline staff from our IMOs Women were asked their perceptions on women’s empowerment and how an empowered women can be identified Each FG developed a list of 10 indicators they thought were most important to identify an empowered woman IMLC than used a pair-wise ranking method to help better understand the ranked importance of each of the indicators identified by each FG–indicators that were ranked as important the most number of times during the ranking exercise were chosen to comprise the chars empowerment scorecard Separate FGD were conducted with women from female-headed households to determine which indicators would adequately measure their empowerment and which were not applicable

Women’s Empowerment: Context- Specific How do you define women’s empowerment? In your opinion, what are some indicators that are associated with women’s empowerment? Having a career Having equal pay Having a university education Freedom of movement Freedom from sexual harassment Ask audiences’ opinions of indicators that for them would represent women’s empowerment to illustrate how different our perceptions can be from the chars women.

Final Result Ability to solve conflict Joint decision-making Invited to social occasions Keeps family cash Being asked for advice Influence investments Attending meetings Independent income Indicators are binary, not weighted Women get 1 point for each criteria they meet Need to meet any five criteria to be considered empowered For female-headed households, 3 of these indicators were identified as non-applicable: joint decision-making, keeping family cash, influencing decisions regarding investments > replaced with making decisions independent of her family and/or community, ownership of asset, and being treated well by family Scorecard allowed CLP to measure women’s empowerment at different stages of the programme: pre-entry, during programme support and post-programme Approach allows CLP to 1) monitor the changes in women’s empowerment over time, 2) to measure the exact number of women it empowers through our comprehensive package of interventions Ability to solve conflict Own savings Committee membership

Results No baseline data available for cohorts 2.1-2.3 Main activities that contributed to women’s empowerment were asset transfer and social development groups High baseline for 2.6 likely a spill over effect from having worked with earlier cohorts in the same villages Most met indicators at baseline: keeping family cash (43%) and independent income (25%); least met at baseline: attending a meeting/training (0.5%) and membership in a group/committee (0.57%) Most met indicators after programme intervention ends: attending a meeting/training (90%) and membership in a group/committee (87%); least met indicators after programme intervention: ability to resolve conflict (50.7%) and invitation to social occasions (56.8%)– explain technical issue with ability to resolve conflict question and erratic data for social invitations

Results: Indicator-wise Average Empowerment Score Over Time, By Cohort Most Met Least Met Keeping family cash (43%) Own income (23%) Meeting/ training (0.5%) Group membership (0.6%) Baseline Resolve conflict (51%) Invite to social occasions (57%) Meeting/ training (90%) Group membership (84%) 2015

Results: Impact of Having an Independent Income 2.7 x more likely to attend meetings/ trainings 1.6 x more likely to keep the family cash 4 x more likely to have personal savings 3.4 x more likely to be a member of a committee 12 x more likely to be considered ‘empowered’* 2.3 x more likely to be invited to social occasions Having an independent income was an important factor in whether or not a women was empowered: 2015 data showed that if a woman had an independent income she was 12 times more likely to be empowered according to the CES In 2015, CLP participants with an independent income were: - 1.6 times more likely to keep the family cash - 4 times more likely to have personal savings - 2.3 times more likely to be invited to social occasions - 2.7 times more likely to attend meetings or trainings - 3.4 times more likely to be a member of a committee

Lessons Learnt Community involvement in defining women’s empowerment results in a defendable approach Use mixed methods to collect data Account for the possibility that respondents will tell you what they think you want to hear Even some obvious things can be overlooked Acknowledge the risk that questions can be interpreted in different ways Mixed Methods Use of both qualitative and quantitative methods to collect data- CLP did field research, including FGDs, to help develop a quantitative scorecard; data was collected via interview-based questionnaires; also complimented this with regular qualitative studies for a deeper understanding of CLP’s impacts on women’s empowerment Overlooking Some indicators only were applicable to male-headed households; adjustments had to be made Change over time We saw a difference between the importance of certain indicators over time from when a woman first entered the Programme to when she finished- ie. increased importance of ability to solve conflicts, invitation to social occasions and independent income Definition of women’s empowerment is context-specific & likely to change over time

Thank you www.clp-bangladesh.org Many reports related to women’s empowerment on CLP website Thank you www.clp-bangladesh.org