This article proposes a short list of internationally comparable indicators of individual agency and empowerment (and the corresponding survey questions). Data from these indicators would enable researchers to explore research and policy issues such as the interconnections between empowerment and economic or human development. The paper surveys definitions of agency and empowerment and adopts the definition from Amartya Sen, supplemented by Rowlands' typology. The proposed “shortlist” of indicators includes: control over personal decisions; domain-specific autonomy; household decision-making; and the ability to change aspects in one's life at the individual and communal levels. The strengths and weaknesses of each indicator are discussed, as is the need to supplement this shortlist with other variables. To ensure the feasibility of the proposal, we rely on previously fielded questions wherever possible.

No abstract

Capabilities need to be built from the bottom-up. Social innovations at the grassroots seek to present new solutions to existing social problems. However, since the poor suffer from limitations on their individual capabilities and agency, they engage in acts of collective agency to generate new collective capabilities that each individual alone would not be able to achieve. The question is: how can these acts of collective agency be initiated, supported and sustained in practice? What roles can development actors (such as the state, donors and NGOs) play in supporting these acts of collective agency? Drawing on the literature on social innovation, the capability approach, participation and empowerment, the paper argues that three crucial C-processes are integral conditions for promoting successful, scalable and sustainable social innovations at the grassroots, namely: (1) Conscientization; (2) Conciliation and (3) Collaboration. By linking the individual, collective and institutional levels of analysis, the paper demonstrates the importance of individual behavioural changes, collective agency and local institutional reforms for the success, sustainability and scalability of social innovations at the grassroots. The paper acknowledges conflict, capture and cooptation as potential limitations and recognizes the role of contextual factors in initiating, implementing and sustaining social innovations at the grassroots.

Poverty is usually associated with powerlessness, vulnerability and above all failure of aspirations. Poor people might not be able to achieve their capabilities, but this does not mean that they do not have aspirations they wish to fulfil. The concept of aspirations has been explored in the fields of economics, anthropology, psychology and philosophy, but not extensively in development studies. The aim of the paper is to present a conceptual framework for analysing aspirations based on the capability approach and to apply a new methodology to articulate these aspirations. Using Egypt as a case study, the voices of the poor reveal the interrelationships between failure of aspirations, which not only leads to a downward spiral, but also to an intergenerational transfer of aspirations' failure. The paper concludes that identifying and addressing the causal relationship between poverty, aspirations and wellbeing could be the starting point for effective and more relevant development policies that help poor people to achieve their aspired but unfulfilled capabilities.

No abstract