Towards Women's Empowerment and Poverty Reduction: Lessons from the Andhra Pradesh South Asia Poverty Alleviation Programme

Women, Microfinance and the State in Neo-liberal India

“…Hence, the literature on Indian SHGs (with some of it being directly undertaken by NAB-ARD or commissioned by NABARD) has, by and large, prioritised similar concerns and assessed outcomes such as the social empowerment effects of women's participation in SHGs (Fernandez 2002;Holvoet 2005;Parthasarathy 2005), the poverty-alleviation impacts of micro-loans borrowed or micro-enterprises financed by microfinance lenders (Puhazhendi and Badatya 2002;Puhazhendi and Jayaraman 1999;Swain and Wallentin 2009), or has examined programmes along both dimensions (Anand 2002;Deininger and Liu 2013;EDA 2005;EDA and APMAS 2006;Garikipati 2008;Kabeer 2005;Murthy et al 2005). Owing to overwhelming female participation, SHGs have also been perceived as a strategic component of government programmes explicitly articulating empowerment goals, 10 besides poverty-related concerns.…”

“…They also produce the effect of blurring the distinctions between political and civil society that Chatterjee appears to overemphasise (Corbridge 2007;Corbridge et al 2005). These places included the mandal development office, the mandal revenue office, the panchayat office, the collector's office and the government block office (Murthy et al 2005). They make the important observation that men and women experience the state differently and that opportunities for encountering the state tend to be mediated through the male head of household for poor women given the targeting of the household unit by welfare and developmental schemes aimed at the poor.…”

“…Several studies note that one of the more common forms of action that the SHG women undertook related to male alcoholism, with the women, once organised, refusing to overlook or tolerate it (Dwivedi 2007;EDA and APMAS 2006;Murthy et al 2005;Sanyal 2009). Drawing from her interviews with women from 59 SHGs in two districts of West Bengal, Sanyal (2009) observes that a key community-wide intervention of the 'normative' 8 kind initiated by women included anti-liquor action.…”

Empowerment Strategies and Poverty Reduction in Bayelsa State: A Non-Parametric Approach

“…Lessons drawn from the anti-poverty experiences of India, Bangladesh, Israel and Argentina lean support to empowerment as an effective measure in poverty reduction. [7] An empowerment approach to poverty reduction requires that the poor are given support to develop and fully utilize their productive capacities. Empowerment is anchored on a three-pronged strategy of social mobilization, skill development, and capital formation.…”

“…[12] Poverty can be examined at two levels: dimensions and causes. [13] In terms of dimensions, poverty can be seen as lack of access to tangible basic needs such as food, shelter, clothing, water, nutrition and health, education, as well as intangible ones like human dignity and freedom. And in terms of causes, poverty can be seen as an outcome of failure of endowments (land, savings, labour, membership in family/state/community), exchange entitlements (for produce, labour, state/family/community membership) and productivity of productive assets.…”