Measuring Empowerment: Cross Disciplinary Perspectives

This book, "Measuring Empowerment: Cross Disciplinary Perspectives," explores aspects of empowerment and its relationship to poverty reduction. It combines the research and experience of 27 development experts, and concludes that inequality is pervasive and embedded in institutions from the local to global levels, that poor people are less able than the rich to take action to bring about change on their own behalf, and that differences between social groups are often more relevant to questions of development and empowerment than individual differences.

This book outlines a conceptual framework that can be used to monitor and evaluate programmes centered on empowerment approaches. It presents the perspectives of 27 distinguished researchers and practitioners in economics, political science, sociology, psychology, anthropology, and demography, all of whom are grappling in different ways with the challenge of measuring empowerment. The authors draw from their research and experiences at different levels, from households to communities to nations, in various regions of the world.

The intended audience for this book includes planners, practitioners, evaluators, student and anyone who are interested in approaches to poverty reduction that address issues of inequitable power relations.