Women Empowerment

Women are not helpless in face of existing challenges. They are decision-makers for themselves, their families, villages, businesses, and governments. For societies where this is not the case, people speak of the need for women’s empowerment. But what does it really mean to empower women? Is it political empowerment, economic empowerment, social empowerment, In fact, these groups are not mutually exclusive. They are reinforcing each other.

Women’s political empowerment, is pictured as political contribution in elections and government, is essential to give women a voice in the policies that have an effect on their lives. Women’s economic empowerment, which demands that women have the right to make their own choices concerning use of their resources, leads to prosperity for families and communities. Social empowerment, often achieved through public policy and education, liberates women from the mistreatment, exploitation, and repression that restrain women from reaching their full potential.

         Women's empowerment has five constituents:  women's sense of self-worth; their right to have and to conclude choices; their right to have access to opportunities and resources; their right to have the power to manage their own lives, both within and outside the home; and their skill to influence the direction of social change to create a more just social and economic order, nationally and internationally.

UNDP is focusing on women’s empowerment not only as human rights, but also because they are a pathway to achieving the Millennium Development Goals and sustainable development. UNDP coordinates global and national efforts to integrate gender equality and women’s empowerment into poverty reduction, democratic governance, crisis prevention and recovery, and environment and sustainable development. Through our global network, we work to ensure that women have a real voice in all governance institutions, from the judiciary to the civil service, as well as in the private sector and civil society, so they can participate equally with men in public dialogue and decision-making and influence the decisions that will determine the future of their families and countries (UNDP, 2015).