Close out report : SO [strategic objective] 3 (women's empowerment program)

WEP activities focused on facilitating literacy, legal literacy, and savings and credit activities among the women in 6,265 groups. In the literacy component, 6 months of basic literacy and numeracy education was reinforced by post-literacy materials on both savings and credit and legal literacy; 122,852 women passed a literacy test following completion of the course. Legal literacy groups that completed the basic literacy module were introduced to the legal literacy curriculum involving 24 weeks of study. The groups later engaged in advocacy campaigns both to address social issues and to improve local infrastructure; 109,306 women completed the course and passed a test of their knowledge of basic legal rights. These women went onto engage in 380,883 collective actions. Savings and credit activities group members deposited compulsory weekly savings, with the minimum amount determined by the group. The groups loaned money to members for microenterprise projects; 86,833 women had such projects. The WEP's most important output is the thousands of women who finished the program with the self-confidence and the skills needed to change their lives and their communities. Some of these women have already begun to seek political office; WEP groups have begun to band together to form coalitions to advocate more effectively for social and political change. With the $10 million dollars generated annually by their microenterprises, and their $1.8 million in savings, they are an economic force in their communities. Other significant outputs include capacity building for local NGO partners, models for literacy and savings and credit programs, and materials to teach literacy and legal literacy, combat trafficking, and explain WEP to a larger audience. (Details provided in report.) In its final report to USAID, The Asia Foundation (TAF) summarized the qualitative assessments of the project impacts made by TAF, Private Agencies Collaborating Together (PACT), and evaluation consultants, based on interaction with WEP participants, NGO staff, and government representatives. The following is a summary of the broad impacts that they identified: (1) patriarchal norms challenged (with both individual acts and collective actions challenging norms within families and communities); (2) changing attitudes (especially among village men, as well as growing respect of women by villagers for women's role in solving social problems); (3) enhanced sense of social responsibility (with women actively articulating and advocating concerns in the public sphere); (4) a space carved out for women in public affairs (in women's organization legal discrimination against women). (5) increased women's confidence (shown when women take action that emphasizes their confidence, such as registering marriages and obtaining citizenship certificates, together with enhanced bargaining power within the family); (6) local development role (translating their new knowledge, and sometimes their groups savings, into practical actions for community benefit); (7) engagement with local authorities (claiming resources from the village development committee [VDC] for public development works and becoming high-profile "watch dogs" for their communities); (8) linkages established (between WEP women and line agencies, elected officials and other concerned authorities); and (9) networks formed (of advocacy groups at the VDC and district levels, with the beginning of linkages to the national level). Includes lessons learned and prospects for sustainability.