Women’s Economic Empowerment Learning Brief

This brief synthesises findings from four evaluations of IWDA women’s economic empowerment projects. IWDA commissioned a consultant to review evaluations of the following projects:

– Rural Women’s Development Project – Timor Leste (2012-2015)
– Taking Steps Project – Timor Leste (2012-2015)
– Tugeda Tude Fo Tumoro Program – Solomon Islands (2009-2016)
– Women’s Financial Literacy and Livelihoods – Solomon Islands (2010-2015)

The review found that IWDA’s women’s economic empowerment (WEE) projects share three things in common. Firstly, all of the projects share a common approach–they build from the foundation of savings and loans groups. Secondly, most of IWDA’s WEE projects are of a similar scale-with small budgets, reaching a small number of beneficiaries. Thirdly, each of the WEE projects had limitations in their monitoring and evaluation system. There was one key difference between projects-their approach to advancing gender equality through women’s economic empowerment.