Strong women, strong communities : CARE’s holistic approach to empowering women and girls in the fight against poverty

CARE has helped the world’s poorest people pursue their goals and improve their lives for 65 years. Over time, we have increasingly focused on injustice, discrimination and exclusion, particularly of women and girls, as underpinnings of global poverty. In 2005, we began a four-year investment in research about empowerment of women and girls. Through our inquiry, CARE developed a theory and framework of women’s empowerment and devoted substantial organisational resources to implementing our approach in 24 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
CARE applauds the commitment to empowering women and girls that increasingly unites world leaders, activists, development experts and other agents of positive change around the world. As the spotlight focuses more intensely on this shared purpose, we take this opportunity to offer our perspective about what empowerment often consists of in country settings and what works best to empower women and girls. Based on these findings, we offer recommendations for policy and solutions for practice. [authors abstract]