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Nepal
>> Regional Overview >> Nepal Overview ACTIVITY DATA SHEET
PROGRAM: Nepal
TITLE AND NUMBER: Increased Women's Empowerment, 367-003
STATUS: Continuing
PLANNED FY 2001 OBLIGATION AND FUNDING SOURCE: None.
PROPOSED FY 2002 OBLIGATION AND FUNDING SOURCE: None.
INITIAL OBLIGATION: FY 1995 ESTIMATED COMPLETION DATE: FY 2001Summary: This SO is enabling women to improve their own well?being and that of their families and communities by offering them an integrated package of literacy, income generating opportunities, and legal rights and advocacy training. The direct beneficiaries are the 130,000 women in 21 districts who are participants in the program. These women will become literate, learn about their legal rights and how to advocate for change, and use newly learned economic skills to increase their household incomes by creating small businesses. The indirect beneficiaries are nearly one-half million family and community members whose well-being will be improved as a result of empowering these women.
In 1995, when USAID began work on this objective, almost 80% of Nepali women could neither read nor write (1991 Nepal Census). Women work on average three hours longer per day than men, but only 48% of rural women, compared to 70% of rural men, were reported as economically active. While the Nepal Constitution contains guarantees for women, women remain largely unaware of their human or legal rights and participate little in the democratic process. USAID's women's empowerment program provides a road map out of poverty for rural Nepali women, their families and communities.
Empowering women intrinsically ties this objective to promoting the U.S. Government interest in developing democracy. The involvement of women in political life promotes democracy and good governance. Women's increased awareness of their rights as human beings will help to reduce problems of trafficking of women and girls, as well as eliminate impediments to economic growth such as unchecked population increases. Women's increased involvement in economic life supports broad-based economic growth for the country as a whole with long-term economic impact.
Key results: The program is providing: 1) more than 120,000 women with literacy skills; 2) more than 108,000 women with legal rights awareness and advocacy skills; 3) more than 101,000 women with access to savings and credit services; and 4) 81,000 women with the business skills to increase their contributions to household income.
Performance and Prospects: Performance over the past two years has been extraordinary. Though the program targeted 100,000 women to receive all three interventions, grassroots enthusiasm for the program shot the number of participating women above 130,000, and the number of local implementing partners has grown to 245. Since field implementation began in December 1998, externally collected data has demonstrated that the program has had a measurable impact on all three targeted dimensions of empowerment. Women participants talk more with their husbands about key household decisions, and have more confidence in taking decisions themselves; invest more income in savings and productive endeavors, in order to generate income for future well-being; and undertake more collective actions in their immediate villages and are beginning to interact in the broader community. An external assessment concluded that the integrated women's empowerment package is having early impact on the behavioral change in families and communities. This attests to the potential of this powerful set of interventions, with great promise for individual, community, and national development. The Government of Nepal has recognized the relevance and success of USAID's women's empowerment program and is working to establish their own program based on this model.
One hundred thirty thousand women have completed empowerment literacy training, the first step of the program. Eighty thousand women are now in post-literacy legal rights training, which provides the women with an understanding of their basic human rights and the skills to advocate for social change. This component of the program includes a unit on trafficking of women and children. By raising community awareness of this issue, the women's empowerment program is contributing to USAID's bilateral efforts against trafficking and the regional anti-trafficking program.
Fifty thousand women are learning the rules and practices associated with establishing group savings and loan programs, on the way to becoming strong village banks and cooperatives. Village banks (and registered cooperatives) are informal community based savings and credit organizations managed by the women themselves. The banks are supervised by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that also function as go-betweens to link them to larger sources of credit.
Two organizations, Save the Children and the Canadian Center for International Studies and Cooperation (CECI), implemented supportive economic opportunity activities. These activities increased the outreach and sustainability of NGO Grameen banks in Nepal, federated small savings and credit groups of women into sustainable cooperatives, and supported profitable microenterprises. At the national level, a center for microfinance has been established with USAID funding to promote best-practice microfinance through training, research and seminars, donor coordination, and policy reform on financial intermediation.
Possible Adjustments to Plans: Given the strong initial impact of this program, USAID will ensure that the current activities are completed as planned by September 2001, with some final expenditures expected in 2002. A completed program will provide a replicable model for future programs and a tested basis for synergies between USAID objectives.
Other Donor Programs: USAID coordinates the donor group on gender issues. Participating members of this group include the United Nations Development Program, United Nations Children's Fund, World Health Organization, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Germany, Canada, and Finland.
Principal Contractors, Grantees, or Agencies: Current grantees are PACT, the Asia Foundation, Save the Children, and CECI.
Selected Performance Measures:
Baseline Actual (1998) Actual (1999) Actual (2000) Target (2001) Women who are literate at a basic level (cumulative, in SO3- sponsored program) 0
(1994)456,000 560,000 578,852 n/a Women who become active members of savings and credit groups (cumulative) 11,037
(1996)88,000 126,000 145,678 158,500 Women saving and credit group members who begin or expand a microenterprise (cumulative) 5,600
(1998)13,000 56,000 82,021 81,000 Women who know their basic legal rights (cumulative) 300
(1994)86,000 94,200 166,214 194,000 U.S. Financing
(In thousands of dollars)
Obligations Expenditures Unliquidated Through September 30, 1999 8,999 DA 6,364 DA 2,635 DA 0 CSD 0 CSD 0 CSD 0 ESF 0 ESF 0 ESF 0 SEED 0 SEED 0 SEED 0 FSA 0 FSA 0 FSA 0 DFA 0 DFA 0 DFA Fiscal Year 2000 1,967 DA 0 DA 0 CSD 0 CSD 0 ESF 0 ESF 0 SEED 0 SEED 0 FSA 0 FSA 0 DFA 0 DFA Through September 30, 2000 10,966 DA 6,364 DA 4,602 DA 0 CSD 0 CSD 0 CSD 0 ESF 0 ESF 0 ESF 0 SEED 0 SEED 0 SEED 0 FSA 0 FSA 0 FSA 0 DFA 0 DFA 0 DFA Prior Year Unobligated Funds 0 DA 0 CSD 0 ESF 0 SEED 0 FSA 0 DFA Planned Fiscal Year 2001 NOA 0 DA 0 CSD 0 ESF 0 SEED 0 FSA 0 DFA Total Planned Fiscal Year 2001 0 DA 0 CSD 0 ESF 0 SEED 0 FSA 0 DFA Future Obligations Est. Total Cost Proposed Fiscal Year 2002 NOA 0 DA 0 DA 10,966 DA 0 CSD 0 CSD 0 CSD 0 ESF 0 ESF 0 ESF 0 SEED 0 SEED 0 SEED 0 FSA 0 FSA 0 FSA 0 DFA 0 DFA 0 DFA
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Last Updated on: May 29, 2002 |
