Women empowerment

Women empowerment

Women empowerment, which means having control over the decisions and issues that affect one's life. It means having representation in decision-making bodies and control over the distribution of resources. Where women are underrepresented in decision-making for a, deliberate action to redress the imbalance is necessary. Participation in planning and decision-making processes has the additional benefit of increasing a sense of commitment to and ownership of the plan's objectives accountability, which underlines that change within an organisation and within society cannot be achieved unless the people who constitute these feel motivated to do so.

• Empowerment of women concerns women gaining  power and control over their lives.
• It involves awareness raising, building self confidence, increased access and control over resources and transforming structures and institutions which reinforce gender discrimination and inequality
• Empowerment cannot be achieved in vacuum; men must be brought along in the process of change.
• It doesn’t refer to power over, rather it is power to, power with and power within.

The UNESCO Agenda for Gender Equality

• Promote education for women's self-empowerment at all levels and in all fields;

 • Encourage the equal access to knowledge in all fields, notably within science and technology;

• Support to women's human rights by implementing the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

 • Promote the attainment of gender parity, women's full citizenship and equal participation in policy-making, and the elimination of stereotyped roles and expectations;

• Foster partnership and dialogue, and develop a new gender contract, underlining the longterm gains from the social transformation towards gender-sensitive societies (e.g., in fighting poverty and exclusion);

• Encourage women's creativity and freedom of expression by supporting their cultural activities, research, training, capacity-building, networking, exchange of information and women's NGOs;

 • Support a pluralistic and editorially independent media by favouring the broad and active participation of women in decision-making and by encouraging more diversified and nondiscriminatory images of women;

• Assist in building a culture of peace in the minds of women and men by recognising women's capacity for leadership and non-violent conflict resolution.