Heifer’s intervention for empowering women to transform communities

Abstract

Smallholder farmers in Nepal mostly women, engaged in household and farm activities with limited resources and access to services. Women’s empowerment is cross-cutting and not the primary goal of most of the interventions. This study measures the outcomes of Heifer’s intervention in women’s empowerment to improve livelihoods through strengthening of the social capital, improved access to services, finance and income. The study employed mixed methods, combining quantitative and qualitative approaches. The quantitative study involved 251 respondents, 176 of whom were female beneficiaries and 75 of whom were some of their male family members from the Heifer, Nepal, working area. The qualitative study involved 10 focus group discussions and key informant interviews with various stakeholders. Secondary data from the nationally representative Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) database of Nepal, Bangladesh and India were used to corroborate the findings. We found that women who are part of Heifer’s intervention, outperform compared to other women from India, Bangladesh and Nepal in financial independence, ownership of assets and agency. The results show the intervention has significantly improved financial autonomy, thereby allowing women to become the primary decision-maker for their personal finances. Their confidence in depositing the savings in formal institutions has increased significantly. A very promising shift in attitudes shows 56% of men agreeing that unpaid care work should be shared equally between men and women. This shows Heifer’s approach to be effective in achieving women’s empowerment.