Women's Empowerment in Nutrition Index (WENI)
WENI is a nutrition-centered metric of empowerment that can be used to measure, track and identify barriers to nutritional empowerment.
Why is the tool important?
Many existing measures of women’s empowerment were developed without nutritional outcomes in mind and therefore do not provide direct guidance on pathways for improving nutrition. WENI aims to measure women’s empowerment in the realm of nutrition.
Who is the tool for?
This is a quantitative tool designed for researchers.
Country of focus: India/South Asia.
How can I use the tool?
The supplementary material in the published academic paper includes a list of the indicators that make up the index.
When and how was it developed?
The tool was developed in India, South Asia, in 2017. The team of researchers who developed the tool include:
- Erin Lentz, University of Texas, Austin, USA
- Sudha Narayanan, Indira Gandhi Institute for Development Research, Mumbai, India
- Marzia Fontana, Independent Researcher, UK
- Collaborative Research and Dissemination, New Delhi, India
- Bharati Kulkarni National Institute of Nutrition, Hyderabad, India
- Sabarmatee, Independent Researcher, India
- with Krushna Ranaware, Ankita Mondal, Udayan Rathore, Nirali Bakhla, and others
- Civil society partners
Where can I get the tool? Who can I contact?
Publications
Developing the Women's Empowerment in Nutrition Index in Two States of India
Sudha Narayanan, Erin Lentz, Marzia Fontana, Anuradha De, Bharati Kulkarni, Developing the Women's Empowerment in Nutrition Index in Two States of India, Food Policy, Volume 89, 2019, 101780, ISSN 0306-9192, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2019.101780.
Women’s Empowerment in Nutrition Index (WENI): Measuring nutritional empowerment to better link agriculture to nutrition
Lentz, E., Narayanan, S., Fontana, M., Sabarmatee, Ranaware, K., Mondal, A., Rathore, U., Bakhla, N., Collaborative Research and Dissemination, New Delhi, India, Bharati Kulkarni National Institute of Nutrition, Hyderabad, India. (2017). Women’s Empowerment in Nutrition Index (WENI): Measuring nutritional empowerment to better link agriculture to nutrition.