Self-help Groups as a ‘Livelihood Development’ for Rural Women: Experiences from India and Ghana

Abstract

Governments, civil society organizations, development practitioners and bilateral as well as multilateral development organizations have over the past three or so decades worked and continue to do so towards reducing country and global poverty. This drive led to an emergence of different policy interventions, which are human centered. Key among these policy interventions is the empowerment of women who are identified as the most vulnerable, suffering disproportionately from poverty and its consequences. This explains why world leaders, with the turn of this millennium, dedicated two of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to work towards bridging the gap between men and women and improving maternal health. These can only be achieved through the empowerment of women. As the 2015 deadline for the attainment of the MDGs draws closer and the discourse on what should constitute the next set of MDGs is at the peak, it is proper to find out how far we have come, where we are and where we are going. In doing this, this paper examines how rural livelihoods can be promoted through the empowerment of women using Self-Help Groups (SHGs) with focus on India and Ghana. The paper is based on experiences gained by the authors in their working relationships with, and research activities on self-help women's groups in the two countries. Overall, women SHGs have the potential to sustainably promote their livelihoods through economic, political and social empowerment. It is concluded that throughout the last two decades, SHGs across India and Ghana in particular, and the developing world as a whole have played critical roles in improving the livelihoods of the poor and vulnerable, especially women. As the debate on the world we want after the MDGs in 2015 and strategies for achieving it takes shape, our recommendation is that policy makers and implementers, development practitioners, the academia and the donor community should adopt the bottom-up approach with a special focus on women SHGs.

Keywords: Ghana, India, Livelihoods, Self-Help Groups, Women