The Longwe Framework is intended to help planners question what women’s empowerment and equality means in practice, and to assess critically the extent to which a development project is supporting this empowerment. The ultimate aim of this Framework is to achieve women’s empowerment by enabling women to achieve equal control over the factors of production and participate equally in the development process alongside men. It may be better used as part of a 'tool kit', rather than as a stand-alone framework. Tools include:
Levels of equality: The Framework centers on the concept of five hierarchical levels of equality (Control, Participation, Conscientization, Access, and Welfare), which indicate the extent to which women are equal with men and have achieved empowerment. The levels of equality can be used to assess the likelihood of development interventions promoting equality and women's empowerment.
Level of recognition of women's issues: Identifies the extent to which the project objectives are concerned with women's development as a means of establishing whether women's issues are ignored or recognized. 'Women's issues' refer to all issues concerned with women's equality in any social or economic role and involving any of the levels of equality. Three different levels of recognition of women's issues are identified in project design:
Neutral level: Project objectives recognize women's issues, but concerns remain that the project intervention does not leave women worse off than before.
Positive level: Project objectives are positively concerned with women's issues, and with improving the position of women relative to men.
Negative level: Project objectives make no mention of women's issues.
• Has much in common with the Moser Framework's concept of practical and strategic gender needs but moves away from this restrictive distinction, showing development interventions as containing both 'practical' and 'strategic' elements. The progression from practical to strategic depends on the extent to which the intervention has the potential to 'empower.'
• Useful in explaining why 'empowerment' is intrinsic to the process of development; it is unequivocally about women, and about inequality, discrimination and subordination.
• It is static and takes no account of how situations change over time.
• Explores the relationship between men and women only in terms of equality, rather than at the complicated system of rights, claims, and responsibilities which exists between them.
• It does not consider other forms of inequality and can encourage a misleading view of women as a homogeneous group.
• It does not examine the institutions and organizations involved or the macro-environment.
• Hierarchy of levels may make users think that empowerment is a linear process and does not allow for relative importance of different resources.
• Focus on women's empowerment can encourage analysis of women without an understanding of how women and men relate (including how they are connected), and without an understanding of men's needs and interests.
• May be to confrontational to be used with those who are not committed to women's empowerment.
Back to GESI Frameworks
