Description
ABSTRACT
Human development can be attributed to different factors that directly affect the process of the growth of the human capital in any corner of the world. The successive human development reports that begun to appear since 1990s have indicated that the role of government and more recently non-government agencies to play to improve the living conditions of people and more particularly that of the women with the notion of empowerment. The term empowerment is constituent of the most important word power. It was the power symmetries in the society by gender that gave way to the male exploitation over female and for the persistence of women’s subordination.Thus, the Present Study was conducted on Role of NGOs in Women’s Empowerment- A case Study was conducted in Borno State of Nigeria.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
APPROVAL PAGE
DEDICATION
ACKNOWELDGEMENT
ABSTRACT
TABLE OF CONTENT
CHAPTER ONE
- INTRODUCTION
1.1 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
1.2 JUSTIFICATION AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
1.3 SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
1.4 STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM
1.5 STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM
1.6 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
CHAPTER TWO
2.1 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.2 OVERVIEW OF WOMEN EMPOWERMENT
2.3 ROLES AND FUNCTIONS OF NGOS
2.4 NATIONAL POLICY FOR THE EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN
2.5 GOALS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE POLICY
2.6 PARTNERSHIP WITH THE VOLUNTARY SECTOR ORGANIZATIONS
2.7 DEFINITION OF NON-GOVERNMENT ORGANISATION (NGO)
2.8 NGO CHARACTERISTICS
2.9 NGO STRENGTHS
2.9 NGO WEAKNESSES
2.10 HISTORICAL OF THE STUDY
2.11 OTHER ROLES OF NGOS
2.12 THE GROWTH OF NGOS
2.13 GENERATIONS OF NGOS
CHAPTER THREE
3.1 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.2 SOURCE OF DATA
3.3 RESEARCH INSTUMENT
3.4 POPULATION OF STUDY
3.5 SAMPLING TECHNIQUE
3.6 DETERMINAITON OF SAMPLE SIZE
3.7 VALIDATION OF ISNTRUMENT
3.8 METHOD OF QUESTIONNAIRE DISTRIBUTION
CHAPTER FOUR
4.1 DATA PRESENTATION ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
4.2 DATA PRESENTATION ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
CHAPTER FIVE
5.1 DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPREATAION
5.2 RECOMMENDATIONS
5.3 REFERENCES
5.4 RECOMMENDATION
5.5 REFERENCE
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have played a major role in pushing for sustainable development at the international level. Campaigning groups have been key drivers of inter-governmental negotiations, ranging from the regulation of hazardous wastes to a global ban on land mines and the elimination of slavery.
But NGOs are not only focusing their energies on governments and inter-governmental processes. With the retreat of the state from a number of public functions and regulatory activities, NGOs have begun to fix their sights on powerful corporations – many of which can rival entire nations in terms of their resources and influence.
Aided by advances in information and communications technology, NGOs have helped to focus attention on the social and environmental externalities of business activity. Multinational brands have been acutely susceptible to pressure from activists and from NGOs eager to challenge a company’s labour, environmental or human rights record. Even those businesses that do not specialize in highly visible branded goods are feeling the pressure, as campaigners develop techniques to target downstream customers and shareholders.
The economy of a nation can be improved only when the quality of life of the citizens of a nation can be effectively improved by raising the standards of living of the people on the street and in backward areas. In India and in many other developing countries women plays a very important role in the upliftment of the nation in all the aspects like social, political, economical and legal. Empowerment means control over material assets, intellectual resources & ideology which involves ability to get what one wants & to influence others on our concerns. Women empowerment includes the lives of women at multiple levels, family, community, market, & the state. The question surrounding women’s empowerment, the condition and position of women have now become critical to the human rights based approaches to development.
Empowering the women in social, political, economical and legal aspects is necessary to convert the idle society into self-sustainable society. Women empowerment can be achieved through political power, education, employment, NGO and SHG. Among these, NGO dominate and fruitful success of the women empowerment needs to occur along multiple dimensions including: economic, socio-cultural, familial/interpersonal, legal, political, and psychological. Since these dimensions cover a broad range of factors, women may be empowered within one of these sub-domains. Human development report since 1999 demonstrated that practically no country in the world treats its women as well as men according to the measures of life expectancy wealth and education. S.Mukhopadhyay in her study reports that female work participation rate in U.P. is reported as 11% with a Gender gap of 52% equal to West Bengal but less than Punjab. 56%women are in community service 17% in Manufacturing & 8.6 rural women in agriculture. Only 4% women as against 10% men are in the formal sector.
1.1 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The study is a humble effort to assess the NGO programs and the impact of NGO based on the purpose of women empowerment and various processes applied by the NGOs, promotion of SHGs, the background of NGOs, and their role in the process of Women Empowerment. The following are the specific objectives of the Study.
- To study the function of NGOs which are extensively involved in the process of Women empowerment in the state of Borno.
- To study the various methods used for Women empowerment by NGO’s Borno state.
- To Study the various experiences gained and problems faced by the NGOs during the women empowerment process in Borno state.
- To study strategic roles of the NGOs perform which help women to access information for their development.
1.2 JUSTIFICATION AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
This research highlights the contributions and challenges faced by women in the informal sector of the Nigerian economy. The study intention is toadd to the existing literature on small-scale businesses and women economic empowerment, especially in Borno State. The state is located in what is considered as one of the poorest areas of the country. Hence, small – scale businesses could indeed be the fulcrum of the nation’s desire for diversification of her revenue sources through the state. Likewise, stakeholders will be capable of revitalizing and creating new job opportunities for the womenfolk. However, small-scale businesses provide anenabling environment for women to develop friendships and participate in shared activities with people from different socio-cultural backgrounds.
Engaging in small-scale businesses gives women better social relationships as individuals or group in the society.
The interpersonal relationship that prevails in participating in small-scale businesses has a special value to the state in particular and the country in general. It means that’s mall-scale businesses provide women with personal identities or sense of stable social identities and in the long run, some of these businesses can transform into large-scale enterprises; thus contributing to the rural and urban economies.
This is because small-scale business according to Olokoyo (1995:1) is a symbol of opportunity, enterprise, innovation, and achievement.
It stands for something essential to women’s freedom. It is hoped that possible recommendations that are proffered shall adequately improve women’s participation in small-scale businesses for economic empowerment in the study area.
1.3 SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
The geographical coverage of the study is Maiduguri Metropolitan Council (MMC) and Askira/Uba local government area of Borno State. The study was limited to these two areas because they accommodate women who mostly engage in small-scale businesses and cannot cover all the existing twenty seven (27) LGAs in the state.
Other limiting factors are time, energy, financial constraints and unavailability of other logistics at the disposal of the researcher.
A unique geographical feature of the state is that it is bordered by three countries: Cameroun, Chad and Niger Republics. Also, the study has assessed small-scale businesses as a tool of women economic empowerment and limited its scope of conceptual coverage on the nature of small-scale businesses engaged by women for economic empowerment in Borno State, the factors that influence the involvement of women in small-scale businesses, the contribution of small-scale businesses to women economic empowerment, the challenges of women involvement in small-scale businesses and the strategies for strengthening small-scale businesses for women economic empowerment. In fact, other relevant issues that are indispensable but are considered relevant in the realization of objectives of the study were also investigated.
Also, trade was the key to the emergence of organized communities in the savannah zones of Nigeria, and Borno State is not an exemption. In fact, the state prosperity in small-scale businesses depended on its stake in the trans-Sudanic slave trade and the desert trade in salt/livestock. The need to protect its commercial interests, for example, compelled the traditional authorities to also intervene in Kanem -an empire which continued to be a theatre of war throughout the fifteen and into the sixteenth centuries.
1.4 STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM
In most part of northern Nigeria and Borno State in particular,women are generally restricted to the home and engage less in economic activities, a situation that tends to limit the realization of their full potentials. This shows that in this part of the country women only play the sex role. For as Belington et al(1999:21) noted, women are considered as “sexual objects of men” while in the West, they are relatively equal partners as wage earners as their male counterparts, but the contrary prevails in the African society. Many underprivileged women’s capacity for wage earning and autonomous existence are curtailed and most of them are adversely disempowered materially and otherwise. However, women who are privileged to have been economically empowered through small-scale businesses have numerous constraints that hinder their productivity.
Socio-culturally, Nigerian women are regarded and treated under all circumstances as inferior to men.
The average Nigerian rural woman engages in farming, fishing, petty trading,herding, commerce and industrial labour such as poultry keeping, cloth-making (weaving,knitting,sewing, dyeing), pottery and craftwork among other economic activities alongside their men. Longhurst (1982) noted that rural women can only earn one-fourth of their husbands’ expected income, making it impossible for them to cope without depending on their spouses’ income. In the attempt to economically empower themselves, women have taken it as a challenge to improve the family’s welfare as most prefer not to be dependent on menfolk as is commonly found in patriarchal societies.
In Borno State, many small-scale business women have taken up the responsibility of paying their children’s school fees, house rent and electricity/water bills. Some of these women have their own personal houses, cater for their aged parents, children/dependants, themselves and in some cases even their husbands.
They also pay their children/dependants medical expenses, extra-mural tutorial fees, open account for some of their children, buy household cooking utensils, appliances and so forth.
A nother trend of interest is the manner in which some of these successful women obtain loans from financial service providers to expand the scale of production or diversify to start new trades. Some of these women are deprived from occupying leadership positions in their tribal, religious and political organizations, but their involvement in small-scale businesses for economic empowerment has given them an edge over and above other women and men in the society. Women engagement in small-scale businesses have made them to developed a saving culture called adashe (contribution) to cope with the challenges of financing their businesses.
This research is an attempt to assess small-scale businesses as a tool of economic empowerment of women in Borno State an aspect many women studies have not focused on over the years particularly in the northeast geo-political zone. By so doing, this study will examine the social relationships and other salient factors that exist among the small-scale business women in the course of their business activities.
The study has analyzed the phenomenon of small-scale businesses and women empowerment in the statebased on the structural functionalist perspective.
1.6 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1.What is the nature of small-scale businesses engaged by women for economic empowerment in Borno State?
- What are the factors that influence women’s involvement in small-scale businesses?
- To what extent have small-scale businesses contributed to women economic empowerment?
- What are the challenges faced by women in small-scale businesses?
- What are the possible strategies for strengthening small-scale businesses for women economic empowerment?
CHAPTER TWO
2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 OVERVIEW OF WOMEN EMPOWERMENT
Women, although constitute half of humanity, are socially, economically and politically marginalized. The nature of empowerment can be diverse, depending upon the parameters that define the lack of power within the institutional framework in operation. For the past several decades, national governments, non-governmental organizations and international agencies have been aware and concerned about the status of women. Efforts have been made by these bodies to improve women’s literacy, nutritional and health levels and enhance their income-earning capacity…
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