Empowering women for sustainable development through semi-mechanized sheabutter processing in rural North-Western Ghana

Abstract

This study contributes to the on-going discourse on women's empowerment for achieving the African Union's (AU) Agenda 2063 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We draw on Batliwala's three interrelated approaches to women's empowerment to analyze the extent to which the implementation of a semi-mechanized sheabutter processing project in two rural districts in the Upper West Region of Ghana addresses women's practical needs and strategic interests. Although several studies on women's empowerment through similar project interventions have been undertaken the findings are skewed towards women's practical needs, while limited knowledge is provided on the important question of whether these interventions address women's strategic interests and raise their consciousness necessary for achieving their empowerment-related goals and targets of Agenda 2063 and the SDGs respectively. A qualitative approach was used in the data collection and analysis. It was found out that the project intervention has the potential of reducing poverty and vulnerability in the semi-arid region of the country where the raw material for processing sheabutter is available in large quantities. We further found that this intervention can help improve unequal gender relations and empower women. However, the achievement of these objectives is possible if the implementation of is anchored on a framework that promotes strategic gender interests; including issues of status relative to men, improved decision-making capacity of women at the household and community levels, and equitable access to productive resources. We conclude that, any meaningful progress towards genuine women's empowerment advocated in the AU's Agenda 2063 and the SDGs would require that the current structural issues in the study setting, which remain untouched by instrumentalist interventions such as this, be given critical attention.