Impact of indian third sector interventions on capabilities of women and social change

Abstract

Non-Governmental Organizations are playing an important role in empowering the communities in order to attain inclusive growth. Several projects/programmes are being implemented by them either independently of in collaboration with the government, especially to address gender issues. Majority of the programmes are aimed at empowering women. Several researchers have studied the impact of these programmes on the economic and social empowerment by using some economic indicators. Present paper uses Capability Approach in analyzing the impact with the premise that improved capabilities of women lead to greater exercise of agency by them. The analysis is based on the methodology developed by Ibrahim and Alkire. The increased agency in different domains was measured with appropriate indicators. The analysis shows that though NGO interventions have an influence on the capabilities of women, they only create the necessary conditions, but not the sufficient conditions.