Political Empowerment of Women for Sustainable Development in Ethiopia

Meskerem Bekele

doi:10.7176/jcsd/46-01

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the different factors affecting women's political empowerment and to find out the contribution of women empowerment through politically to bring sustainable development in Ethiopia. In order to gather relevant data Secondary data were used as a main source of data. The secondary data includes; statistical report, magazines, internal publications, journals and books. The results of the study shows that there is a significant relationship between women’s political empowerment and socio-economic variables, social class positions, mass media, political participation experience and political efficacy. All these have a greater impact on women’s political empowerment in attaining sustainable development. The study recommended that creating a well-established and structured organizations aimed at facilitating women's empowerment in politics is possible to strengthen the work of government to make it more effective by abolishing the dominance of few powerful rich political elites and by attempting inclusion of women in politics for sustainable development. Keywords: Women Empowerment, Women’s Political Empowerment, Sustainable Development DOI : 10.7176/JCSD/46-01 Publication date :March 31 st 2019

Highlights

Empowerment is demonstrated by the quality of people's participation in the decisions and processes affecting their lives
The rationale behind this study is to show case the historical back ground of women political empowerment in Ethiopia, discuss on the theoretical background, present overview of the current political empowerment of women including the major factors and problems faced to come to a reasonable conclusion up on which recommendations are made
Secondary data is used as a main source of data; Statistical report, magazines, internal publications, journals and books are used to assess theoretical and practical aspect of women empowerment in politics to promote sustainable development in Ethiopia

Summary

Introduction

Empowerment is demonstrated by the quality of people's participation in the decisions and processes affecting their lives. Much of what passes for popular participation in development and relief work is not in any way empowering to the poorest and most disadvantaged people in society (Oxfam 1995 as cited by Oxaal & Baden 2004). It is a multidimensional concept, which purports to measure a woman’s ability to control resources, her ability to choose and control different outcomes, and above all enhance her self-esteem. It can be examined based on different indicators Until recently, variables such as education and employment were commonly used to capture empowerment and other related concepts such as women’s autonomy and status. While those proxy measures are important and are ideally associated with empowerment, they may not capture all aspects of the multidimensional concept of empowerment (Joshi, 1999)

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion