This paper highlights the case of MUVA Assistentes, a public works programme (PWP) that provided training and mentoring to young vulnerable women (YVW) in urban Mozambique. Our paper draws out the main learnings from the MUVA Assistentes project to inform the design of other PWPs that have women’s empowerment as their major aim. We show through our analysis that it is possible for PWPs to achieve women’s empowerment, but only if they go beyond a sole focus on income provision through paid work to women. Instead, we argue that if PWPs formulate their theory of change in line with Kabeer (1999)’s notion of empowerment, with its three interrelated dimensions (resources, agency and achievements), women’s empowerment through PWPs can be both realistic and long-lasting. PWPs have always been popular in low- and middle-income countries as tools for poverty alleviation and mitigating high unemployment rates among young people. Given the disproportionate impact of poverty on women and girls, many existing PWPs often include a ‘gender’ component in their theories of change. A common limitation of such PWPs and theories of change is their overarching focus on providing income opportunities, which they suggest leads to women’s empowerment. However, this has not been the case for most PWPs; hence, learnings from a project that has led to substantive empowerment of young women are highly valuable. The MUVA Assistentes project was a component of the broader MUVA Programme running in urban Mozambique. It provided training to YVW and gave them paid work as classroom assistants in primary schools for one academic year. The project addressed two major problems plaguing Mozambique today: (1) high unemployment among urban young people, especially women; and (2) poor educational outcomes among primary school students. Through a dedicated focus on mentoring the participants, the project supported these women to build soft assets and skills to enable them to realise their future goals and aspirations. This paper highlights that the MUVA Assistentes project led to three major outcomes: (1) building technical skills; (2) improving opportunities for women’s employability in the labour market (while improving public goods); and (3) building soft assets through training and mentoring. Through a close discussion of the experiences of four women participants, we find that the MUVA Assistentes led to an increase not only in income opportunities for YVW, but also in their sense of self‑worth and confidence to exercise their agency in achieving their goals. Further, the project also provided a critical public good by working towards improving the quality of classroom outcomes in government primary schools. We conclude that through building these skills and increasing women participants’ self-worth, PWPs can build women’s resources, agency and achievements, thereby moving closer to achieving a holistic view of empowerment, which encouragingly extends beyond the PWPs’ duration as well.
The Covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the economies of most countries. What differed is the intensity of the impact, which ranged from mild economic contractions to devastating recessions and downturns. From a generic perspective, it is obvious to assume that high-income countries (HIC) would have faced lesser economic destruction than low- and middleincome countries (LMIC). However, a closer examination reveals that there are several factors that determined the impact of the pandemic on a country, as well as influenced its ability to respond. For instance, the existing economic structures and weaknesses strongly affected the countries’ ability to provide adequate fiscal stimulus. These weaknesses are following pro-cyclical policies and not creating fiscal buffers that would help build more resilience. An interesting finding that emerged was that the credit rating of a country was found to be the most important determinant of its Covid-19 fiscal response. This is one major area where HICs had a significant advantage compared to LMICs. Another key challenge that disproportionately affected LMICs was the lack of digitisation and access to the internet, which hampered economic growth as well as affected the countries’ ability to quickly disburse cash transfers and support. Research supported by the Covid-19 Responses for Equity (CORE) Programme – which is supported by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) – has revealed some emerging lessons and recommendations to address these challenges and improve the resilience of countries to future shocks. One of the first and foremost recommendations is for countries to invest strongly in social protection and healthcare systems for its citizens, which would help build their resilience for future shocks. Adopting free trade policies and avoiding protectionism has also been an important lesson from the pandemic. Another key lesson is to employ a gender lens to fiscal and monetary policies as women have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. Countries should also adopt expansionary monetary and fiscal policies as far as possible to increase the demand. Finally, countries also need to strengthen their financial institutions and mechanisms and reduce political interference, that would help maintain the asset quality of the banking sector.
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