One criticism of how women’s empowerment is operationalised in development interventions is the lack of consideration of its context specificity. This quantitative study investigates how women participants in development projects in Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam perceive the meaning of empowerment and the associated positive effects of participating in empowerment activities. The findings indicate that women’s ideas of empowerment differ according to their cultural, economic and social contexts as well as from donor-driven definitions. Both similar and distinct positive effects of participating in empowerment activities are felt, highlighting the importance of incorporating what women prioritise when planning empowerment projects.

This viewpoint discusses women's roles in relation to food security in Sierra Leone, one of the hungriest countries in Africa. While key to improving food security, women have often been underrepresented in relevant programmes and discussions at the community and national levels. The viewpoint offers recommendations for integrating women in Sierra Leone into food security discussions, policies, and action. Their voices and experiences must be included to ensure meaningful and substantive improvements in food security.

This article determines the effect of transaction costs and socio-economic factors on smallholder natural rubber farmers’ decisions to sell at the farm gate to itinerant traders or in the alternative markets in Liberia. Cross-sectional data were collected from 200 smallholder natural rubber farmers through multistage sampling. The results indicate that transaction costs and socio-economic variables significantly influenced the choice of selling outlets. The study recommends that policy could aim at establishing market support services in the form of market information systems and affordable means of transportation to enhance access to up-to-date market information on trading partners and prices.

Open defecation is one of the health-related development challenges in most developing nations. This study confirms that open defecation prevalence is on the decline in Tanzania and the decline has been pro-poor. Despite such progress, open defecation practices continue to concentrate in the north-eastern and lake zone regions of the country. Education, age, rurality and wealth remain important factors in explaining open defecation. However, the influence of wealth and rurality has evolved over time. Whereas wealth has had an increasing influence over time on whether one defecates in the open, the influence of rurality is on the decline.

This study relies on a triple-hurdle model to estimate the factors that determine farmers’ decision to participate in a peer dissemination project and then share the knowledge gained with other farmers. The first hurdle estimates show that proximity, income and social contacts determine participation. The second hurdle estimates further show that access to information, being a male and farming experience have positive effects on facilitating a higher level of participation. Estimates of the final hurdle suggest that geographical location plays a role in determining the number of farmers that participants of a peer dissemination project can contact.

Women’s empowerment is recognised as an important strategy to foster gender equality. Its achievement requires an approach that targets normative and structural drivers of gender inequality. Nigerian women continue to face socio-economic challenges and are unable to exercise their agency within their homes. We evaluated a cluster-randomised control trial that aimed to increase women’s household decision-making by working with couples in three critical areas: spousal relations, and financial and reproductive decision-making. The trend overall suggested gains in some domains of decision-making but the results were mixed. More research is needed for improved context-specific measurement of decision-making as well as programme adaptation.

Discrimination and subordination of women have contributed to lower economic and social development levels for women, especially in developing countries. Empowerment of women enables them to gain control of their lives by increasing their participation in the economy and all levels of decision making. This study used mixed method research to examine the social and economic empowerment of women experienced in farming groups. The groups have contributed to women’s empowerment. However, the individual abilities of women are vital for empowerment to occur among members. Development support organisations should focus on improving women’s capabilities alongside the mobilisation of group establishment.