Empowerment

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- Knowledge eagerness of locals can be stimulated most effectively by combining the contents of outside knowledge with the vehicle of inside knowledge. This will increase empowerment and local economic development. Strong local leaders are necessary to bring in outside knowledge.

Ghiassi, Achieving Local Economic Development by Generating Knowledge Eagerness.

 

- Group/Community/Locality empowerment is needed for local economic development. To achieve successful GCL empowerment, several factors need to be taken into consideration. First of all, individuals need fulfillment of their basic needs in order to need self-fulfillment. This influences their human capital, thus their level of education and skills. The strength of human capital influences the amount of social capital, both bonding (relationships between people who already know each other, in the same GCL) and bridging (people from a different GCL) social capital. The strength of social capital is also influenced by the degree of governmental decentralization and the amount of NGO activity. The strength of the social capital finally determines the success of GCL empowerment.

van Kammen, How to Achieve Successful GCL Empowerment in Poor, Rural Areas.

 

 

- To achieve more local economic development it is important that everyone in society can contribute. In Zimbabwe lots of women suffer from gender equality and poverty, which causes many of them to work as sex-workers and get HIV/Aids. Empowering them to contribute fully to society is a key to solve this. Microfinance could be a good tool to empower women, alleviate them from poverty and reduce the presence of HIV/Aids in society.

Kips, Microfinance and the Struggle against HIV and Aids; the Case of GWAPA.

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- In the Indonesian province of West-Kalimantan, a so called Reds Team is trying to stimulate local economic development. In this research, it is investigated to what extent the Reds Team in Singkawang can be be expected to achieve its goals and to what extent improvements are necessary to overcome possible problems that can frustrate the achievement of these goals. It is expected they can better achieve their goals by increased decision making authority, increase attention to social capital and empowerment for the team.

 

de Vries, The Reds Team in Singkawang Analyzed.

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- There have been set up numerous LERD projects over the past years, but not every project is very successful.

Projects need more socialization in the form of collaboration between universities, the government, local leaders and entrepreneurs. Universities can also provide education and stimulate innovation. Furthermore, the quality of the coordination of entrepreneurial activities can be improved by providing a central where local producers/entrepreneurs etcetera can meet. Lastly, empowerment can be enhanced by giving training, providing starting capital (in the form of micro credit) and creating networks.

Wolfard, Local Economic Research Development: A synopsis of the projects in Indonesia. 

 

 

- A way to increase empowerment on a local level is micro funding. Important to take in consideration are things like training lenders beforehand and monitoring them afterwards for guidance and making sure the money or products are used in a right manner. Furthermore, group lending is recommended over individual lending since it creates a means of control in the form of peer pressure. Lastly, a thing to keep in mind is multiple lending, thus lenders should work together more in order to avoid this. 

Jansma, Microleasing in Uganda: A Program Design of the Supply Side of Microfinance.

 

 

- The research shows the importance of empowerment in collaborative structures (currently failing through state cooperatives). Follow new initiatives to increase strategic and structural empowerment, through vertical integration – such as semi-processing at the farmer level.
 

Roelofsen, Calling for chains to change: How Farmer Empowerment Can Advance Economic Development