Strengthening women's economic empowerment within the M4P framework

The purpose of this article is to present the underpinning for a gendered approach to the M4P framework. It draws on a paper that was prepared for the M4P Hub, and presented and discussed at an M4P Hub Conference, an online conference hosted by SDC, and a two-day in-person seminar held by SDC in Bern in May 2012. This paper summarizes the conceptual findings of the published paper, provides field examples, and offers an approach for explicitly incorporating women's economic empowerment in the M4P framework. The paper first unpacks and then lays out common elements of the definition and guiding principles of women's economic empowerment, and assesses how M4P stacks up against these definitions and principles. The paper then explores the opportunities and challenges that are presented by a market-oriented perspective on women's empowerment, drawing on experiences of M4P programmes.