Improving People’s Lives: Lessons in Empowerment from Asia

In an era of free market economic growth fuelled by rapid globalisation, the poor, the underprivileged and the disadvantaged are often sacrificed or forgotten in the name of progress. This is especially true for countries where growth is measured in terms of quantitative indicators; and where the real creators of wealth—the marginalised—are largely ignored. Such progress therefore extracts a huge cost and those who pay the price have little opportunity to defend themselves. This volume documents powerful lessons in empowerment drawn from the varied experiences of four Asian NGOs engaged respectively in participatory approaches to rural development (Pakistan), tackling the problems of violence against women (Malaysia), improving conditions for Tamil estate workers (Sri Lanka) and capacity-building for local and community-based organisation (India). Besides presenting a diverse range of approaches to people’s development, they also describe new trends among NGOs working with marginalised groups in Asia. The contributions are personal accounts which describe how each organisation has evolved its own unique programme of empowerment in an effort to deal with a range of problems confronting the poor. In the process, they address some critical questions including: Are NGOs simply concerned with their specific programme an target group, or do they illustrate some fundamental principles? Are these the ways through which groups can advance within civil society? What are the various tools of empowerment? What is the relationship between NGOs and the state? Offering a rare critique of the Asian experience from the viewpoint of people’s empowerment, this book provides many insights and lessons for NGOs, bureaucrats and administrators dealing with social and rural development, those in multilateral and intergovernmental organisations and funding agencies, and students of development and voluntary action.