Abstract:
Women's participation in economic, social, political, and cultural agendas remains a challenge. Realizing
this, governmental and non-government organizations are implementing various types of interventions.
However, the road to accomplish their goal has not been an easy task. Thus, the purpose of this study was
to investigate the practices, opportunities and challenges of socio-economic empowerment of women in
selected members of civil society organizations of Consortium of Christian Relief Development
Associations. In order to address this purpose, descriptive type of research design consisting of
quantitative and qualitative research approach was applied. In line with this, primary data were collected
from two purposively selected CSOs using tools such as key inform ant interview and focus group
discussion. Secondary data was also gathered from published and unpublished sources. The method of
data analysis of the study was underpinned by the qualitative and quantitative nature of data and the
specific objectives of the study. After data collection of the primary and secondary quantitative data, it
was written and with the help of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) it was properly
tabulate and analyzed. The methods of data presentation and analysis typically involve the
transformation of all information to analysis and interpretation.
The findings of the research revealed that practices of Civil Society Organizations in addressing socio economic empowerment included provision of startup capital for income generating activities,
contributed in building the capacities of beneficiaries as well as increasing household income level of
females. The findings also indicated major challenges which included lack of budget, major turn over,
unable to understand the purpose of the program, dependency and lack of Government follow up, lack of
work place, poor saving culture, lack of business knowledge and insufficient loan size.
In view of these findings, the following recommendations were forwarded: enhancing saving culture,
facilitating strategies for loan opportunity, identifying best practices and use as promotion strategy,
enhancing engagement of concerned government structures to address women empowerment, addressing
problem of working spaces, give due attention to contexts ( cultural, historical, social, and economic
realities), giving attention to enhance raising awareness wider community on women empowerment.
