Women Empowerment Framework or Longwe Framework for Gender Analysis

Developed by Sara Hlupekile Longwe of Zambia in 1995, this is one of the world’s most persuasive gender theories. The framework is used to teach, plan, evaluate, learn and research gender issues. Longwe was awarded the 2003 Africa Prize for Leadership for her work in gender empowerment.

Sara Hlupekile Longwe , a feminist who developed the Women Empowerment Framework or Longwe Framework for Gender Analysis.

Cite as: Longwe, H. S. (1995). Women’s Empowerment Framework or Longwe Framework. Lusaka, Zambia.

Strengths

• The Women’s Empowerment Framework may assist organizations in developing more explicit programmatic strategies that aim to fundamentally shift the bases of gender inequality.
• Gendered assumptions of equality are made explicit. This provides an excellent opportunity for a feminist context analysis, highlighting the political dimensions of gender inequality. 
• The three levels of a program effect, e.g., positive, neutral, or negative impact, can be easily compared across programs. This also helps clarify areas of program strength and weakness, which can be used for program learning purposes.
• It is unique in explicitly allowing negative impacts to be located and analyzed.

Weaknesses (or not designed for):

• The Women’s Empowerment Framework is not designed to explain how or why a program works, exploring the contributing or causal factors that led to the progression from one level of impact to the next.  
• Focus is only placed on three levels of equality, e.g., positive, neutral, or negative impact, which limits important qualitative assessments of “success” that provide valuable information critical for program improvement.
• The assumption that there is a hierarchy of gender equality levels suggests a somewhat more linear change trajectory than is often found in practice.

How and when to use it

Uses:

For transformatory planning, monitoring, and evaluation

The Longwe Framework can be a useful framework for planning, monitoring and evaluation, allowing users to question whether their interventions have transformatory potential. It can be a useful tool to strengthen the translation of a commitment to women’s empowerment into actual plans and policy.

For training on technical and transformatory issues

In training the Longwe Framework is taught as part of work on planning and evaluation. It is also useful as a way of encouraging an examination of what is meant by empowerment.

Why it appeals:

Moves beyond the concept of practical and strategic gender needs to show them as a progression

The Longwe Framework has much in common with the Moser Framework’s concept of practical and strategic gender needs. However, it moves away from this restrictive distinction, which Longwe views as unhelpful. The Longwe Framework shows that development interventions contain both ‘practical’ and ‘strategic’ elements. The progression from practical to strategic depends on the extent to which the intervention has potential to ’empower’.

Emphasises empowerment

The method Longwe is particularly useful in explaining why ’empowerment’ is intrinsic to the process of development. It therefore illuminates aspects of development work which had previously not been sufficiently recognised or appreciated.

Strongly ideological

The framework has a very strong political perspective. It emphasises that development means overcoming women’s inequality compared to men in every respect.

Useful to identify the gap between rhetoric and reality in interventions

For groups committed to equality and empowerment, whose projects may not yet reflect this commitment, the Longwe Framework is a particularly valuable method of analysis. It permits an assessment of where women already have equality, and what still remains to be done.

Potential limitations and adaptations:

Not a ‘complete’ framework

The Longwe Framework is perhaps best seen as part of a ‘tool kit’, rather than as a stand-alone framework, for the following reasons.

• It is static and takes no account of how situations change over time;
• It looks at the relationship between men and women only in terms of equality – rather than at the complicated system of rights, claims, and responsibilities which exists between them;
• It does not consider other forms of inequality, and can encourage a misleading view of women as a homogeneous group;
• It does not examine the institutions and organisations involved;
• It does not examine the macro-environment;
• It deals in very broad generalities only.

Hierarchy of levels may make users think that empowerment is a linear process

Users may assume that in order to reach the level of ‘Control’, an intervention will have had to meet all the previous four levels. As explained above, this is not the case. An empowering intervention is likely to include resource considerations at the level of ‘Control’, but not at the levels of ‘Welfare’ and ‘Access’.

Hierarchy of levels does not allow for relative importance of different resources

The hierarchy can fall apart when one tries to consider the importance of different resources. A strict interpretation of the value of levels might lead to the conclusion that control (for example, of hoes) contributes more to women’s development than access (for example, to land).

Hierarchy of levels does not help to differentiate between marginally different impacts

Defining development only in terms of women’s empowerment can tempt users to focus only on women rather than on gender relations

The emphasis on women’s empowerment is one of the strengths of this framework. However, it is also one of its weaknesses, since it can encourage analysis of women without an understanding of how women and men relate (including how they are connected), and without an understanding of men’s needs and interests.

Strongly ideological

This framework can be too confrontational to be used with those who are not committed to women’s empowerment.

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References

Sara Longwe. 1995. “Gender Awareness: The Missing Element in the Third World Development Program” in Candida March and Tina Wallace (Eds) Changing Perception: New Writings on Gender and Development. Oxfam: Oxford. 

From Sara Longwe. 2002. “Spectacles for Seeing Gender in Project Evaluation.”