Ruth Alsop

This book introduces analytical and practical tools for putting empowerment into practice. The authors introduce a simple framework, based on the interactive concepts of opportunity structure and agency, that provides an analytic lens and an operational tool with which to design and evaluate empowering interventions. Using this framework, the book considers the methodological and analytical challenges to understanding and measuring empowerment and presents five concrete experiences with applying the framework to measurement and evaluation in different contexts.

This selective review looks at case studies where NGOs have been involved in rural/agricultural technology programmes directed at the rural poor, and attempts to identify those common features which characterize the agencies that have met with success. (Published in the ITDG Occasional Paper series).