Empowerment of Women through Self-employment Activities

Empowerment of women is one of the important issues of contemporary development policies in many developing countries. In recent times, the government of Ethiopia has come up with various developmental policies and programs in order to promote women's advancement in different spheres. Currently, women in the study area are participating in different self-employment activities. However, various constraints in socio-economic and political fronts are severely affecting their active participation in these activities and thus it instigated to conduct the study. The study primarily attempted to assess various self-employment activities on empowerment of women in socio-economic and political spheres in Basketo Special Woreda, Southern Ethiopia. Particularly, with specific objectives, it examined the self-employment activities on social empowerment of women, analyzed the role of microfinance institutions (MFIs) vis--vis promotion of self-employment activities of women. It also examined the role of the government and its intervention through various policies and programs in bringing women empowerment and identified the constraints of women's participation in self-employment activities.