Innovative Grassroots NGOS and the Complex Processes of Women's Empowerment: An Empirical Investigation from Northern Tanzania

We argue that women's empowerment is an ongoing, incremental, and relational process that occurs across scales and pathways. Using a contextualized mixed methods approach, we measure empowerment processes unfolding across Maasai villages in northern Tanzania as related to the interventions of two innovative grassroots NGOs. Our results indicate increased personal agency in the household and increased political participation at the societal level as related to NGO involvement. Moreover, we show links between increased personal agency, and changes in beliefs regarding gender norms at the societal level. This highlights the transformative potential for change and the links across empowerment pathways.