The study focuses on job creation for the empowerment and development of women and assessed the role of State projects in the Umlaas Catchment area of the Working for Water Project in Kwazulu-Natal. The concepts of gender, households and rural development are defined from the socio-economic and geographical perspectives. A brief review of the aims of the Working for Water Project, which sets out to increase water yield through the clearing of invasive alien plants with the main objective of employing and training people from the disadvantaged communities in order to enhance their social upliftment and empowerment is presented. The data are collected from five stakeholders viz: the women employees, the contractors, the Project manager and the household members of the women employees of the working for Water Project as well as the community members from the six settlements in which the women employees are resident. In-depth interviews with the samples, which were tape-recorded, yielded a- rich database. The data are subjected to qualitative and quantitative analyses- to assess the extent to which job- creation enhances the empowerment and development of the women employees of the Project. The analyses entail the level of involvement of women in the management of the Project, capacity building and acquisition of skills through training, the effects of income in power relation at home and community and the socio-economic impacts of the project on the empowerment of the rural women in the study area. The analyses show that: (a) many of the women resort to work because of the pressing financial needs in their homes in order to alleviate the level of poverty. Also, the Working for Water Project has significantly helped the women employees to meet their financial obligations toward themselves, their children and members of their households. (b) more women than men are employed by the Working for Water Project in keeping to its objective. However, few women occupy management positions. The Project draws on a range of age groups with almost all the women employees less than 50 years of age. (c) some of the women employees of the Project have acquired skills from the organized training and as such are more confident to manage resources not only in their primary assignment but in their life situations. However, while the Project has helped some of the women employees to organize themselves in budgeting and making choices regarding their lives, some are still constrained by traditions. (d) the men seem to be happy that their women are working since there is no evidence to support that the men did not want the women to work neither did any of the women indicate that their men raised an opposition. Thereafter suggestions are offered to guide the policy makers and the Working for Water Project in achieving their set objectives of empowering and developing the rural women in order to stimulate a rapid transformation of the rural areas in South Africa. / Thesis (M.Dev.Studies)-University of Natal, Durban, 2003.

There has been considerable debate in the gender and development literature on income earning opportunities and their empowerment potential for women, particularly rural women, in developing countries. In this, a critical question for the empowerment of women is, does access to resources, for example, enterprise income, translate into power and its various manifestations for women within their households? This study argues that access to resources alone is not a sufficient prerequisite for empowerment. Improved access to resources will only transform into empowerment outcomes if women are able to exercise their agency to achieve desired outcomes. The study, therefore, highlights the centrality of agency in the empowerment process. Agency acts as a link between resources on the one hand and empowerment outcomes on the other. Furthermore, the relationship between agency and empowerment is dialectical as the two concepts under investigation are constitutive of each other. Put differently, enhanced agency results in empowerment, which in turn feeds back to increased agency, leading to further empowerment. Hence, empowerment is presented as both an outcome of the exercise of agency and a driver of agency. The study frames the question of agency and empowerment within feminist theory of agency - Western, African and South African. Using a case study of the Ikhowe Craft Group in rural Eshowe, the study examines the role of agency in the empowerment process for rural women crafters in two ways. Firstly, through the feminist political ecology approach, it evaluates their ability to access the natural resource, Cyperus spp. for use in craft making. Secondly, it examines their individual agency within their households and their collective agency in the Craft Group. Within the overarching feminist research paradigm, a mixed methods research methodology was used, which entailed embedding quantitative data collection and presentation within qualitative research techniques. The empirical evidence suggests that the women crafters’ agency was enacted and empowerment achieved within a context of enablement and constraints, with gender culture and traditional leadership emerging as significant variables that mediate the rural women’s agency within their households and in accessing the raw material for their craft. Gender and culture intersect to influence how the women construct their identities, roles and responsibilities within their households. Despite the constraints of social structure, the women emerge as important agents of social change in their households. In addition, the study has revealed the private sphere to be a significant site of both the women crafters’ agency and subordination. Hence, any conceptualization of women’s agency and empowerment, particularly that of rural women, needs to be context-specific to be able to adequately capture the realities of the women that impinge on their ability to act. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2010.