Filling the Urban Policy Breach: Women’s Empowerment, Grass-Roots Organizations, and Urban Governance

Abstract

The authors demonstrate that grass-roots women’s movements can produce innovative solutions to urban environment-related problems arising from a lack of adequate public services. They analyze the difficulties involved in women’s empowerment processes and the evolution of gender relations in the home, in grass-roots organizations, and in the city. Their article is based on the findings of a multidisciplinary research project investigating the interlinkages between cities, the environment and gender relations. It is a synthesis of five years’ work by seven research teams from Argentina, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Bulgaria and Romania, coordinated by a team based in Switzerland.