EL SALVADOR

Decentralization and Women's Rights in Latin America and the Caribbean--El Salvador:

For the International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada

focus group research, focus groups, focus group training, women in development, decentralization and women's empowerment, program evaluation

Meeting and greeting on the streets of a small town in El Salvador

This review for the Women’s Rights and Citizenship Program (WRC) used field visits and desk reviews of multiple projects in three regions—Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, South/Southeast Asia—and one project in Middle East and North Africa. The review explored WRC’s programmatic relevance, effectiveness, and efficiency in supporting three core objectives–fostering quality research and analysis, building research capacity, and supporting research that results in evidence-based, concrete recommendations for policy influence and social change. GDI Director, Janet Mancini Billson, conducted focus group and key informant interviews in 2009 with members of the FUNDE research team, along with activist women in several towns in El Salvador, who are co-conducting participatory research on the impacts of decentralization on women's empowerment.