AN EVALUATION OF THE IMPACT OF RIVERS STATE COMMUNITY AND WOMEN EMPOWERMENT FOUNDATION PROGRAMMES ON WOMEN WELFARE

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1 Internatonal Journal of Economcs, Commerce and Management Unted Kngdom Vol. VI, Issue 12, December ISSN AN EVALUATION OF THE IMPACT OF RIVERS STATE COMMUNITY AND WOMEN EMPOWERMENT FOUNDATION PROGRAMMES ON WOMEN WELFARE Wosowe Elzabeth C. Department of Economcs, Bayelsa Stte College of Educaton Sagbama, Bayelsa State, Ngera Abstract Ths paper examned the role of Rves State Communty and Women Empowerment Foundaton programmes on the welfare of women. A composed sample of fve hundred respondents randomly selected from ten local governments n Rvers State, Ngera made up the sample whle smple descrptve statstcs, logt model, and propensty score matchng methods were used to acheve the study objectves. The results of the study show that access to women empowerment programme has a postve mpact on the per capta expendture of women. The author recommends that polces should be strengthened to make women empowerment programme a natonal and sub-natonal polcy n Ngera. Also, government should strengthen her regulatory framework to ensure full complance by sub-natonal governments. Non-state actors should also be encouraged to buy-nto ths ntatve. Keywords: Communty empowerment, women empowerment, foundaton, women, welfare, Rvers State, Ngera INTRODUCTION It s beleved that snce the md 1980 s, the term empowerment has become popular n the feld of development, especally n reference to women (Malhotra. 2002). In the opnon of Narayan, et al. (2005) grass-root programmes and polcy debates alke, empowerment has vrtually replaced terms such as welfare, uplftment, communty, partcpaton and poverty allevaton to descrbe the goal of development and nterventon. Accordng to hm, n spte of the prevalence of the term, however, many people are confuse as to what the empowerment of women mpled Lcensed under Creatve Common Page 535

2 Wosowe n socal, economc and poltcal terms. How empowerment strateges dffer from or relate to such earler strateges as ntegrated rural development, women s development, communty partcpaton, concretzaton and awareness buldng. The ndspensable role of women n the developmental effort of the socety calls for ther empowerment at all levels. Unfortunately, women are beng heavly margnalzed, vlfed, domnated, dscrmnated aganst, exploted and excluded from partcpatng n major publc polcy formulaton and development programmes world over (Ebrm, 2008). A ponter to ths effect n Ngera s the 2006 Natonal Populaton Census fgure whch ndcates that female consttuted 48.7 % of the entre populaton. Many of them are llterate, poor, dsadvantaged poltcally, socally and culturally. The mport of ths stuaton s that women n Ngera are bound to be backward compared to ther male counterparts. Perhaps, one way to break these barrers s for the women to be granted access to power over economc, socal, psychologcal and cultural stuatons to enable them have knowledge to transform the world to ther advantage. These empowerment f, f put nto proftable use, help n lberatng people from the shackle of hunger, poverty and other vces that hnders ones proper exstence. In an effort to attan lberaton for women-folk Roselne, Arkpo and Justna (2006) advocate empowerng women as a way of boostng ther capacty to make choces and to transform the choces made nto desred actons and outcomes. The ssue of women and empowerment came nto forefront durng the Unted Naton decade for women ( ). The observed margnalzaton and dscrmnaton aganst women all over the world compelled the Unted Naton to hold conferences, pronounced declaratons and embark on programmes to redress the mbalance. The central theme of all the conferences has been the need to rase the status of women and brng them nto the development process (Ike, 2006). The renewed nterest n ths regard may have stemmed from the openng occasoned by the trumph of democracy across the globe, wth ts concomtant elements of partcpaton and representaton, as by the purposeful push wtnessed n recent tme by a cross-secton of women, themselves, as by the actvtes of several cvl socety groups and Non-Governmental Organzatons. The mandate of these groups whch essentally revolves around ssues that seek to, essentally, redress mbalances and other forms of perceved nequtes, made them vertable nstruments for the projecton and promoton of women ssues (Umar and Abdullah,2012). Many large-scale programmes are beng launched wth the explct objectve of empowerng the poor and empowerng women. Empowerment s held to be panacea for socal lls; hgh populaton growth rate, envronmental degradaton and how status of women among other. Schuler and Adgamar (1992) emphaszed that empowerment s manfested as a Lcensed under Creatve Common Page 536

3 Internatonal Journal of Economcs, Commerce and Management, Unted Kngdom redstrbuton of power. Whether between naton, classes, caste, race, gender or ndvduals. The goal of women s empowerment are to challenge patrarchal deology (Male domnaton and women s subordnaton), to transform the structures and nsttutons that renforce and perpetuate gender dscrmnaton and socal nequalty and to enable poor women to gan access to and control of both materal and nformatonal resources (Ibraham and Alkre, 2007). In essence, f status and materal condtons of women s to change, all the solutons must penetrate just deeply. In a nutshell, women empowerment s based on the premse that t s a necessary condton for women to play effectve role n developmental programmes. It s n ths regard that Governments n Ngera, both at the natonal and sub-natonal level as well as some non- State actors have ntated some women empowerment programmes amed at empowerng women. One of such ntatves s the Rvers State Communty and Women Empowerment Foundaton. But how well ths programme has acheved the objectve of ts establshment remans largely unexplored. Problem statement The mportance of a women development and empowerment ntatve especally women empowerment programme n enhancng the wellbeng and development of women and by mplcaton a country cannot be overemphaszed. Women are very vtal n the growth of an economy. It s now accepted that the productvty and compettveness of all economc sectors and ther capacty to nnovate n terms of products, servces and processes, ncreasngly depends on comprehensve nvolvement of both the male and female folks. Although there has been ncreased access, measurable and dscernble mpact of women empowerment programme n Ngera and Rver State n partcular, there has not been any concerted effort at evaluatng the mpact of Rvers State Communty Foundaton and Women Empowerment programme on women s welfare. In fact, access to loan, low-cost housng, etc by women, wdows who are economcally actve remaned a major ssue. Ths stuaton remans unabated despte the mportant role these women play n the economc growth of the country. In order to facltate the use of ths ntatve as a vehcle for sustaned economc empowerment of women and natonal development, t s mportant to evaluate the mpact of Rvers State Communty Foundaton programmes n Rvers State. Ths s because wth the growng use of result-based management by government and donor agences, determnng whether goals have been attaned and convncngly lnkng changes to specfc programmes have become ncreasngly crtcal. It s equally mportant to note, however, that t wll never be suffcent merely to establsh facltes, whether buldngs or nsttutons wthout ensurng that these facltes are utlzed by ts users to greatest extent possble (Jorge, 2002). It s therefore mperatve that we profle and Lcensed under Creatve Common Page 537

4 Wosowe analyze the mpact of Rvers State Communty Foundaton programmes on the economc wellbeng of women n Rver State. LITERATURE REVIEW Bref Overvew of Rvers State Communty Foundaton The Rvers State Communty Foundaton s a Non-Governmental Organzaton establshed n It strves to mprove the qualty of lfe of communtes wthn Rvers State by. Establshng and mantanng a sound captal growth fund that would support organzatons, ndvduals and communtes engaged n development programmes. Moblzng resources from prvate and publc sources for development purposes. Instllng confdence wth communtes through revvng tradtonal, ndgenous phlanthropc practces. Supportng a board range of ndvduals and local organzatons engaged n actvtes of chartable nature or n development programs by provdng grants. Servng as a catalyst and an agent of change n enhancng sustanable development. The foundaton s managed by an Executve Secretarat and governed by a Board of Trustees composed of ten prestgous ctzens of Rvers State. Snce ts creaton n 2009, the RSCF has fnanced 28 development projects n 28 communtes statewde. ( Concept of communty development The frst communty development foundaton was set up n Cleveland n 1914 by Frederck Goff and operates now as the Cleveland Foundaton. Others soon followed ncludng the Calforna Communty foundaton and the Chcago Communty Trust. The frst Communty Foundaton n Canada was establshed n Wnnpeg n Snce the 1980s. a number of prvate foundatons n the Unted State have created ntatves to develop communty foundatons n varous states. One of the earlest such ntatve was n Mchgan and n Indana the Llly Endowment funded a program that has spurred development of communty foundaton n each of the state s 92 countres. On a smaller scale. The Grand Vctora Foundaton supports development of Illnos communty foundaton and the Kansas Health Foundaton operates a smlar program n Kansas communtes (Artkel 2013). Accordng to Bernholz and Fulton n Kasper (2005) communty Development Foundatons (CDFs) are nstruments of cvl socety desgned to pool donatons nto a coordnated nvestment and grant makng faclty dedcated prmarly to the socal mprovement Lcensed under Creatve Common Page 538

5 Internatonal Journal of Economcs, Commerce and Management, Unted Kngdom of a gven place. They are ndependent regstered phlanthropc nsttutons servng geographcally defned terrtory, typcally a cty or admnstratve area. Gast (2006) dentfed sx man characterstcs of the CDFs: 1. Act as grant-makng foundatons e.g gve grants to support development project. 2. Ther msson broadly defned (e.g. to mprove qualty of lfe n a communty) 3. Serve geographcally defned communtes a cty, state, regon, dstrct or provnce 4. Are supported by a broad range of prvate as well as publc donors and seek phlanthropc contrbutons prmarly from nsde the communty 5. Are governed by mult-sectoral local boards reflectng the communty 6. Buld captal endowment, whch s an mportant element of sustanablty. He however, noted that t s a combnaton of all these basc characterstcs what makes true Communty Development Foundatons, although there are many other types of communty organzatons that have some of these characterstcs. Hammock (1989) noted that, the funds establshed at communty foundatons can be non-endowed or expendable funds (.e., the corpus of the fund can be spent n ts entrety) or they can be endowed, whch lmt dstrbutons to the nterest earned on the assets and/or the amount granted by the foundaton as long as the corpus s not spent. Endowments last n perpetuty due to the corpus never beng able to be spent. Communty Development Foundaton: Independent regstered phlanthropc nsttutons servng geographcally defned terrtory, typcally a cty or admnstratve area (country, regon and the lke). They are nstrument of cvl socety desgned to pool donaton nto a coordnated nvestment and grant makng faclty dedcated prmarly to the socal empowerment of a gven place Theoretcal foundatons For a well meanngful understandng of ths study, t s pertnent to establsh a frm theoretcal framework. Consequently, women empowerment and communty development foundatons n Ngera can only be well analyzed and apprecated when t s predcated on the ratonal decson-makng theory. Ths theory wll serve as a gude wth whch we shall unravel the problems assocated wth women empowerment n Rvers State. The ratonal decson-makng theory s also called the ratonal comprehensve decsonmakng theory or the ratonal actor model. Ths theory s a publc decson makng tool, whch s used to proffer solutons to socetal problems. It also dentfes seres of alternatves that government, ndvduals and organzatons can take to ncrease the lkelhood that ther Lcensed under Creatve Common Page 539

6 Wosowe decsons wll be logcal and well founded. Accordng to Okpata (2003:18), The theory s sad to be ratonal because t seek to lead decson that are based on sensble and logcal reasons rather than mpulse... (lb.d), to Robert (2000:32) the ratonal decson makng theory strves to acheve the best decson that wll provde the best and ultmate solutons to a gven socetal problem. However, the theory seeks to read the best decson so as to attan a gven polcy objectve. In usng the ratonal decson makng theory, organzatons, ndvduals and government should choose polcy optons whch wll result n advantage to the socety that exceeds costs by the greatest amount. However, the organzaton should embark on polces and decson that wll ensure that greater beneft and equal empowerment opportuntes are gven to both men and women wthout gender dscrmnaton. Both n sklls women empowerment n the consttuton and n the polcy of Ngera should ensure that the prncple of gender equalty and women empowerment s observed n Ngera. Thus, n relaton to ths study, the ratonal decson-makng theory serves as best theoretcal framework n whch we shall analyze the topc; mpact of Rvers State communty foundaton and women empowerment on women empowerment n Ngera and. Women empowerment and welfare For tme long, women have been treated wth a great deal of dsdan, partcularly n the developng world. The percepton of the women as mere sex object or domestc hand s yet to gve way to a more progressve vewpont n most parts of Afrca (Moglen. 1983). Ths stuaton s true n Ngera as the ssues of man s superorty over women have rased serous concern consderng that hstory s replete wth female legends lke Queen Amna of Zara who rule the Zazzan empre founded by her father n the sxteth century; and the warror Queen Ida of Benn reputed to be the only woman to have left the army of the ancent Benn Kngdom known to have helped Oba Ewuare reclam hs kngdom after an ntal banshment (Sen, 1985). Accordng to Mason (2005) ths msconcepton n the vew of many has been fueled by negatve cultural values, male chauvnsm, gnorance and relgous bgotry. Sadly, ths s n contrast wth what s obtaned n the developed world, where women enjoy some form of prvleges, whle sharng equal opportuntes wth the male folks. It s also a shame that despte the rapd nfluence of modernty, many stll fne t mpossble to accept change. People contnue to hold on to bzarre belefs, one of whch lmts a woman to the provson of materal chldcare. As part of on-gong effort to change ths trend, the Junor Achevers of Ngera (JAN) recently organzed a programme known as the Lead Camp for Grls (LCGs) whch was sponsored by Lead Bank Plc, amed at empowerng them. JAN stated three year ago and t s part of an nternatonal assocaton, whch began n Today t exsts n 112 countres Lcensed under Creatve Common Page 540

7 Internatonal Journal of Economcs, Commerce and Management, Unted Kngdom worldwde wth chapters establshed n the Afrcan countres. JAN s prmary goal s to postvely nfluence the lves of secondary school students before they go on nto the unversty. At such a stage, they are usually mpressonable and need to be prepared to work towards achevng success and attanng future leadershp; we try to nurture and develop busness deas wth young grls n partcular beng encouraged to start busnesses, whch they themselves manage. In addton to ths, we conduct tranng camps wth the assstance of today s busness, leaders as well as prvate entrepreneurs (Smsola, 2010). Smsola noted that three expermental approaches to empowerng women whch have been undertaken n south Asa are: a. Economc Empowerment Approach b. Conscousness Rasng Approach c. Integrated Development Approach. The Economc Empowerment Approach Ths approach s concern wth women s subjecton or subordnaton and lack of economc power. It focuses on mprovng women s control over materal resources and strengthenng women s economc securty. Groups are formed usng two methods organzng women around savng and credt ncome generaton or skll tranng actvtes or by occupaton or locaton. These group may work n a trance of areas, ncludng savng and credt, tranng and sklls, develop of new technologes or marketng as well as provde such auxlary supports as chld care, health servces, lteracy programmers and legal educaton and ad. The Conscousness Rasng Approach Ths approach s concern or asserts that women s empowerment requres awareness of the complex factors causng women subordnaton. It organzes women nto collectves that tackle the source of subordnaton. Educaton s central and s defned as a process of learnng that leads to a new conscousness, self worth, socetal and gender analyss and assess to skll and nformaton. In fact, under ths approach, they groups themselves to determne ther prortes, women s knowledge ther own bodes and ablty to control reproducton are also consdered vtal. The long-term goal s for the women s group to be ndependent of the ntatng NED. The approach uses no partcular servces, entry pont and attempts to be open-ended and nondrectve; t gves consderable emphass to feldng change aganst who are traned to catalyze women s thnkng wthout determnng the drecton n whch a partcular group may go. Lcensed under Creatve Common Page 541

8 Wosowe The Integrated Development Approach Integrated development approach vews women s development as key to the advancement of famly and communty. It therefore provdes a package of nterventons to allevate poverty; meet basc survval need reduce gender dscrmnaton and help women gan self-esteem. Ths approach proceeds ether by formng women s collectve that engage n development actvtes and tackle socal problems such as dowry, chld marrage and male alcoholsm or by employng an entry strategy, usng a specfc actvty such as lteracy class or health program to moblze women nto groups. METHODOLOGY The study was carred out n Rvers State Ngera. Multstage random samplng technque was used n selectng respondents. In the frst place, from the 23 local governments that make up the state, 10 were randomly selected. These local governments nclude- Port-Harcourt, Obo- Akpor, Okrka, Opobo/Nkoro, Ahoada West, Ikwere, Ogba/Egbema/Ndon, Gokana, Abua/Odua, and Etche.The data used for the study were from prmary sources. Detaled and structured questonnare was used to elct nformaton from respondents. The questonnare covered all possble responses to the research objectves randomly selected sample of benefcares from the selected local government areas formed the sample sze (treatment group). Non-benefcares n the same localty wth the benefcares served as the comparson group (counterfactuals). Usng the non-benefcares as comparson group s approprate snce they resde n the same localty and they have the same soco-economc characterstcs wth the benefcares. Ths mples that they were smlar to the treatment group n all relevant prenterventon characterstcs. Pradham and Rawlngs (2002) observes that f the comparson group s smlar to the treatment group n all relevant pre-nterventon characterstcs, a drect post-nterventon comparson of the treatment and comparson groups provdes an estmate of the mpact of the nterventon. A total of fve hundred respondents (two hundred and ffty benefcares and two hundred and ffty non-benefcares of mcrofnance servces) consttuted the sample sze. Propensty Score Matchng Approach In ths approach, we consder access to empowerment programme as a treatment so that we estmate an average treatment effect of access to empowerment programme usng propensty score matchng approach. Propensty score matchng n ts smplest form nvolves predctng the probablty of treatment on the bass of observed covarates for both the treatment and the control group samples (Rawlngs and Schardy, 2002). The propensty score matchng method Lcensed under Creatve Common Page 542

9 Internatonal Journal of Economcs, Commerce and Management, Unted Kngdom summarzes the pre-treatment characterstcs of each subject nto a sngle ndex varable, the propensty score, whch s then used to match smlar ndvduals (Esquvel and Huerta-Pneda, 2007). In propensty score matchng, one pcks an deal comparson group from a larger survey and then matches the comparson group to the treatment group on the bass of set of observed characterstcs on the predcted probablty of treatment gven observed characterstcs ( propensty score ) (Ravallon, 2001). The observed characterstcs are those used n selectng ndvduals but not affected by the treatment. Thus n ths study, the crtcal assumpton that we are makng n usng ths methodology s that the decson to be treated (to access empowerment programme), although not random, ultmately depends upon observable varables. Rosenbaum and Rubn (1983) show that f one can match on varable x, then one can match on probablty of x. Therefore, for estmatng the mpact of empowerment programme on ncome/expendture and other ndcators, two groups are dentfed, those wth access to empowerment programme (denoted as T =1 for household and those wthout (T = 0). Those wth access to empowerment programme (treated) are matched to those wthout (control group) on the bass of the propensty score: (probablty of accessng empowerment programme (nterventon) gven observed characterstcs) p( x ) prob( T 1 x ) (0 px ( ) 1) Where, x s a vector of pre-nterventon control varables. If the T s are ndependent over all, and the outcomes due to nterventon access are ndependent of access to nterventon gven x then outcomes are also ndependent of access to nterventon gven p(x), just as they would be f nterventons were gven randomly. Propensty score matchng s a better method of dealng wth dfferences n observables. However, a few tests that have been done suggest that wth good data, propensty score matchng can greatly reduce the overall bas and outperforms regresson-based methods (Ravallon, 2001). Rosenbaum and Rubn (1983) establshed the followng condtons n order to be able to estmate Average Treatment on the Treated (ATT) effect based on the propensty score: Condton 1: The Balancng Hypothess R X p( X ) Ths means that for observatons wth the same propensty score, the dstrbuton of pretreatment characterstcs must be the same across control and treated groups. That s, condtonal on the propensty score, each ndvdual has the same probablty of assgnment to treatment, as n a randomzed experment. Lcensed under Creatve Common Page 543

10 Wosowe Condton 2: Unconfoundedness Gven the Propensty Score: Y1, Y0, R X Y1, Y0, R p( X ) If assgnment to treatment s unconfounded condtonal on the varables pre-treatment, then assgnment to treatment s unconfounded gven the propensty score. After computng the propensty score, the ATT effect ( ) s estmated as follows: E{ Y 1 E{ E{ Y 1 E{ E{ Y Y 1 0 Y D D 0 1} D 1, p( X 1, p( X )}} )} E{ Y 0 D 0, p( X )} D 1} Where: Y 1 s the potental outcome f the ndvdual s treated. Y 0 s the potental outcome f the ndvdual s not treated. Dfferent matchng methods are used n calculatng the effect snce the propensty score s a contnuous varable. Some of the methods used nclude nearest neghbor matchng, kernel matchng, radus matchng, local lnear regresson matchng. The nearest neghbor matchng was used n ths study. The nearest neghbor conssts of matchng each treated ndvdual to the nearest untreated ndvdual, that s ndvduals wth closest propensty scores are matched. The major ssues n nearest neghbor matchng are whether to match wth or wthout replacement and number of nearest neghbors to use. Matchng wth replacement allows the untreated observaton to form the counterfactual for more than one treated observaton. Matchng wthout replacement can yeld very bad matches f the number of comparson (D=0) observatons comparable to the treated observatons s small. Matchng wthout replacement keeps varances low at the cost of potental bas whle matchng wth replacement keeps bas low at the cost of larger varance. The other ssue regards number of nearest neghbors to use. In sngle neghbor matchng, w(, j) {1,0). In k nearest neghbor matchng, w(, j) {1/ k,0). In number of nearest neghbor, there s also a tradeoff between bas and varance. Matchng one nearest neghbor mnmzes bas as all matches are close matches whle addtonal nearest neghbor ncreases the bas, as margnal observaton are necessarly worse matches, but decreases the varance, because more nformaton s beng used to construct the counterfactual for each treated person. We employed nearest neghbor matchng, matchng fve neghbors wth replacement to estmate the ATT. Lcensed under Creatve Common Page 544

11 Internatonal Journal of Economcs, Commerce and Management, Unted Kngdom The ATT n the nearest neghbor s computed as follows: NN, M 1 T N 1 T N 1 N T T T jc T Y T T Y T Y 1 N T T jc jc j w Y j w Y w Y C j C j j C j Where, w w j 1 N C f jc() and w w j and C() mn p j 0 otherwse p j for thenearest neghbor matchng method The varables ncluded n the propensty score matchng are human captal and household varables. After matchng and estmatng the ATT, the ATT wll then be appled to households that do not beneft from nterventon n order to fnd out the decrease/ncrease n poverty and other ndcators due to nterventon; that s, to fnd out what poverty wll be assumng the households that do not beneft from nterventon projects are allowed to beneft and receve benefts equal to the ATT. The procedure for propensty score matchng s as follows: Poolng of two groups of ndvduals, that s the treatment and comparson group of those who accessed empowerment programme and those who do not access empowerment programme. After the poolng, a logt model of empowerment programme recevng and non- empowerment programme recevng as a functon of some soco-economc varables wll be estmated. The varables to be selected are those that were not affected by recevng empowerment programme. Some of the soco-economc varables ncluded age, household sze, locaton, educaton level of household head and martal status. The equaton s put thus: P P log log O a b Age b Housesze b edu b loc b mar 1 1 P From the logt regresson, a predcted value of the probablty of empowerment programme access was created. These were the propensty scores. Each ndvdual had a propensty score. For each empowerment programme recevng household, a non- empowerment programme recevng household that has the closest propensty score, as measured by the absolute dfference n scores, referred to as nearest neghbor was obtaned. For more precse Lcensed under Creatve Common Page 545

12 Wosowe estmate, the nearest fve neghbors were used. Thus the nearest neghbour matchng was used. The mean values of the outcome ndcator (per capta expendtures) for the nearest neghbors were calculated. The dfference between the mean and actual value for the empowerment programme recevng households (benefcares) s the estmate of the gan due to programme access The mean of ndvdual gans s calculated to obtan the average overall gan the average treatment effect on the treated (ATT). ANALYSIS AND RESULTS Socoeconomc characterstcs of the respondents A number of soco-economc attrbutes of the respondents were examned. The result n table 1 n the appendx shows the socoeconomc attrbutes of the respondents that were examned. The examned soco-economc attrbutes ncluded age of the respondents, household sze, hghest educaton level, tme of busness (full or non-full tme), locaton as well as the martal status. The result of the socoeconomc attrbutes of the respondents s shown n Table 1 below. Table 1: Socoeconomc Characterstcs of Respondents Socoeconomc characterstcs Category Benefcares Nonbenefcares Age (years) < > Sze < and above Educaton No formal Prmary school WAEC/GCE/SSCE Hgher Degree Occupaton Full tme busness Non-full tme busness Locaton Urban/Sem-urban Rural Lcensed under Creatve Common Page 546

13 Internatonal Journal of Economcs, Commerce and Management, Unted Kngdom Martal Status Marred Table 1... Sngle Consensus Wdowed Source: Survey data 2014 The result n Table 1 shows that 2% of the benefcares are below the age of 25 years whle 4% of the non-benefcares are below the age of 25 years. In the same ven, whle 40% of the benefcares are between the age brackets of years, 33% of the non-benefcares are between ths age brackets. Also, 41% of the non-benefcares are between the age range of years whle 34% of the benefcares fall wthn ths range. The result also shows that 24% of the benefcares are above 40 years whle 22% of the non-benefcares are above 40 years. The result further shows that 36.7% of the benefcares had less than 5 people n ther households whle 31.7% of the non-benefcares had less than 5 people n the household. The result revealed that 56.7% of the benefcares had between 6-9 people n ther households whle 55.0% of the non-benefcares had smlar number of people n ther household. In the same ven, only 6.6% of the benefcares had mnmum of 10 people n ther households whle 13.3% of the non-benefcares had same number n ther households. Of the number of benefcares of the women empowerment programme, 25% had hgher degree, 45% had WAEC and equvalent, 11.7 had prmary school whle 18.3 had no formal educaton. On the other hand, of the number of non-benefcares, 13.7% had hgher degree, 43% had WAEC and ts equvalent, and 26.6% had prmary school whle 16.7% had no formal educaton. Evdence from the result showed that 61% of the benefcares are on full tme busness whle 39% are not on full tme busness engagement. In the same ven, 71% of the non-benefcares are on full tme busness whle 29% are not on full tme busness. As regards martal status, the result revealed that of the benefcares, 63.3% were marred, 21.7% are sngle, 10% are wdowed whle 5% are on consensus marrage. On the other hand, of the nonbenefcares, 70.7% were marred, 15% were sngle, 5% were wdowed whle 9.3% were on consensus marrage. The result further revealed that 69% of the benefcares are urban/semurban dwellers whle 21% were rural dwellers. On the other hand, 54.3% of the nonbenefcares were resdent n the urban/sem-urban area whle 45.7% of them were rural resdents. Lcensed under Creatve Common Page 547

14 Wosowe The mpact of Rvers State Women Empowerment on the welfare (per capta expendture of women entrepreneurs n Rver State Ngera In evaluatng the mpact of Rvers State Communty Foundaton and women empowerment programme, propensty score matchng technque was used. As earler ndcated n the methodology, the logstc regresson was frst used to n obtanng the probablty scores. Later on the probablty scores were matched. For a more precse estmate, the nearest fve neghbours of the benefcares and non-benefcares that had the closest propensty scores were matched. Respondents whose probabltes could not be matched were dropped. The mean value of the per capta expendtures for the nearest fve neghbours was calculated. The dfference between the mean and actual value for the benefcares was obtaned as the estmate of the gan due the empowerment programme. The result showng the average overall gan n expendture per capta due to the empowerment programme (step 5 as descrbed n the propensty score matchng procedure) after the nearest neghbor matches of propensty scores obtaned after the logt analyss s presented n Table 2. The result shows that the average treatment effect on the treated (ATT) that s average gan n expendture per capta by benefcares of the empowerment programme, usng nearest neghbor matches s N Ths shows that the empowerment programme beneftng households rather ganed N after matches. The t value (2.45) for test of dfference between the expendture per capta based on the gan between empowerment programme recevng and non-recevng households, as shown n Table 2 was greater than the tabular value of Ths shows that there s a sgnfcant dfference n mpact on per capta expendture between empowerment programme recevng and non-recevng households. Hence, usng propensty score matchng, the fndngs suggest that empowerment programme have sgnfcant postve mpact on poverty as the gan n expendture per capta due to empowerment programme access was postve and sgnfcant Table 2: Result of the propensty score matchng showng the overall gan (ATT) n expendture per capta of mcrofnance Servces recevng households No of treatment No of controls ATT Standard error t-value Source: Calculatons from feld survey data, 2014 Note: The numbers of treated and controls refer to actual nearest neghbor matches. ATT refers to average treatment effect on the treated usng nearest neghbor matches Lcensed under Creatve Common Page 548

15 Internatonal Journal of Economcs, Commerce and Management, Unted Kngdom Socal and economc factors do not sgnfcantly affect the access to women empowerment programme by women n Rvers State, Ngera Table 3: Soco-economc Determnants of access to women empowerment programme by women n Rvers State, Ngera Independent B Std. Error t Sg. Varables Constant Locaton/resdence Martal status Edu. level Age Household sze Tme of busness Source: Feld survey data, 2014 Table 4: Model Summary Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estmate a a. Predctors: (Constant), household sze, Respondent's Martal status, Respondent's tme of Busness, respondent's place of resdence, Respondent's hghest educatonal qualfcaton In order to test ths hypothess, a regresson analyss was carred out usng the probablty of access to women empowerment programme by women as the dependent varable whle the soco-economc characterstcs of the women were used as the ndependent varables. The result n table 3 shows that all the soco-economc varables ncluded n the model sgnfcantly affected the access to women empowerment programme by women n Rvers State. The result of the multple regresson shows that the respondents place of resdence/locaton, educaton level, age, household sze, martal status, all have postve sgnfcant mpact on access to women empowerment programme by women. On the other hand, the result shows that nature/tme of busness had negatve but sgnfcant mpact on access to women empowerment programme by women. Ths result corroborates earler fndngs by Ifelunn & Wosowe (2012) who, n addton to locaton of busness, found the same set of Lcensed under Creatve Common Page 549

16 Wosowe soco-economc characterstcs to have postve mpact n determnng access to mcrofnance servces. The mplcaton of the present result s that those who were on full tme busness had lesser opportunty of ganng access to women empowerment programme. The R-squared value of 0.64 (64%) shows that the ndependent varables ncluded n the model explaned 69% of the varatons n the dependent varable CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS The study of the mpact of Rvers State empowerment programme on women welfare as proxed by per capta expendture n Rvers State, Ngera s very tmely. Gven the clamour for gender equty and need for all-nclusve growth and the recent drve by the federal government of Ngera towards usng targeted programmes as vehcles for economc development, women empowerment scheme has become a major plank n government polcy for accelerated growth of the economy. The program has dual ntent; poverty reducton and economc growth. The fndngs showed that women empowerment programme can be used as tools for fghtng poverty n Ngera consderng the fact that women empowerment programme had postve sgnfcant effect on poverty among women n the study area. Polcy to promote access to empowerment can be promoted, for example, by makng women empowerment programme a polcy mandate of natonal and sub-natonal governments. Ths could be done through effectve legslaton to that effect. Agan, government should strengthen her regulatory framework to ensure full complance by sub-natonal governments. Non-state actors should also be encouraged to buy-nto ths ntatve. Ths way, women wll contrbute meanngfully to the fght aganst poverty. Ths s crucal as the country drves towards jonng the league of bg 20s (becomng one of the 20 bggest economes n the world come the year vson 20:2020). REFERENCES Abdullah, G.L (2000). The crss of Democratzaton: Women s Vson of the Way Forward, Journal of Women n Academcs, Vol. 1 No 1, Sept 2000, Pp Adebayo, B.A. (2004) Female Schoolng, Non-Market Productvty and Labour market partcpaton n Ngera, Unversty of Agrculture, Abeokuta. Ake, C. (1996). Democracy and Development n Afrca, Washngton D.C., The Brookngs Insttuton. AU (2004). The Solemn Declaraton on Gender Equalty n Afrca (SDGEA), Adds Ababa, Ethopa. Bhavan, K.K Foran J., and Kuran, P. (2003). Femnst Futures-Re-Imagng Women, Culture and Development, London, Zed Press. Brdsall, N. (2007). Globalzaton and Inequalty, Centre for Global Development Report, March, 2007 Centre for Dsease Control and Preventon Report (2000) CEC Report (2007). Gender Equalty and Women s Empowerment n Development Cooperaton, commsson of European communtes, (SEC(2007) 332), Brussels, March 2007 Lcensed under Creatve Common Page 550

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18 Wosowe Rosenbaum, P and D. Rubn (1983). The central role of propensty score n observatonal studes for causal effects. Bometrca, No 70 Rawlngs, L. and N. R. Schady (2002). Impact evaluaton of socal funds: an ntroducton. The world Bank Economc Revew, vol. 16, no. 2: Umar, M.Z & Abdullah, A. (2007). Women Empowerment and Ngera s Development: Perspectve, Challenge and Prospects. Journal of Research n Natonal Development, Vol.5, No.2 Lcensed under Creatve Common Page 552