n a new report titled “Reaching New Heights: The Case for Measuring Women’s Empowerment,” CARE sounds the call for gathering more evidence in the movement to empower women and girls worldwide.

It does so by highlighting the astounding results of SHOUHARDO, a program to reduce malnutrition among more than 2 million of the poorest people in Bangladesh. Researchers wondered how child stunting, a measure of the shortfall in growth due to malnutrition, could have plummeted 28 percent in less than four years, even amid a crop-crushing cyclone and food price spikes. By pouring through detailed data collected under SHOUHARDO they had one clear answer: women’s empowerment.

Researchers found that women who participated in empowerment interventions to help them fight sexual harassment, move about their communities more freely and gain a greater say in household decisions were less likely to have stunted children than women who only received direct nutrition interventions such as regular food rations. In other words, the children of empowered women actually grew taller.

Climate change poses the greatest direct threat in history to CARE’s vision of a world of hope, tolerance and social justice where poverty has been overcome and people live in dignity and security.

The injustice of climate change is that its negative impacts fall disproportionately on poor communities, who have contributed least to its causes.

CARE’s Adaptation Learning Programme (ALP), implemented in Ghana, Niger, Kenya and Mozambique with the support of DFID, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland and the Austrian Development Cooperation, acknowledges that inequitable distributions of rights, resources and power at all levels constrain many people’s abilities to take action on climate change.

ALP therefore seeks to improve and promote knowledge on how best to protect the livelihoods of the most vulnerable people through community-based adaptation (CBA) to climate change.

CARE International in Yemen is proud to have been associated with this initiative with rural women in Al Mahweet.

The accounts of the village men and women who took part speak clearly and positively of the real and lasting changes in their lives which have happened thanks to the hard work and dedication of CARE staff working in close partnership with local communities in Yemen under the coordination of Faiza Hisham and Stephany Kersten.

We hope that the images and accounts in this book will inspire the imaginations of others to help change the lives of more women in rural communities everywhere. This resource is also available in Arabic.

Empowerment of women, as formulated by CARE staff, is building the capacity of women to improve their knowledge, experiences and skills to make decisions, improve the livelihood of themselves and their families, to participate in development, and improve her self esteem, within the context of Islamic rules and beliefs.

For two years, CARE has been working with 13 women’s associations in Al Mahweet governorate to increase their capacity, manage their associations and to take charge of their own empowerment.