What is WEMNS?
The Women’s Empowerment Metric for National Statistical Systems (WEMNS) is a streamlined tool for measuring empowerment. It is intended for use in large-scale, multitopic surveys in both rural and urban areas and is relevant across a wide range of livelihood strategies. WEMNS was developed by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Emory University, Oxford University, and the World Bank’s Living Standards Measurement Study Unit in collaboration with country partners in Bangladesh, Guatemala, Malawi, and Nepal. This work was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the United States Agency for International Development.
WEMNS is currently being taken up by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization as part of the 50x2030 Initiative. Three partner countries (Liberia, Sierra Leone, Tanzania) will integrate WEMNS in their national agricultural surveys during the course of 2024. Results will inform national governments and will contribute to finetuning of the metric.
WEMNS has 12 indicators mapped to one of four domains: Intrinsic agency, instrumental agency, collective agency, and agency-enabling resources. These indicators are:
- Intrinsic agency
- Endorsement of women’s freedom in livelihood choices (calculated for women only)
- Endorsement of women’s freedom in family formation choices (calculated for women only)
- Rejection of women’s subjection to sexual harassment (calculated for women only)
- Instrumental agency
- Influence over time allocation
- Influence in spending decisions
- Influence in own health decisions
- Collective agency
- Participation in organizations
- Leadership in organizations
- Support for women’s community engagement
- Agency-enabling resources
- Use of information communication technologies (ICT)
- Use of financial services and access to credit
- Secure property rights
WEMNS is calculated using a counting-based methodology: respondents are first identified as empowered on individual indicators, according to established cutoff values. They are identified as empowered overall based on the number of indicators in which they are empowered. These cutoff values continue to be refined as data from additional pilots becomes available. To date, WEMNS has been piloted in Bangladesh, Guatemala, Malawi, and Nepal.
WEMNS guides and instruments
Please use the following links to access the WEMNS questionnaire and information about how to calculate the WEMNS indicators: