It is however, also obvious that information on women's needs and opinions is of the utmost importance for efficient rural development planning. In Sweden all official statistics must be disaggregated by sex unless there are special reasons for not doing so. This has helped us identify the differences between men and women - especially on the labour market. However, it must be remembered that the existence of high quality information alone constitutes a necessary but not sufficient condition for gender equality and poverty reduction. The goal must always be to empower women.
Participation is a process of democratisation.
As such, in order to succeed, it cannot be seen as an isolated phenomenon, but should be linked to other democratisation processes, both horizontally and vertically. That is a micro-macro perspective should be applied. Networking is a key word here. Women isolated in a village, suffering under oppressive gender structures and conditioned to accept the situation, may not be able to do much to improve their basic conditions and status by joining a project. By facilitating networking among women, and combining this with information and training related to Human Rights and democracy, as well as literacy and other crucially important knowledge, local women will gain the knowledge they themselves need.