Filling the urban policy breach: Women's empowerment, grass-roots organizations, and urban governance

The authors demonstrate that grass-routs women's movements can produce inno vative solutions to urban environment-related problems arising from a lack of adequate public services. They analyze the difficulties involved in wome n's empowerment processes and the evolution of gender relations in the home , in grass-roots organizations, and in the city. Their article is based on the findings of a multidisciplinary research project investigating the inte rlinkages between cities, the environment and gender relations. It is a syn thesis of five years work by seven research teams from Argentina, Brazil, t he Dominican Republic, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Bulgaria and Romania, coordin ated by a team based in Switzerland.