<p>Over one third of the world’s poor reside in Africa and though over the last century African countries have made significant strides in promoting gender equity, the equality in society in terms of access and control over family, society, economic and political goods are yet to be achieved. As developing regions with high potential for cooperation on social, economic and political matters, India and Africa can mutually benefit each other through collaborations around knowledge sharing and capacity building.</p>
<p>India’s success in achieving poverty reduction and socio-economic empowerment of poor women can in part be attributed to convenient and simple local level access of savings and credit services to marginalised communities through the formation of SHGs. One of the most successful programmes on the SHG model is the Kerala based mission – Kudumbashree, which emphasises on political empowerment as a key result area and has adopted rights based approach where members of the programme proactively seek various social and economic entitlements.</p>