Women in sustainable development: Empowerment through partnerships for healthy living

This article seeks to take partnerships seriously. Specifically, it is concerned with the nature, opportunities, and challenges facing women's nongovernmental organization (NGOs), which seek to make real contributions to sustainable development. It uses a case study of COFERENE, a successful women's NGO in Costa Rica, to explore the nature of partnerships, the contextual factors that shape them, the successes that can be realized from their wise use, and the potential problems that may arise. There are lessons, both optimistic and cautionary, to be learned from COFERENE'S experiences. This article analyzes these lessons. In synthesis, partnerships are complex and demanding, though there are cases in which women's NGOs have used them effectively to foster sustainable development. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.