AusAID this week announced the results of the 2012 AusAID Development
Research Awards Scheme (ADRAS) Funding Round, with 45 grants totaling
$28.7 million over three years awarded across eight themes: Africa,
Disability-inclusive development, Education, Gender, Mining for
development, Scholarships, and Water, sanitation and hygiene.
Assistant Professor Dr. Philippe Doneys is the principal investigator
of the AIT research project titled "What is Essential is Invisible:
Empowerment and Security in Economic Projects for Low Income Women in
the Greater Mekong Sub-Region", which was selected in the Gender
category, and from a pool of 581 applications overall.
Dr. Doneys said the large-scale study lasting from 2013-2015
"will focus on women’s economic empowerment and social protection
projects in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. It will involve an
exploration of the gaps between the level of decision-makers and
intended beneficiaries in terms of their conceptions of the ideas of
empowerment and security and their perceptions of what is happening on
the ground.”
Overall, the regional study will assess whether income generation and
other economic development and social protection projects contribute to
empowerment as understood by project participants and beneficiaries.
The AIT researchers want to know if policy makers understand the
economic and social issues affecting low income women in the four
Mekong countries.
“This should make policies and programs on empowerment and social
protections more effective in the future,” Dr. Doneys explained.
AusAID received applications from a wide range of research
organisations and from a variety of countries, especially from
throughout the Asia Pacific region. ADRAS Research Selection Committees
shortlisted 102 applications, which were then externally peer-reviewed,
with comments also received from AusAID program staff, the announcement
said.