Empowerment in a full sense must incorporate Economic, Political and Social Empowerment.
ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT: Opening economic opportunities to women has far-reaching effects. Affirmative laws in support of Women being given a fixed quota of Govt. contracts will boost women’s participation in business and in their earnings.  Providing access to Credit is a must for the growth of Entrepreneurship.  Grameen Bank of Bangladesh played a pioneering role in giving Micro credits to the destitute and landless women. Microfinance is seen to enable poor women to become economic agents of change by increasing their income and productivity and it helps build access to markets and to information and decision making power.
POLITICAL EMPOWERMENT:   In most countries, legal institutions still do not guarantee women equality in basic legal and human rights, in access to or control of land or other resources, in employment and earning, and social and political participation. Affirmative laws giving women a fixed quota of seats in Parliament has been suggested and is being applied in some developing countries to effect Political empowerment.
SOCIAL EMPOWERMENT: To effect Social Empowerment, laws against Gender Bias and Discrimination, against Social taboos and domestic violence, against Dowry, Trafficking in women and the Killing of the female fetus (female infanticide) need to be passed and stringent punishment meted to the guilty. Laws in support of Women to attend to Pregnancy and Child care need to be promulgated.
WOMEN’S NGO MOVEMENTS: A critical aspect of promoting gender equality is the empowerment of women, with a focus on identifying and redressing power imbalances and giving women more autonomy to manage their own lives. The Nairobi Women’s conference of 1985 gave a spurt to the formation of Women led NGOS. In Kenya, women’s led NGOs have enabled women to fight forced marriages, genital mutilation, to argue against male control of their sexuality, and to protest violence against women. Some of the women led NGOs have worked on developing women's empowerment in the full sense which is the cognitive and psychological along with the economic and political.
CHALLENGES
ACCESS TO EDUCATION: UNESCO Global Gender and Education Digest 2010 (from Data collected across 121 countries) states that Women make up nearly two thirds of the world’s 759 million illiterate adults and that the ratio of girls’ to boys’ enrolment has steadily improved, reaching 97 girls per 100 boys at primary level, 96 girls per 100 boys at secondary level and 108 women per 100 men at tertiary level in 2008. In recent years, significant progress has been achieved in women’s and girls’ equal access to education at all levels. But this achievement remains restricted in many parts of the world, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, Western Asia and Southern Asia.
Right to Education laws (RTE) passed in many countries mandate Education to their young.  India passed a bill in 2010 guaranteeing Education to all its citizens from ages 6-14.  Girls’ access to education can be particularly limited if they live in poverty, in rural areas or in urban slums; belong to a minority group; are affected by armed conflict; or live with disabilities. Early marriage, early pregnancy and child labor can force some girls to drop out of school. Successful interventions can include: the elimination of school fees, school feeding programs and the distribution of free school uniforms.
QUALITY EDUCATION:  While Literacy has increased in the past few decades, the Quality of Education in the rural sector and in Government schools is seen to be very low. Many children leave school without basic literacy and numeracy skills. The Urban middle class is able to pay the high Tuition fee charged by private Schools and obtain good quality education but the Poor cannot afford the same and end up getting low quality intermittent education. It is crucial to invest in quality education, by prioritizing the professional development of teachers, revising curricula and improving learning conditions.  “The most worrying aspect of the crisis in education is education's inability to provide the requirements for the development of Arab societies," according to the 2002 Arab Human Development Report.  The Report points out that education in the region often fail to teach students to analyze information or think innovatively.  
SOFT SKILLS AND CAREER COUNSELLING PREPARATION: Young women may find the transition from education to employment more difficult than young men because of limited access to social networks, information channels and job search mechanisms. Targeted initiatives can include: gender sensitive counseling and placement services, and gender-sensitive training courses. Job readiness and job search skills should be included in curricula for secondary and higher education and vocational training.
SCIENCE EDUCATION: Science education is an essential part of education. The global economy is increasingly knowledge-driven, and requires an educated workforce able to apply existing technology and to develop new science and technologies to combat poverty and adapt to emerging issues such as Climate control and Renewable Energy. Women generally continue to be underrepresented in computer sciences and sciences such as physics and agriculture research. In addition, women have not made the same inroads in engineering as they have made in sciences.
VOCATIONAL EDUCATION: Technical and Vocational Education that is job oriented and provides skills that are linked to the market will allow women to be productive workers and earn remuneration. Establishment of Polytechnics, Laboratories, Hospitals etc is required to pursue this. Courses need to be designed that will allow women to work in congenial places preserving their Health as well as allowing them to take care of their Home responsibility.
WOMENS ENTERPRENEURSHIP:  Entrepreneurship is another employment option for women. Technical education and management and marketing-skills training for women are instrumental in enhancing their entrepreneurship potential. Women constitute a significant share of business owners, especially in developing countries, and can thus contribute to job creation. Science, technology and innovation policies can take into account and address the specific constraints that women entrepreneurs face, such as limited access to productive assets, information, ICTs and credit.
REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH: Women, for both physiological and social reasons, are more vulnerable than men to reproductive health problems. Reproductive health problems, including maternal mortality and morbidity, represent a major – but preventable -- cause of death and disability for women in developing countries.
GENDER BIAS: Gender bias is the basis of Discrimination against Women and undercuts women’s rights in many areas. Unpaid domestic work – from food preparation to care giving – directly affects the health and overall well being and quality of life of children and other household members. Poor women do more unpaid work, work longer hours and may accept degrading working conditions during times of crisis, just to ensure that their families survive. Essential element in combating Gender Bias and Gender stereotypes is the need to fight Feudal and Patriarchal thinking which opines that Women are essentially inferior to men and need to be confined to home and providing them Education and Economic Rights will upset the social order. The ‘gender-science stereotype’, which associates men with mathematics and science, negatively impacts on girls’ interest in these disciplines.
Targeted actions to overcome stereotypes can include: revising curricula and textbooks, sensitizing teachers, and exposing children to female role-models.
SUPPORT FOR MARGINALIZED WOMEN: Marginalized Poor Women living below the Poverty line, constitute a big chunk of women in the Third World. They subsist doing Agriculture.  Poverty, Illiteracy and Home responsibility bog them and their problems are acute. Women Refugees during War and conflicts face a daunting life. In Subsaharan Africa, AIDS is a big killer of women. Giving women the Right to exert more control over their sexual and reproductive lives simultaneously with other AIDS prevention (condoms, education and medicine) strategy is required.
ADULT EDUCATION:    Literacy of Adults is an essential component of the drive for Women’s Empowerment. ICT technologies like Radio, TV, Mobile phone and Distance education using Satellites can be used to bring Literacy as well as cover other topics like Health,  Best Agriculture practices, Weather forecasts and prediction for future crops etc.
GLOBALIZATION:  Globalization forces create competitive societies and Governments have shied away from social spending (to foster competitiveness) negatively affecting programs meant for Economic Growth and sustenance.  In the increasingly open global economy, countries with high rates of illiteracy and gender gaps in educational attainment tend to be less competitive, because foreign investors seek labor that is skilled as well as inexpensive. Various global trends pose special challenges to women who are illiterate or have limited education. Economies' export orientation and the growing importance of small and medium-sized enterprises create opportunities for women, but women need the appropriate education and skills.
WOMEN IN AGRICULTURE:  A majority of women of the world are tied to the Agricultural economy. The role that communities themselves can play in solving local problems is being increasingly recognized. Rural and indigenous women have developed a vast repertory of knowledge and skills in sustainable agriculture.  Government and non-governmental organizations can play a critical role in recognizing and incorporating the learning of the indigenous women and supporting women’s potential as innovators.
CONCLUSION:
The biggest impediment to Women’s Empowerment is the absence of Political Will and Support. This becomes apparent from the low budgetary allocations for Education and for programs for Women’s Empowerment. The USA alone spent more than $1 trillion a year in the last decade on Defense but is unwilling to allocate the World Bank (WB) recommended 0.7% of GDP as AID to the Developing world.  (Chris Hellman in an article in Tomsdispatch.com titled “How Safe Are You? What Almost $8 Trillion in National Security Spending Bought You”, mentions that the total annual expenditure on US Defense and defense related items for the past decade has been $1.2 trillion and that over $10 trillion were spent in the past decade on US Defense). Many developed countries do not follow the WB recommendation of giving 0.7% of the country’s GDP as Aid to the developing world. Many Developing countries in turn, including India and Pakistan, spend less than 2.5% (in place of a recommended 6%) of their GDP on Education to meet the MDG targets and to realize the minimum Literacy and quality education goals.
Apart from Education and Literacy other factors that influence the status of women are Income, Reproductive Health, Environment and Socio-cultural constraints. Bradshaw and Linnekar (2003 in Chant) list three factors that contribute to the relative poverty of women. 1) Women generally have fewer opportunities to transform work into income 2) Women still have limited decision-making authority and 3) When women actually do make decisions they tend to act for the benefit of others first. Domestic Violence against Women is another big Impediment constantly putting women on the backburner.  Most instances of Domestic Violence and sexual assault go unreported and in some instances women are blamed for provoking violence perpetrated against them by men.
The United Nations development Program (UNDP) in 1995 introduced the Gender related development index GDI which reflects Gender disparities in basic human capabilities and the Gender Empowerment measure (GEM) which measures progress towards Gender Equity in Economic and Political power. Categories used in identifying the Gender Gap were Economic Participation, Economic Opportunity, Political Empowerment, Educational Attainment and Health and Well being. The GDI estimates show that even though Gender disparities have decreased over the years, there is still no country in which women have complete equality with men. Norway was the highest ranking country with a GDI index of .95 (out of 1.0)
In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), access to education has improved dramatically over the past few decades, and there have been a number of encouraging trends in girls' and women's education. Primary school enrollment is high or universal in most MENA countries, and gender gaps in secondary school enrollment have already disappeared in several countries. Women in MENA countries are also more likely to enroll in universities than they were in the past. In a number of MENA countries, the use of capital-intensive technologies that require few workers, along with relatively high wages for men, have precluded women's greater involvement in the labor force. Women's employment options have been limited to a small number of socially acceptable occupations and professions, such as teaching and medicine. Gender discrimination in the MENA region is sometimes codified in law, frequently in family laws or civil codes. In many countries in the region, women must obtain permission from a male relative, usually a husband or father, before seeking employment, requesting a loan, starting a business, or traveling. Such laws often grant women a smaller share of inherited family wealth. (Empowering Women, Developing Society: Female Education in the Middle East and North, November 2003 by Farzaneh Roudi-Fahimi and Valentine M. Moghadam citing UNESCO Institute for Statistics, "Literacy Statistics").
In India the National Literacy Rate is 63.07% but the Women’s Literacy rate is 40.54%. The Indian Muslim Literacy rate is 41.27% and the Indian Muslim women’s literacy rate is 21.66%. (Mr Firoz Bakht Ahmed in an article titled “Why are our Madrasas dithering on Reform?”  dated July 26, 2010 in http://Right-to-Education.Blogspot.com). Serious social issues weigh heavily on Indian women. The widespread prevalence of Dowry (legally banned) wherein demands for money are imposed on the parents of the bride as a precondition for marriage and in extreme cases the Bridegroom party has resorted to “Bride burning” to exact vengeance on non-compliance of their demands; the preference for a male child over female child and the killing of the female fetus etc. Muslim women   not only face all the problems facing the typical Indian women but have additional pressure thrust on them due to their Minority character and the conservative nature of the downtrodden Muslim male. In Pakistan, in 2004, female literacy was a dismal 31.5% and in the tribal areas it was only 3%! (Wikipedia, citing Pakistan statistics of 2004)). Segments of the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan have opposed female literacy and in some cases have burned schools where girls were seen to attend. Besides Educational and Economic help, Women’s Empowerment in South Asia and the MENA countries demands strong social, legal and political support to counter the adversities heaped against Women. (Also read Javeed Mira’s article in the Indian weekly, the  Radical Humanist , titled “Towards the Education of the Underprivileged Indian Muslim” detailing the Educational setup of the Indian Muslims).  
The distinct Islamic notion of Women’s Empowerment
Women’s Empowerment in different regions of the world is also conditioned by the Value systems they follow. Muslim women are seen to follow distinct path of Empowerment than those advocated by Western Women. Western Feminism based on its Christian roots has advocated uniformity of Sexes. Islamic ideology does not discriminate on the basis of Gender, Race or Ethnicity and advocates a division of Labor between the sexes with the man assuming the role of the breadwinner and the women as the homemaker and nourisher of the children and family. Dr. Lois Lamya' al Faruqi in Islamic Traditions and the Feminist Movement: Confrontation or Cooperation? notes “ ..Subsuming of the Individual to the social growth, the Muslim woman regards her goals as necessitating a balance with, or even subordination to, those of the family group.  The rampant individualism often experienced in contemporary life, that which treats the goals of the individual in isolation from other factors, or as utterly supreme, runs against a deep Islamic commitment to social interdependence.”   Many Muslim women consider wearing the hijab as an assertion of cultural identity and empowerment while Western Women consider it to be a sign of “oppression”.  Islamic theology advocates Spiritual growth while pursuing regular work and living.  Western life has focused on amassing of wealth and material development. Islamic women adhering to their beliefs have therefore a different version of Empowerment.
We live in a diverse and multicultural world at different stages of historical development with different experiential backgrounds and as such diverse and alternate means of Empowerment fitting local conditions are bound to evolve and they need to be encouraged and respected.
Positive Results : Women’s accessibility to good quality education has led to a) A fall in fertility and population growth as well as a fall in infant and child mortality and an improvement in family health b) Increase in girls' secondary school enrollment due to increase in women's participation in the labor force and their contribution to household and national income c) Better child nutrition due to Women’s increased earning capacity d) Children  of educated mothers,  especially daughters, are more enrolled in school and have higher levels of educational attainment and e) Greater participation in political life and greater awareness of their legal rights and the exercising of the rights. 
Women have been defined as “holding half the sky”. In real terms, through centuries, a disproportionately large portion of the sky was thrust on women. Women’s Educational growth and struggle has tempered this and there is a gradual realization that women need to be given a Fair deal.  However it will be a few centuries before the imbalance is fully redressed. In the meantime we need to persist on a track that leads to increased Women’s Empowerment and that in turn will enrich all Mankind.