ومع أن التمكين لا يمكن أن يكتسبه الفرد إلا عن طريق العمل الواعي، فإنه ينطوي أيضا على تغييرات على مستويين آخرين يعزز بعضهما البعض: التغييرات داخل المجموعة/المجتمع المحلي؛ والتغييرات في مؤسسات المجتمع.
Empowerment involves women, individually or collectively, in acquiring a critical awareness of themselves as women (identity), their social reality, its causes, its changeability and the agency or source of change.26 While empowerment can only be acquired by an individual through conscious action, it also involves changes at two additional, mutually reinforcing, levels: changes within the group/community; and changes in the institutions of society.