Volume 26, Special Issue (2005)
Gender and Development
Whither GAD? New Directions in Gender and Development — Introduction
“Since the 1970s, academics, donors, and NGOs engaged in the field of international development have recognized the centrality of women’s roles in economic, environmental, and social processes. Most of their earlier observations were made within a discourse on Women in Development (WID) and later many adopted the discourse of Gender and Development (GAD). Practitioners and theorists have produced innumerable publications, training curricula, gender analysis models, and projects either focused directly on women’s issues or bringing gender equality concerns to the centre. Given this degree of effort over the past three decades, it is timely to evaluate the extent to which WID/GAD have become part of the international development agenda and to examine whether that agenda has changed as a result … ”
Gender and Development as a Fugitive Concept
This paper examines the evolution of gender and development and the role of international women’s conferences in helping legitimize the centrality of women in development. It also reviews the approaches taken by multilateral and bilateral donor agencies to “mainstream” gender, using the examples of environment and education. The paper argues that most donor agencies have conflicting agendas and gender mainstreaming is just one of the tasks assigned to staff. Finally, it offers some insights into why women still are not full partners in economic, social, and political development in most parts of the world and argues that true gender analysis must also include an examination of and a focus on the roles of men.
Different Commonalities: Gender Mainstreaming and the Marginalization of Difference in Economic Development
Gender mainstreaming in economic development has occurred in terms that contribute to the homogenization of women’s experiences and to the exclusion of difference as legitimate terrain of analysis at institutions such as the World Bank. Feminist difficulties with the theory and politics of difference have been and will continue to be complicit with this problematic aspect of gender mainstreaming at such institutions. Since differences among women are at least as important as commonalities in defining needs and grounds for political action, the exclusion of difference from the discourse of development must be challenged directly in feminist theory and practice.
A Rights-Based Approach to Gender Equality and Women’s Rights
Gender equality advocates working with development organizations are frustrated with the lack of NGOs’ progress toward advancing gender equality as an integral part of organizational processes in general and programming in particular. In the face of this reality, and continuing gender inequalities and violations of women’s rights, questions are being asked as to whether the predominant approach used by development organizations — gender mainstreaming — remains a viable approach. At the same time, over the last few years, development practitioners’ attention has been turning to the international human rights framework, and specifically, what is referred to as the “rights-based approach” or “human-rights based approach” (RBA) to development, linking both human rights practices and principles to international development approaches. This paper explores the concept of an RBA to determine if it provides a useful methodology for furthering progress by donor agencies on achieving gender equality and women’s rights. It is argued that for gender equality advocates working in donor organizations, an RBA adds value to current gender mainstreaming efforts. However, a number of issues and lessons learned from gender mainstreaming need to be addressed to ensure that gender equality and women’s rights are not marginalized.
Advocates, Adversaries, and Anomalies: The Politics of Feminist Spaces in Gender and Development
This article examines the ways that politically minded feminists create and sustain spaces for feminist practice within Canadian development contexts despite institutional, ideological, and economic constraints. This research contributes to a much-needed reassessment of feminist engagement with Gender and Development (GAD), ultimately seeking to determine whether and in what ways GAD can become a political force for progressive social change. The article demonstrates that politically minded feminists are present within mainstream Canadian development organizations and are attempting to push the boundaries of mainstream GAD processes to embrace feminist projects, values, and commitments. However, building allies through connections with women’s movements is crucial for feminists to make mainstream development more amenable to feminist goals, values, and principles.
Gender, Education, and Development: Are Women Teachers Women in Development?
This article examines policy and programming frameworks and initiatives for gender in education from a perspective that is informed by conceptual shifts in development practice and theory from Women in Development (WID) to Gender and Development. It focuses on the linkages made between women teachers and girls’ education and raises conceptual issues and challenges to these, especially regarding girls’ and women teachers’ bodies in schools. The article draws on experiences working with women teachers in Karachi, Pakistan, locating these within a broader context of development theory, policy, and practice. It problematizes WID approaches, and ends with some recommendations for alternative, embodied approaches to thinking about and working with girls and women in education.
Gender Mainstreaming: The Global Governance of Women?
What are the effects when gender mainstreaming becomes part of the enabling claims of international organizations? In this paper I examine the fit between gender mainstreaming, as a policy and device of transformation, and the calculations of international organizations to produce certain kinds of gendered subjects in the name of good governance. Noting the expansion of audit cultures and notions of accountability within international organizations, I focus on the case of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). I find that gender mainstreaming facilitates FAO efforts to mobilize a new rural woman with increased capacities and responsibilities for attending to global food security, at the same that it supports the organization’s deployment of neo-liberal techniques for maximizing rural productivity. The consequences for feminist practice of being drawn into the technologies of international rule are examined.
Strategic Engagements: Exploring Instrumentalist Approaches to Engendering Development
The introduction of a gender perspective within development has been done with the aim of enhancing the understanding of the situation of women in the development process and bringing forth a transformational politics. In the endeavour to make gender a constitutive element of development, gender lobbies have often had to resort to instrumental forms of advocacy and implementation. The feminist critique of development has consistently highlighted the fact that for the most part, gender has been incorporated not as an end in and of itself but only as a means to other, broader development objectives. This paper discusses the debate surrounding instrumentalist approaches to mainstreaming gender and focuses on the strong nexus that has emerged within development practice between gender and poverty. In discussing how gender issues have entered the mainstream, the paper draws attention to some of the challenges that have arisen as a result of tackling gender issues through the poverty platform — specifically in the context of microcredit initiatives. The discussion highlights the implications for the transformative aspects of the gender project of the merger of gender and poverty agendas, as well as the strategic advantages emerging from such instrumentalist approaches. The paper concludes by underscoring and justifying the need for strategic engagements with development agencies in the struggle for gender-redistributive change.
Gender and Development in South Asia: Can Practice Keep Up with Theory?
This paper documents how institutions, both governmental and non-governmental, have responded to South Asian women’s economic needs over the past three decades. It analyses how these interventions have evolved with regard to the different theoretical approaches to gender and development, ranging from the welfare, efficiency, and anti-poverty approaches of the 1970s and 1980s to the more recent empowerment, rights- and capabilities-based approaches of the 1990s and the new millennium. The author emphasizes that most governmental interventions in South Asia, regardless of political persuasion, have been preoccupied with employment and income-generating schemes as the means of empowering women. As a result, measures of women’s empowerment and gender justice continue to revolve around employment and labour force participation and not the alleviation of the burden of domestic labour, increased political participation, or equal property rights. Barring some notable exceptions, NGOs have also shown unwillingness to involve themselves in controversial issues. This despite the continued assertion by scholars and practitioners that in addition to economic opportunities, women need not just more potent political power but also independent and equal rights in land and property ownership to be able to empower themselves and gain equal footing with men in society. The author concludes by asserting that at least in South Asia, the theoretical discourses on gender and development appear to be more than a few steps ahead of policy and practice.
Mirages et écueils de l’approche « genre et développement » : le cas du Programme de santé interculturelle de l’archipel de Chiloé
Drawing on direct testimonials and secondary data, this article examines applications and challenges of the gender and development approach in the context of a novel intercultural health program established in the Chiloé archipelago in Chile for the aboriginal Williche people. First, the historic, ethnographic, and epidemiological context of the archipelago allow measurement of the gap between public equity policies and current practices. This is followed by an analysis of health challenges faced by Aboriginal women in this southern region, particularly the obstacles they must overcome in order to change patriarchal structures and validate their needs, experiences, and knowledge.
What’s New about Gender Mainstreaming? Three Decades of Policy Creation and Development Strategies
After three decades of gender and development approaches, and a more recent emphasis on gender mainstreaming, it is timely to reflect on the challenges and opportunities development agencies face as they attempt to translate gender mainstreaming policies into practice. Research on development agencies and their gender mainstreaming strategies uncovered an overwhelming reliance on technical solutions (or operational procedures). Technical solutions (e.g., appointing a person to oversee gender-related activities or offering gender training sessions for staff members) are unlikely to transform the mainstream, have had a limited impact within organizations, and have led to minimal changes to gender inequitable relations. Case study analysis and grounded field research also revealed alternative gender mainstreaming initiatives including “subtle strategies” (e.g., resistance or subversion) and networking: two strategies with the potential to challenge mainstream and patriarchal norms. This article uses a feminist lens to examine these approaches and concludes with an analysis of their contributions to gender mainstreaming.