Gender and development projects which focus only on women are doomed to fail - Essay Example

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GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS WHICH FOCUS ONLY ON WOMEN ARE DOOMED TO FAIL Submitted By Introduction 3 Gender and Development Theoretical Perspective 3 Gender and Development in Latin America 5 Women and Gender Equality in Latin America 6 Gender Equality in Latin America Empirical Evidence 7 UN Women 8 LAC Gender 9 International Organizations and Gender and Development 9 Gender and Development in World Bank 10 Case Study of Two World Bank Projects 10 MDG3 Global Call to Action 11 Land and Housing Policy in Latin America and World Bank 13 Result of Development programs directed towards women only 14 Conclusion 14 Bibliography 15 2(Author: ; Articulacion Feminista Marcosur (AFM); Red de Educacion Popular de Mujeres Entre Mujeres de America Latina y el Caribe (Repem) ,2007, Meeting of Consortiums, Networks, and Campaigns from Latin America and the Caribbean,Available from [Accessed 4th March 2011] 15 Introduction In this paper we will start with the theoretical approaches regarding women and development. Various gender and development projects especially those directed only towards women will also be discussed. We will restrict our study to Latin America only. We will discuss a few development projects actually designed and implemented in Latin America. For this purpose we will take the example of the projects conducted by World Bank. We will also try to analyze the impact and success of these projects. There is general view that development projects directed towards women only, are doomed to fail we will also try to form an opinion about it and will try to find the answer as well. Gender and Development Theoretical Perspective A theoretical debate on development has identified three major paths upon which the framework for development is based. They are namely Women in Development (WID), Women and Development (WAD), and Gender and Development. In order to develop a sound understanding of these frameworks we will discuss them in detail. 1(Nalini Visvanathan, Lynn Duggan, Laurie Nisonoff, 2005) Women in Development (WID) is the most dominant and probably the oldest framework as well. WID subscribes to the assumptions of the modernization theory. Modernization theory assumes that traditional theories are male dominated and authoritative whereas modern theories were democratic and egalitarian and they did not believe in oppression by men. But it was realized that the benefits of modernization actually did not helped the position of women. Its benefits did not reach them but to the contrary in some cases it undermined their existing position. The focus of this theory was to integrate women in the productive role in the economic and welfare of the society. Strategies were devised even if that requires changes in the legal system to minimize disadvantages against the productive role of the women. Questions regarding women became important and visible in the development theory and practice. This theory had non-confrontational approach. It did not question the existing social structures. It made no attempt in identifying the factors which resulted in modernization non beneficial for women. It ignored the influence of social, cultural, religious factors on the state of women. The second theory Women and Development (WID) emerged as the critique of the modernization theory and WID. It is derived from the dependency theory. With the onset of capitalism it is believed that men had greater opportunities and hence it resulted in the spread of gender hierarchy. Production for exchange which was dominated by men replaced production for use and hence it became the public opinion. The main focus of this theory was that women have always been part of the production process so the concept of integrating women in development is a myth. Its main emphasis is on the processes so this theory focuses on the relationship between woman and development process. The main contribution of this theory is that recognizes the importance of women as an important economic actor in their societies. It recognized the role of women in the public and private sector for the maintenance of the social structure. WAD is also far from reality it fails to recognize patriarchy and other social and productive structures. It does not take into account the oppression and subordination of women. WAD views both men and women equally disadvantaged and oppressed by global structures of class and capitalism. It discourages any analysis which focuses on women oppression only. Wad believes that women position will improve with the changes in international structure if they become more equitable. WAD ignores the question between gender roles. 14(Devaki Jane, 2005, Women Development and the UN, USA, Indiana University Press) The third major framework Gender and Development (GAD) derives its origin from feminism. GAD represents the confluence of diverse feminist perspective. This theory is dominated by socialist feminist. It has taken into account the failures of WID and limitations of WAD. This model GAD has holistic approach and it views development as a complex process influenced by socio, political and economic forces. It provides support for the work of social reproduction i.e. the care and nurturance for children. Its main contribution is that not only emphasize female solidarity but it also welcomes sensitive men. GAD recognizes the role and contribution of women inside and outside the household which also includes non-commodity production. GAD emphasizes the role of government in providing social services and promoting women’s emancipation. It rejects the idea of any dichotomy in the public and private sphere. In GAD women are viewed as agents of change rather than just passive recipient of some development. It emphasizes on women to organize them to play a more effective role in the political environment. It does not reject ailments such as women oppression and patriarchal system but tackles it in a more practical way. It talks about women empowerment by bringing changes in their legal rights such as inheritance and land laws. Gender and Development in Latin America United Nations held a meeting to analyze the position of women in Latin America and the Caribbean. In this meeting which was held in Uruguay various organizations, networks, consortiums and campaign regarding women rights and empowerment in Latin America were invited. The main purpose of this was to define, design and develop strategies for UN reforms regarding this issue. It was decided how the women’s agency should look like in terms of financial and organizational structure. It was decided that it should be designed and implemented in such a way that further enhances and complements what has already been achieved in the women empowerment and development. It was emphasized that all strategies should be in alignment with the international agreement. It was stressed that feminist representatives should be integrated with the government delegation of the (ECLAC) Economic Commissions of the Latin America and the Caribbean. 2(Articulacion Feminista Marcosur (AFM), 2007) Now we will discuss gender equality with respect to EU development policy towards Latin America. Although gender equality has been on the agenda for EU development policies for over a decade for this region but it has never managed to go beyond the cross cutting issue and never became the central theme. Gender equality has never been internalized by the policy makers in implementing strategies for this region. 3(Marjorie Lister, Maurizio Carbone, 2006) Women and Gender Equality in Latin America A review of Women and gender equality in Latin America revealed following results. In the last 20 years despite some women advances and setbacks overall indicators for women has improved in Latin America. Life expectancy has risen to 73 years for women and 68 years for men whereas fertility rate has declined to 2.58 children. But there still exists some discrepancies regarding education and employment opportunities. The situation of urban women is much better than their rural counterparts. Even for the educated urban women this advancement is not reflected in the equal opportunities and salary levels in labor market. Although in most of the countries women constitute 50% of the labor market gender inequalities persists in the form of labor market access, labor market segmentation and occupational and wage differences. Although legal framework has improved in almost all countries in eliminating all forms of discrimination against women but still a lot needs to be done for the autonomy of women. Women’s organization has played a pivotal role in the advancement of the rights based approach rather than feminist based approach which has been much more successful. If we study the framework of gender development it shows the first entry point to gender equality was the policies between Latin American countries and the European countries. It has been a part of the Commission and sub-regional policy and programming documents. EU-Latin American countries dialogue has resulted in a much better formulation of strategy for gender equality which was previously very briefly mentioned as a disadvantaged group. The implementation of these policies is far from satisfactory. Still a lot needed to be done to mainstream gender equality issues. In Latin America goals regarding gender equality can be achieved because generally governments have shown commitment and there are established institutes for women empowerment. Civil society patterns are also supportive along with a long history of bi-regional cooperation which can be tapped. Gender Equality in Latin America Empirical Evidence A study conducted shows that the gender disparity is in the smallest range in Latin American countries between the 22 countries. All ranked countries of this region fall in the top half of the SIGI score and Paraguay was the best performer. This high score doesn’t mean that there exist no issues regarding gender equality. The low protection of women’s physical integrity is of great concern for this region. 4(OECD, 2010) The region has greatly benefitted by the various women movements led in 1990’s and 80’s which gave them institutional framework and legal protection. Despite legislation some challenges does exists such as equal ownership rights. In rural areas women generally receive smaller plots than men and banks usually offer them smaller loans than men. SIGI score is calculated on the basis of these five factors Family code Civil liberties Physical integrity Ownership rights Son preference This SIGI score was calculated for a weighted population of the following regions Middle East and North Africa Sub-Saharan African South Asia East Asia and pacific Latin America and the Caribbean Europe and Central Asia Latin America and the Caribbean stood second in the SIGI score in these regions. UN Women The role of UNO in women empowerment and development is very phenomenal. United Nations has formed an agency for gender equality and women empowerment (UN Women). Recently United Nations has taken a step forward by holding elections for Executive committee. Elections were held in the 54 member of ECOSOC council to establish governance and structure for UN Women. The board members have representatives from every region including 6 members from Latin America. It shows commitment on UN’s part for gender equality. 5(UN Women, 2010) LAC Gender Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) gender team believes that poverty alleviation can be better handled if we inculcate efficient, sustainable, effective equal opportunity interventions to ensure equal participation of man and women in the development projects. LAC team believes that gender perspective should be included in developmental projects. It can be done by identifying the barriers to women’s participation in economic, social and political sphere. LAC believes that policies should be devised in a way which encourages and provides tools for participation and sharing of knowledge and experience. This will help in making gender visible and relevant in monitoring and evaluation process. 6(World Bank, 2010) International Organizations and Gender and Development Global analysis of gender discrimination has forced many government and international organizations to take action in reducing gender inequality. Some of the key elements for these unsuccessful attempts to bring equality are that analysis and policy research gives technical solution which cannot provide the political will for their implementation. International financial institutions can play a pivotal role in by providing agendas and focal point for international negotiations. International institutions such as IMF and World Bank have failed to evolve and grow in line with the increased demand of the emerging markets. 7(Francisco H.G. Ferreira, Michael Walton, 2006) Gender and Development in World Bank World Bank has a long history of various GAD movements which shows that the bank was one of the first movers regarding issues of gender and development. But unfortunately the bank could not move forward beyond the formal validating the norm in operational policies. It failed to move towards full policy recognition of GAD throughout its organizational activities. However a big change came after the Beijing fourth World Conference on women. It brought four changes in the Bank. 1. Increased participation of women in policy making 2. Gender approach was institutionalized in banks policies and implementations 3. Higher bank lending for gender development projects 4. Greater representation of women in Bank It provided the momentum needed for gender mainstreaming in the bank and in the world at large. 8(Susan Park, Antje Vetterlein, 2010) Case Study of Two World Bank Projects Now we will discuss the projects conducted by World Bank to reduce gender inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean. The project discussed below is a MSG3 millennium development goal global call to action. MDG3 Global Call to Action This project discusses innovative approaches to promoting women’s economic empowerment led by World Bank in Latin America and the Caribbean Region. The target country/ region of this project is Peru and Mexico in Latin America. The major activity of this project deals with anchoring gender in transport projects especially rural roads of Peru and rural roads of Mexico. The major focus area of the MDG3 project towards economic empowerment is to ensure Economic empowerment Legal rights relevant for economic empowerment Inclusion and representation of women in private sector, business and economy. The message for the policy makers is to include gender perspective in improving the overall condition of infrastructure such as improving the quality of roads and their maintenance. It will help in increasing the overall entrepreneurial activity and capacity and it will also improve the employment opportunities for women. The major objective of this project is to increase women’s participation in the design and implementation of the rural road project started and funded by World Bank. This project also included road maintenance system for sustained opportunities of employment. 9(Anchoring Gender in the Transport and Development March 5th, 2008) Key activities of this project are To increase gender awareness in traditionally male dominated transport sector and work towards capacity building Increase consultation and collaboration with women organizations Allocation of gender quota regarding the rural road committees, maintenance of micro enterprises and procurement process. Critical analyses of women run businesses to identify best practices. Learning activities for women through peer learning The impact of the actual/expected results for the Peru project is as under as the Mexico project is still under implementation. In the 12 poorest departments of Peru 12,000 km of rural roads were rehabilitated and maintained. Bridle paths which is the informal means of transport mostly used by women and children. Improvements were also brought in these paths. 7,000 km of bridle path were improved. Representation of women micro-entrepreneurs for rural road maintenance increased from 4% to 24%. Participation of women in rural road committees also increased substantially. Through qualitative survey it was observed that women self esteem and self worth increased substantially. This project has helped us in finding the advantages and gaining insight into the results. A few lessons learned are 10(En Breve Number 112, 2008) Although quality of road improvement and maintenance has benefitted both men and women but women are more willing to pay both in monetary and non-monetary terms for the project Improvement in infrastructure resulted in increases entrepreneurial capacity. This project not only increased job opportunities for women within the project but also enhanced women participation in micro entrepreneurial activities. It was not an easy journey for World Bank. They had to face many obstacles such as Cultural stereotype role for women. It was against women participation in road construction and maintenance. The project included a communication campaign which helped increasing the self esteem of women and selection of newer roles for which they were suitable even the physically demanding one because of their experience in agriculture. Most of these obstacles were tackled through training and development, peer learning and building self esteem. This project is very important from the scale and replicable point of view. This project conducted in Peru can be replicated in other rural areas as well. It has actually been successfully replicated in Mexico. It was successful because culturally specific gender barriers and local geography was taken into consideration. Land and Housing Policy in Latin America and World Bank World Bank has done a great deal of work regarding land reforms and administration projects. Their land administration projects in rural areas have increased six folds i.e. from 4 to 23 since 1995. The total loan portfolio has also increased proportionately from $ 72 million to $ 1037 million. Rural development projects directed towards land administration has also increased from 51 to 74. The same is true for Latin America and the Caribbean where 21% of IFAD’s projects had components for land Access and tenure security. 11(World Bank, 2009) Land and housing crisis in Latin America has many dimensions. As a general rule the approach of most of the Latin American countries towards this problem is that they attribute it to lack of financial programs. A study conducted by American Development bank revealed that most of this problem is due to inefficiencies in the public authority in provision of social housing. Formal financial institutions have been biased against giving credit to poor and especially poor women. Generally women had used informal resources for financing. World Bank has worked a lot in providing micro credit to women to resolve their housing and tenure issues. 12(United Nations Human Settlement Programmes, 2005). Result of Development programs directed towards women only All the development projects should be aimed at mainstreaming. Mainstreaming strategy does not preclude initiative directed towards women only. Such a strategy can only lead to failure. For any strategy to be successful we need to include just the gender perspective and need to take into consideration cultural, geographical, social and economic perspective. It does not imply that all projects directed towards women are doomed to fail. Some of them prove to be very successful. But a balanced approach increases the rate of success. 13(Andrea Cornwall, Elizabeth Harrison, Ann Whitehead, 2007) Conclusion After studying different aspects of gender and development we come to the conclusion that we can only reduce gender inequality by stream ling our strategy. We need to include gender perspective in our policies and practices. It was observed that although gender inequality has decreased all over the globe and especially in Latin America but still much more needs to be done. United Nations, World Bank and many other national and international organizations are working towards gender development and had played a pivotal role in improving the situation. It is also observed that any development projects directed towards women only have lesser success chances as compared to those projects which follow the approach of streamlining the gender and hence have a balanced approach. 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