UNIT 3-6 Gender Module

Gender and Development Module 2018 G.
CHAPTER THREE
WOMEN IN DEVELOPMENT (WID) AND GENDER AND

DEVELOPMENT (GAD) APPROACHES
Unit Content
The following are the main contents of this chapter:
3.1. WID Approaches
 The Welfare Approach

 The Equity Approach
 The Antipoverty Approach
 The Efficiency Approach
3.2. WID in Practice
3.3. Gender and Development (GAD) Approach
Unit Introduction
Dear student, well come to the third chapter of the course “Gender and development” module.
Now you are going to read the detailed discussion on approaches to women in development
(WID) and Gender and Development (GAD).
The chapter starts with a brief introduction of women in development. The discussion starts with
introducing women movement and its role in development and how United Nation also gave the
focus to the issue. It then proceeds to the in-depth discussion of the women in development
(WID) approach. The discussion then directly moves to “Key Strands of Women in
Development”; here the major strands such as the Welfare, Equity, Anti-poverty, Efficiency, and
the Empowerment are discussed briefly. Some problems and challenges with the WID approach
are also discussed. Due focus is also given to the WID in practice as a sub-topic.
The other focus of the chapter is Gender and Development (GAD) Approach. Some important
concepts and related topics such as theoretical implications, comparison of WID and GAD and a
shift from WID to GAD and beyond are thoroughly covered.
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Gender and Development Module 2018 G.C
Unit Objectives
At the end of completing this chapter you will be able to:
 Capture the general concepts of the Women in development and Gender and
Development approaches.
 Explain and elaborate the following different approaches of the WID:

 The Empowerment Approach
 Understand the practical aspects of the WID approach
 Describe what the Gender and Development approach is and its relations with the WID
approach
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WOMEN IN DEVELOPMENT (WID) AND GENDER AND

DEVELOPMENT (GAD) APPROACHES
In the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, women were only viewed as mothers and housewives, within
development policies and programs. Their economic activities and contributions were ignored
and not valued. Development theorists and planners saw men as the agents and actors of
development. Men were seen to be the breadwinners of their families. Women were invisible.
Women were an under-utilized resource for development.
The Feminist Movements in various parts of the world (in both developing and developed
countries) advocated for the elimination of all kinds of gender discrimination. Women in the
North lobbied for change in the legal and administrative structures to ensure that women would
be better integrated into economic systems.
In the UN Decade for Women (1975 – 1985): themes of the conferences were Equality,
Development and Peace). These conferences have provided a space where women around the
world to discuss about issues that specifically affect women in the world. In these conferences,
women from developing countries have challenged the western feminist global sisterhood
ideology (that all women share and experience similar oppressions and marginalization, not
taking into account cultural and other factors). Women from the South have also criticized the
hegemonic vision of the western feminist agenda and the way Third World women are
constructed and represented by northern feminist scholars.
How are women in your community involved in development activities? Do you think
that the involvement is sufficient and equitable with their male counterparts? If not what possible
approaches do you think will solve the problem?
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3.1. The Women in Development (WID) Approaches

The term “women in development” was coined in the early 1970s by the Women’s Committee of
the Washington, DC, Chapter of the Society for International Development, a network of female
development professionals. The term was very rapidly adopted by the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID) in their so-called Women in Development (WID) approach,
the underlying rationale of which was that women are an untapped resource who can provide an
economic contribution to development.
The origin of the Women in Development Movement is traced to the milieu of the second wave
of feminism to hit the West; and thus needs to be seen in the context of the vigorous activities of
the women’s movements in the U.S. and in Europe during the 1960s/70s.
Ester Boserup’s influential work “Women’s Role in Economic Development” exposed the
seriously flawed assumptions relating to the work performed by women in the developing
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countries. The first sizable drawback recognized by Esther Boserup in 1970, is the fact that
women’s work and their contribution to productivity and the labour force are ‘not seen’ because
of the gender blind assumptions of development theorists. Nor are women’s roles and work
consciously ‘looked for’ or ‘looked at’ in development research. Therefore, women’s work in
production was not acknowledged until the entry of the Women in Development school theorists.
Subsequent to Boserup, there was a string of Women in Development theorists including

Boserup herself, whose work centered on analyzing the position of women visa-vis their labour,
and the possibilities of integrating women into the development processes of developing
countries (Moser: 1993:3).
The crucial impetus to the Women in Development movement was provided by the adoption of
WID concepts and methodologies by the United Nations Organizations and other international
development institutions and funding agencies. In particular, the UN dedication of 1975 as the
Year of Women, and the Women’s Decade from 1975 to 1985, propelled women into the
forefront of the development debate. As a result, women were ‘officially recognized’ by the
highest of political and administrative decision-making levels in several countries such as the
United States, Italy, Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands who brought in legislation to focus
particularly on women and development issues (Anderson: 1992:168).
The idea of women as a potential resource that could be tapped to contribute towards economic
development made rapid headway in the United States, resulting in the 1973 Percy Amendment.
This was instrumental in ensuring that women were specifically included in all bilateral
assistance programs of the United States (cited in USAID: 1982:2). It was stated in the Percy
Amendment and subsequently, in the United States Agency for International Development
(USAID) policy paper on Women in Development that all U.S. bilateral assistance to projects
and programs be administered so as to give particular attention to those programs, projects and
activities which tend to integrate women into national economies of foreign countries, thus
improving their status and assisting the total development effort (ibid.). In a related development,
the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) along with the Harvard
Institute of International Development produced a case study based methodology to identify the
means through which women are left out of development (Moser: 1989:2). In 1980, the British
Commonwealth established a ‘Women in Development’ program supported by all member
countries (ibid.).
With the support of global aid and development agencies such as the United Nations and the
World Bank, WID was soon espoused by development organizations within national domains by
local governments. Similarly, with the entry of the non-governmental sectors into development
processes during the 1970s, and the resultant extensive input into regional small and medium-
scale projects and programs, WID concepts and practices also became a vital feature in regional
developmental frameworks.
The approach starts with the basic assumption that economic strategies have frequently had a
negative impact on women. It acknowledges that they must be “brought into” the development
process through access to employment and the market place. It therefore accepts women’s
practical gender need to earn a livelihood. However, the equity approach is also concerned with
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fundamental issues of equality (between men and women in the marketplace). It places
considerable emphasis on economic independence as synonymous with equity.
Proponents of this approach argue that women are ignored and excluded from the development
programs. In this approach, it is believed that development is not obtainable in the absence of
women’s integration into development process.
Women were seen as under-utilized resource for development and now they are found and could
be a valuable resource. What kind of development are women to be integrated into. Proponents
of WID see that the results of development will be successful if only women are fully integrated
into the development process. It was aimed at integrating women into the existing development
scheme. However, Esther Boserup’s book Women’s Role in Economic Development addressed
the consequences of economic development on women. This approach contradicts the modernist
approach that the benefits from development will trickle down to women.
The WID approach advocated for the implementation of ‘separate’ or ‘integrated’ projects for
women (the belief was that women had spare time available to undertake these projects).
Separate or women-only projects were seen as the right solution to address women’s
marginalization.
WID assumed that if women are provided access to resources such as skill training, credits,
small-scale income generating activities and home economics, then they will improve their
situation and women will become full economic partners with men.
What do you think are the key areas of focus for women in development approach?
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Key Strands of Women in Development

During the 1970s and 1980s, the main frame of Women in Development is seen to part into
distinct conceptual strands. The key strands in Women in Development (WID approaches) were
originally classified as Welfare, Antipoverty, and Equity; to which, Moser in her schematization
of policy approaches incorporated two more classifications identified by her as Efficiency and
Empowerment. Despite their shortcomings in terms of categorization, these approaches are very
influential in ascertaining WID initiatives through the years. The late 1970's also saw the
formulation of the developmental framework of WAD, devised largely to surmount the
theoretical and practical limitations of WID approaches.
Moser considers these approaches as the main policy approaches to women in development.
Policy approaches to low-income Third World women have shifted over the past decade,
mirroring shifts in macro economic development policies. Five different policy approaches can
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be identified, each categorized in terms of the roles of women on which it focuses and the
practical and strategic needs it meets.
3.1.1. Welfare
The Welfare developmental approach, a residual model of colonial administrations, is the most
prominent approach to development adopted by most Third World countries from the 1930s to
the 1970s. Under the welfare model, the State’s commitment to the maintenance of post-colonial
welfare measures such as free education, free healthcare, food and other subsidies is high.
The welfare approach is the earliest approach, 1950-70. Its purpose is to bring women into
development as better mothers. Women are seen as passive beneficiaries of development. It
recognizes the reproductive role of women and seeks to meet PGNs in that role through top-
down handouts of food aid, measures against malnutrition and family planning. It is non-
challenging and, therefore, still widely popular.
Development under welfare is fundamentally conceptualized as a process of economic and social

advancement that is altruistic, equitable, ‘genderless’ and achievable in the near future. Women
are seen as passive beneficiaries of development: for the most part, taken for granted as being
included within the target group towards whom principal developmental efforts are directed;
their contribution to development is not really taken to be directly participatory. Nonetheless, it
is doubtful whether welfare developers and policy planners actually visualized the automatic
inclusion of women, or were in fact, aware of their needs in the formulation of their national
policies and in the designs of their macro programs. Or, enfolded women in their usage of
vocabulary such as ‘landless peasants’ or ‘poor farmers’ / or ‘industrial labour’ or ‘heads-of-
households’.
As economic advancement is privileged under Welfare, resources such as job opportunities,

training, credit, land are essentially directed towards men on the assumption that productive
work is performed entirely by men. Even the targets of State welfare benefits are generally
'heads-of-households', who are in turn, presumed to be men. To this extent, these policies are
unaware of the precise ways in which women participated in daily activities: within the house; at
work; in society; electing to view women instead, on the basis of patriarchal gender assumptions
of women as ‘housewives’ and ‘subsidiary earners’.
This vision is totally contrary to the ‘real situations’ of women manual workers, professionals,
white-collar workers, entrepreneurs, farmers, service workers, laborers, and artisans in
developing nations. Consequently, under this model, women are delegated to the fringes of
developmental paradigms, and conceptualized primarily in their roles as mothers and wives. For
example, due to concern about unrestrained population growth in the Third World, the
reproductive role of women is acknowledged, and therefore figures widely in the area of
population policy. Due to the concern for the physical survival of families under Welfare, there
is a dialectical response by development projects to provide goods and services focusing on the
nutritional needs of mothers and children.
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The elements of male bias operating in ideologies which subconsciously influence the work of
development planners and practitioners are extensively examined by Rogers in her influential
book, The Domestication of Women - Discrimination in Developing Societies. She identifies
post-war developmental analysis as being based heavily on the concept of the ideology of
domesticity for women: the importance of training in home economics; as well as psychological
notions of maternal deprivation (Rogers: 1980:40), and the statistically visible male head-of-
household. In certain instances, the focus on the reproductive role of women is essentialized to
the extent that all women were presumed to be mothers, housewives and merely supplementary
income-earners at best. These gender assumptions are particularly evident in the Welfare
approaches towards development from the 1930s onwards.
In countries of South Asia, smaller welfare programs especially of the non-governmental sector
began as relief services in times of crisis. Emanating from the prevalent ideology of domesticity,
concerns identified with women’s domestic roles such as nutritional training, home economics,
maternal and child healthcare and family planning are the key focus of welfare development
projects. As commented on by Pushparani, women entered into program planning “as passive
recipients rather than contributors, clients rather than agents, reproductive rather than
productive”. At the same time, this approach also gave precedence to ‘needy’ women in the form
of the destitute, the homeless and orphaned children as its target groups. Thus, Welfare does not
evince an overall comprehensive analysis of women’s gender interests nor provide an adequate
response to the complexities of their gender needs.
3.1.2. Equity
This is classified as the original approach of the Women in Development movement and is seen
to evolve after the ‘discovery’ of women in the development process. It was prompted by
Boserup and other ‘Equity’ aligned Women in Development advocates.
This approach led to an entirely new field in developmental thinking in that it was highly
influential in making women visible for developmental policy makers and practitioners. At the
same time, it launched what are designated as women’s ‘concerns’ into the development agenda.
Women’s concerns have a broad span of meaning - from basic needs of women to feminist issues
- depending on the situation in which they are expressed. The growing awareness of women's
issues arising from the feminist action in the 1960s and 1970s, alongside the appropriation of
WID by the United Nations, led to the widespread acknowledgment of WID issues by the
development corps. Under the UN aegis, the catch phrase ‘Equality for Women’ became the
popular concept to embody the new turn in the WID discourse, largely utilized during the
Decade for Women 1975 - 1985.
Founded on liberal feminist thinking, Women in Development identifies inequality as being

dependent on the unequal division of labour between women and men. This is in spite of the fact
that the Equity approach does perceive the inequities associated with women’s reproductive
roles, as well as women’s disadvantaged positions in connection with their interaction in the
market place and in the community. Women in Development advocates urge that women be
integrated into the existing male power structures and institutions in societies, through the
foremost stress on equal opportunities in economic production and equal opportunities in
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employment. This strand of the original Women in Development thinking also seeks women’s
equality through improvements in other benefits of development - such as land, training, credit
and access to education, in addition to employment. Yet, its insistence on the fulfillment of
women’s economic needs detracts from its initial valuable analysis of women’s triple
disadvantage, and the importance in particular, of accounting for women’s reproductive role in
development.
Under equity, for the first time, women are seen as active participants in development, and the
necessity to provide women with political and economic autonomy is recognized. Despite this
acknowledgment however, this stage of WID remained fairly marginal in the overall
development process, though a few major achievements for women can be recorded.
Foreign Assistance Act - the Percy Amendment was instituted to enshrine the principle that U.S.
foreign assistance efforts in developing countries should henceforth try to integrate women into
the development process. WID practitioners see this as an important victory, as the Amendment
not only makes women visible by acknowledging their contribution in developing societies, but
also attempts to make their integration into the development process mandatory.
Initially, the equity approach identified and attempted to meet women’s material and other needs
by linking development with equality. Due to this original thrust of redistributing power, there
was some resistance to the approach, as its transformatory features were not quite acceptable to
local governments (Anderson: 1992:173). However, despite the initial objections, the
consciousness created by the incorporation of the WID paradigms and international action
resulted directly in governments initiating the establishment of national machineries and
mechanisms to look after the interests of women. As such, National Committees on Women,
Women’s Departments and Ministries, and special women's cells in administrative structures
were measures incorporated at national levels through top-down policy interventions. Yet, in
spite of this new consciousness and the fresh policy approaches being adopted worldwide, and
indeed within national perimeters, women themselves were hardly aware of these changes that
were taking place in state polices and legislation (as is the case even in today’s context).
There are important methodological difficulties associated with the equity approach. As argued
by Anderson (ibid.):
It requires standards against which progress can be measured - ideally a single, unified
indicator of social status or progress paired with baseline data on women’s actual
situations. Such information can only evolve through the accumulation of disaggregated
data, increased research efforts, specific evaluations and collaboration and exchange of
information. For these reasons most agencies no longer use the equity approach, though
its official endorsement in 1975 by the International Women’s Conference still makes it a
point of reference.
In general, the equity approach is the original WID approach, used in the 1976-85 UN Women’s
Decade. Its purpose is to gain equity for women, who are seen as active participants in
development. It recognizes the triple role and seeks to meet SGNs through direct state
intervention giving political and economic autonomy, and reducing inequality with men. it
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challenges women’s subordinate position. It is criticized as Western feminism, is considered

threatening, and is unpopular with governments.
3.1.3. Anti-poverty
This is identified as the second strictly WID approach and issues from the awareness of the
failure of the expected ‘trickle down effect’ of contemporary development, as well as the
looming population crisis. In addition, the unsuccessful First Development Decade also led to the
homing-in on poverty, which was seen as the most crucial factor in the development debate. The
Anti-poverty approach prioritizes the specific development target - the poor, and formulates
correlating policies and projects to reach the ‘poorest of the poor’. The swing of the development
focus towards poverty resulted in the incidental recognition on the part of mainstream
development communities that larger proportions of women were poor in comparison to the
proportions of men who were poor. It was also recognized that women experience poverty
differentially and more acutely than men.
Therefore, under Anti-poverty it is rationalized that poor women need to be targeted directly
through the restructuring of policy in ways that would address ‘the basic needs of poor women’.
The resultant spotlight falls on food, water, sanitation, shelter, healthcare, nutrition and
education. In this sense, the Anti-poverty focus of WID narrows further on to the satisfaction of
basic needs through women, because of the traditional importance of women in meeting many of
the basic needs of the family as argued by Buvinic (Moser: 1993:67). In this context, the
fulfillment of economic needs also gains prominence.
Underlying this approach is the assumption that the origins of women’s poverty and inequality
with men are attributable to their lack of access to private ownership of land and capital, and to
sexual discrimination in the labour market (ibid.).
As analyzed by Moser, the Anti-poverty approach “aims to increase the productivity of poor
women and see their poverty as the problem of underdevelopment and not necessarily as one of
subordination” (ibid.). Consequently, the emphasis shifts from reducing inequality between men
and women, to reducing inequality in incomes. Moser as well as Buvinic further identifies the
Anti-poverty approach as one of ‘toned down equity’ (ibid.), where the crucial importance of
women’s reproductive roles and responsibilities is greatly expunged. The subsequent study of the
Anti-poverty programs indicates that in fact, the disregard for the assigned reproductive sphere
of women’s lives creates attendant problems for target women in relation to balancing domestic
labour and productive labour (ibid.).
The Anti-poverty approach is most popular within the NGO sector as it presents itself as a
sectoral approach that can prioritize its target group, its sphere of activity and its methodology.
Thus, ‘the eradication of poverty’ becomes the new pivotal maxim, as credit, income generation,
and skill training programs are formulated to target women from specific low-income groups
with the intention of meeting the basic needs of the family. In this context, women-headed-
households are increasingly recognized as an important target group. Based on the recognition of
the fact that women experience poverty more intensely and differently to men, policy makers
tend to allocate ‘special reservations for women’ in poverty alleviation programs.
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Thus, under Anti-poverty, the developmental interventions do not amount to much, and are those
that reinforce gender stereotypes - such as low-paid and production-related forms of employment
and income generation projects, and the encouragement of sex specific occupations in which
women are already concentrated. Other criticisms of the Anti-poverty approach to women’s
development include the welfare-orientation of antipoverty projects; the stultification of projects
due to their base in small-scale production; the categorization of projects into the informal sector;
and the lack of participatory mechanisms in the implementation of projects (Moser: 1993:68).
In general, Anti-poverty, as a WID approach, is a toned-down version of equity, adopted from

the 1970s onwards. Its purpose is to ensure that poor women increase their productivity.
Women’s poverty is seen as a problem of underdevelopment, not of subordination. It recognises
the productive role of women, and seeks to meet the PGN to earn an income, particularly in
small-scale income-generating projects. It is most popular with NGOs.
3.1.4. Efficiency
This is the most prevalent WID approach since the 1980s, and like some of the earlier
approaches, is in operation even today. Related to the currently recommended mainstream
developmental impulses of efficiency, downsizing, maximum utilization of resources etc., the
objective of the efficiency approach is to ensure that development is ‘efficient and effective’
through women’s participation. Based on the awareness that policies of economic stabilization
and adjustment already rely on women’s contribution to development, it re-fuels the thinking that
women are a latent resource that can profit the economy even more, if maximized correctly. The
Efficiency approach promotes that women’s unpaid time be utilized for self-help components in
economic activities, especially in respect to human resource development, and in connection to
the management of community problems. ‘It assumes that, women’s unpaid labour (and time) in
areas such as child-care, fuel gathering, food processing, preparation of meals, nursing the sick
etc., is elastic’ (Anderson: 1992:174). Hence, this strand of WID aims to make women more
efficient managers of poverty. In a sense, women’s participation is seen as imperative for
efficient development and is therefore, equated with equity for women.
Accordingly, women’s participation in development is ensured through their increased

involvement in the spheres of health, education and training. Women are also targeted in
allocations of credit and land, while corresponding legal reforms are also initiated so as to
legitimize the participation of women in the development processes. Similar to the other
ascendant strands of WID, this approach also strives to meet the practical needs of women.
The chief criticisms of the Efficiency approach are founded on the fact that women are seen
primarily in their capacity to contribute to the still uncritiqued development model of capitalist
growth and modernization. At the same time, women are also seen as a reserve that could
compensate for declining social services under structural adjustment.
This is accomplished by relying on all three - productive, reproductive and community roles of
women and by banking on the elasticity of women’s time by extending their working day
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All of these Women in Development initiatives - Welfare, Antipoverty, Equity and Efficiency
accept the primacy of the 20th century modernizing state conceived through economic growth-
oriented development, and furthermore, the necessity to integrate women into the prevalent
developmental currents without questioning the core assumptions of this dominant model.
Generally, the Efficiency approach, and now predominant WID approach, adopted particularly
since the 1980s debt crisis. Its purpose is to ensure that development is more efficient and
effective through women’s economic contribution, with participation often equated with equity.
It seeks to meet PGNs while relying on all three roles and an elastic concept of women’s time.
Women are seen entirely in terms of their capacity to compensate for declining social services by
extending their working day. It is regarded as a very popular approach.
3.1.5. Empowerment
The empowerment approach is the alternative WID approach that is promoted to counter the
dissatisfaction with what is perceived as ‘western’ feminist theorizing and interventions. This
approach has been promoted by feminists, development academics/ practitioners and women’s
groups from the developing countries, since the 1970s onwards. It gained considerable popularity
in the 1980s, and is still widely prevalent among women’s organizations in developing countries.
Empowerment is a concept which intrinsically encompasses a woman’s control: over the gender
division at work and at home; over resources; over her sexuality, her body and fertility, over
education; information and knowledge; over mobility; over governance and decision-making as
well as control over the spirit and psyche (Pushparani 1999:11).
Pushparani (ibid.) forwards the above definition to indicate the personal component involved in
the concept of empowerment - as feminists from the developing countries conceptualize it.
Batliwala (1996:21) in turn highlights the material and ideological implications of the term:
Empowerment may be defined as a process - and the result of the process - whereby the
powerless or less powerful members gain greater access and control over material and
knowledge resources, and challenge the ideologies of discrimination and subordination which
justify this unequal distribution.
Apart from the element of individualism, there are also strong connotations of collectivity
associated with the term, as the formal organization and mobilization of women is equally
crucial to the empowerment of women. As such, empowerment projects/ programs may be
conceived in terms of women's collectives and societies - particularly at grassroots levels.
Accordingly, Empowerment is conceived as a bottom-up approach to development.
The main objective of this model is to empower women through greater self-reliance and self-
confidence, as it sees women’s oppression as stemming from patriarchal attitudes as well as
colonial and neocolonial oppression (Momsen: 1991:102). Empowerment thus, is essentially
conceptualized as an individual process more aligned to the original feminist goals of individual
feminist consciousness and collective action associated with the second wave of feminism.
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Unlike the more traditional WID approaches, the empowerment framework places uniform
emphasis on all triple roles of women, though it might mobilize around basic needs at times to
confront the most tangible forms of oppression. Adopting more creative woman-centered
methodology, it upholds the importance of listening and learning from diverse women’s
experiences and knowledge, and fosters a commitment to formulating strategies designed to
combat patriarchal structures. Hence, the control of and responsibility for development are
transferred to women themselves - with resultant empowerment. In this aspect, the
Empowerment approach forms a useful contrast to the WAD approach, which assigns a greater
degree of responsibility to the State. This approach is potentially challenging due to its emphasis
and ancestry in Third World women’s activism and women’s self-reliance.
Despite the fact that empowerment theories and activities are largely unrecognized and
unsupported by governments, they are increasingly being acknowledged by international funding
agencies and development organizations. For example, as noted earlier, the UN Women’s
Empowerment Framework conceptualizes empowerment in terms of the provision of welfare
services, access to resources and opportunities, conscientization in relation to gender inequalities
within social structures, as well as increased participation by women leading to equal control
(Karl: 1995:109).
Over the years however, the founding concept of empowerment has been problematized by
theorists through questions that deliberate on the definition of the word, the qualifying standards
of empowerment and the extent of the empowerment of women via a particular developmental
project or program. There is also the question whether all women participating in a project
become equally empowered. Similarly, theorists point out that the period of ‘empowerment’ may
vary according to circumstances that motivate the empowerment process. In this sense,
empowerment is a flexible term in relation to the development debate as the codification keeps
changing according to the ground situations (Pushparani: 1999:10). Consequently, in practice,
the concept of empowerment is perceived to become adulterated, and in some instances, the
concept is used by developmental organizations to refer to mere entrepreneurial self-reliance.
Whereas in others, it has come to mean a degree of women’s participation in policy making and
planning processes (Karl: 1995:108).
However, despite the awareness of the conceptual implications and accompanying flaws of the
term, a large number of feminists in developing countries in particular, approach women’s
development from this standpoint. By 1985 (prior to the Nairobi Conference celebrating the UN
Decade for Women), the WID empowerment movement took a new twist with the establishment
of regional linkages, and the formation of extensive networks amongst feminists worldwide
(Parpart: 1993:450). A significant development from this is identified as the creation of an
international organization ‘Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era’ DAWN,
inaugurated to organize and confer on the development issues of women in the developing
countries in the 1980s.
DAWN articulates its much-quoted vision of development in the book Development, Crisis, and
Alternative Visions: Third World Women’s Perspectives, by Sen and Grown(1986:80):
We want a world where inequality based on class, gender and race is absent from every
country and from the relationships among countries. We want a world where basic needs
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become basic rights and where poverty and all forms of violence are eliminated. Each
person will have the opportunity to develop her or his full potential and creativity, and
women’s values of nurturance and solidarity will characterize human relationships. In
such a world women’s reproductive role will be redefined: childcare will be shared by
men, women and society as a whole … only by sharpening the links between equality,
development and peace, can we show that ‘basic rights’ of the poor and the
transformations of the institutions that subordinate women are inextricably linked. They
can be achieved together through the self-empowerment of women.
DAWN critiques the controlling models of development and also places a lot of significance on
the relationship between the subordinate position of women and other international structures of
domination - warfare and technology in particular.
Earlier, in a similar endeavor from women in Africa, the Association of African Women for
Research and Development (AAWORD) was formed. This Third World collective of women
also presents a comparable vision of development, which is articulated in the Dakar Declaration
in 1982 (Karl: 1995:101).
The empowerment approach evolves from the recognition that mainstream WID, WAD and later
GAD approaches are failures due to their fundamental inability to construct a developmental
paradigm that is autonomous from the dominant capitalist developmental model of
modernization.
In summary, the empowerment approach is the most recent approach and articulated by Third
World women. Its purpose is to empower women through greater self-reliance. Women’s
subordination is experienced not only because of male oppression but also because of colonial
and neo-colonial oppression. It recognizes the triple role, and seeks to meet SGNs indirectly
through bottom-up mobilization of PGNs. It is potentially challenging, although its avoidance of
Western feminism makes it unpopular except with Third World women’s NGOs.
CHALLENGES TO WID
• WID categorized women as separate and homogeneous entities while in fact, they are
diverse groups (class, ethnicity, history and culture are ignored).
• It did not question existing structures and their effects on gender equality.
• It did not examine the root causes of women’s subordination and oppression.
• This (anti-poverty) approach marginalized women further and treated them identically to
men.
• The problem is that planners hold inaccurate assumptions about women’s specific
activities and this led to neglect of women’s real needs and over-exploitation of their
labour.
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How is the women in development practices in various organizations? Try to relate WID in
practical terms with the above discussed strands of the approach and consider the interests of
women.
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
3.2. Women in Development in Practice
Global aid and development agencies and NGOs often promote and utilize the above mentioned
strands of Women in Development. Those that meet with the greatest amount of success within
the WID parameters are those that fashioned their policies and programs pragmatically, over a
period of time, according to the felt needs and changing perceptions.
One of the central objectives of the Women in Development movement is to make women
visible to development planners and policy makers so as to ensure that material resources as well
as knowledge resources are specifically targeted at women. This required the specific
undertaking of research and data collection about women to portray their specific situations in
societies. It required the re-conceptualization of the concept of work, and of women’s work in
particular. New techniques and data collection methods were formulated so as to convey specific
data about women’s productive, reproductive and community work. Women-centered statistics
were collected; time charts that encompassed women’s work schedules were devised; case
studies were analyzed; and life studies were recorded; giving rise to completely new
methodologies and theoretical paradigms within the overall development movement.
Despite the plurality and differing emphasis of Women in Development, the interventions of
governments and the non-governmental sectors were confined to certain chosen areas of national
activity. The WID sponsored international visibility of women had substantial influence on
larger national activities in the fields of data collection, establishment of executive ministries,
legislative and policy changes, law reforms, and the positioning of alternative state machinery
for the ‘advancement of women’. On the whole, however, the WID focuses at national levels
have been sporadic and restricted in their span of interventions. At the project level, WID actions
identified and emphasized certain areas of direct interest to women - as identified by WID. The
most palpable areas are noted below.
Land
Land ownership is identified by the Women in Development Movement as a crucial factor that
contributes towards the empowerment of women. Quite early in the Women and Development
analysis it was recognized that women as individuals and as a sex do not generally possess land.
This is due to colonial and other interventions, which served to erase the traditional inheritances
of women (Rogers: 1980:126). WID is instrumental in consciousness-raising with regard to
systems of indigenous matrilineal inheritances, matrilocal descent systems, duel or joint
ownership, control over land resources that are ignored in mainstream development policies
affecting land (ibid.). For example, WID developmental theorists quote specific instances and
raise awareness at national levels of the numerous occasions where modern development projects
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suppressed matrilineal descent systems and needlessly alienated women in the redistribution of
land.
Health
Certain strands of Women in Development stress the intrinsic interrelation between women’s
development and their physical and mental health; and contribute towards creating awareness of
the differential health opportunities and hazards of men and women. For example, due to varying
reasons based on cultural specificities, women in certain countries are pregnant most of their
lives. As a result, statistics and indicators of women’s health, particularly in relation to their
reproductive role and health - rates of infertility and fertility, maternal mortality, and maternal
morbidity are accented in status of women reports and other statistical compilations.
Ensuing WID interventions consist of many grassroots-level educational programs which

perceive women as key figures in family healthcare and which incorporate family planning,
prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, child-care, sanitation, nutrition, mother-care, as
subjects for consciousness-raising. Most of these programs decline to view women as individuals
with diverse health needs but rather, attempt to address the assumed broad-based needs of
women in their roles as reproducers. Thus, family planning in particular, is a key developmental
intervention under many national development schemes as well as in terms of local level action.
Credit
On the basis of the recognition that women, due to their particular gender location, lack access to
and control of material resources, Women in Development initiatives target capital to women via
women’s groups and projects. This most often takes the form of women’s savings and credit
collectives, especially at grassroots, which utilize mechanisms such as revolving funds in the
apportionment of capital. These interventions are usually strengthened with corresponding skill
training and opportunities for income generation activities.
Savings and credit societies are adopted by a large number of women’s groups and NGOs as well
as by local government programs and provide women with access to capital sufficient to
establish a small-scale income generating activity. If taken within this WID principle, these
initiatives are frequently successful, despite rapidly becoming popular as a WID formula
intervention.
Skill Training
During the early stages of WID, most projects were geared around training women to be better at
the very tasks and duties that society had already assigned for them – better mothers, better
housewives, better home-managers, better ‘carers’. The elementary gender division, which
originally conceives of men as engaging in productive work and women as engaging in
household chores, remained unchallenged. As such, women in developing countries were
targeted with courses centered on home economics, maternal / community health, nutrition, food
processing and preservation, sewing, knitting, and needlework based on the ideology of
domesticity as theorized by Rogers (1980:95).
The reality of the lives of rural women in developing countries where a greater part of life is
lived outdoors - in agriculturally productive work, in community work, even in reproductive
work (such as gathering water and fuel) do not always infringe upon the awareness of WID
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program planners and implementers. As such, in practice, the WID approach is weak in
transferring skills that are complementary to women in the context of their locations and their
lifestyles.
Income Generation
However, with the progress in WID theorization and the development of other WID approaches,
a new generation of WID projects was born that claim to incorporate ‘new elements such as
small-stock husbandry, horticulture, and certain income generating activities like handicraft
production, which involve a more useful approach to women’s work’ (Rogers: 1980:87). Yet,
these activities usually involve learning new skills and therefore serve to increase the already
heavy workload of women particularly in rural / agrarian societies as discussed further by Rogers
(ibid.). In addition, the incomes generated by these activities are nominal; and they tend to
further marginalize women into unrecognized, unacknowledged, already-marginalized sectors of
the economy such as handicrafts and small-industries (ibid.). Further, Rogers (ibid.) observes
that the demand for specialized goods produced on a small-scale, devoid of sophisticated
machinery and techniques, such as in small-industries is very low, (especially without
corresponding marketing capabilities).
Technology
New technologies that are developed to lighten workloads in recent times serve to displace
women’s traditional roles in agriculture. This is due to the fact that modern tools and machinery
are usually handed over to the control of men, as technology is perceived as a man’s province. In
agriculture particularly, women who traditionally perform certain agrarian tasks are bypassed,
when these tasks are mechanized through the allocation of modern technologies. Consequently,
small implements such as presses, grinders, and cutters are sold; and even given on credit to
men. Women’s existing space and status in production areas are thus usurped.
While it is noted that these innovations challenge the divisions in productive labour; they do so at
the expense of women’s space in production. Ultimately, modern technologies might not be
allowed to reach women at all. WID theorists and researchers distinguish the manner in which
such actions perpetrate the stereotype that women cannot manage machines. At the same time,
there are other alternative technologies developed to uplift women’s reproductive responsibilities
in both the rural and urban contexts. Though sympathetic towards the household burden of
women, these equipages do not question the fundamental division of labour nor do they critique
women’s essential role and responsibilities in the domestic sphere.
In addition to the WID approach we have the gender and development approach; how do you
compare and contrast them?
______________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
3.3. Gender and Development (GAD) Approach
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Gender and Development is the new alternative tradition in developmental theory that issued in
the 1980s - out of the defects of Women in Development practice. Moving away from the initial
exclusive WID focus on women, the early beginnings of Gender and Development (GAD) in the
1970s focus on the gender differences between men and women. This is derived from the
socialist feminists’ identification of the social construction of production and reproduction as the
foundation of women’s oppression. This focus on gender rather than women is influenced by the
work of such writers as Oakley (1972) and Rubin (1975), whose work drew attention to the
manner in which problems of women were perceived in terms of their sex or their biological
differences, rather than in connection to their gender or socially constructed roles (Moser:
1993:3). Succeeding theorization on gender has at its locus; the interrogation of the validity of
the gender roles and responsibilities that are assigned to men and women in different cultures (or
the basic feminist analysis of the gender division in labor); the implications of gender difference
in gender relationships (Gilligan: 1982:29), the social relations of gender (Young: 1988:3) and
the power differentials in gender roles and relationships.
While WID is a tunnel visual that is limited to women alone, the gender approach widens out to
encompass men’s and women’s roles and relations in both private and public domains. While
WID takes women’s situation in societies as a given, and formulates external responses to
address their perceptible needs; the concept of gender on the contrary, analyzes the incisive
reasons for women’s particular stations - as being the unequal gender roles and relations between
men and women. GAD forges solutions to address these key structural flaws that impact on
women in these societies.
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Gender and Development Theoretical Implications
Young identifies the key element in the Gender and Development (GAD) approach as being
pivotally, a more holistic perspective of looking at the ‘totality of social organization, economic
and political life in order to understand the shaping of particular aspects of society’ (Young cited
in Rathgeber 1989:6). Consequently, the Gender and Development movement as a whole is
marked by its identification of the relevance of gender roles, relations, and needs in determining
the subordinate status of women in developing countries. The presence as well as absence of
both men and women counts in Gender and Development analysis, as does the type of interaction
or lack of interaction between the two sexes.
This is a crucial distinction and distanciation from the concept of women’s exclusivity and even
solidarity (and the ensuing suspicion and hostility towards the male sex that is particularly
characteristic of radical feminists) of the Women in Development movement. The GAD
approach is more partial towards the contributions of men who are seen as potential partners in
the development project who share a comparable concern for gender equity and social justice
(Abeyasekere: 1999:44).
Much of the early literature on Gender and Development converge on unequal gender relations
within the family or in the domestic sphere. However, from the mid-1980s onwards, the
literature focuses on the manner in which these same imbalances are replicated in the public
spheres of the political, social and cultural institutions. This new genre of feminist work on
gender, attempts to expose "the false impersonality and deceptive objectivity of organizing
principles based on so called neutrality of public institutions and interactions" especially in
development institutions (Miller and Razavi: 1998: 2), and demonstrate the hierarchical and
unequally ‘gendered’ formations that are essentially against the women’s gender interests. For
example, Razavi (1998:27), points out this shift in perception with reference to development
policies by stating that:
Rather than focusing on how structural adjustment programs have affected the welfare of
women and children, their aim is to show how gender biases and rigidities affect
adjustment policies and can ultimately frustrate them. Today, Gender and Development
has become a project to de-institutionalize gender bias in the public sphere. To this
extent, gender is an insider approach. By promoting this ‘organized consciousness’ of
gender, GAD also envisions the increase in women’s access to politics and other
decision-making areas, and the reorganization of gender relations in the public sphere.
At the same time, GAD promotes the redefinition of the existing divisions in labor, so as
to bring about a shared work culture within the public and domestic spheres by bridging
the gap between the private and the public. As such, a positive development of the
Gender debate is its heightened awareness of the reproductive role and responsibilities of
women.
The following points clearly summarize the major issues in the GAD approach.
• Gender and Development (GAD) is concerned with gender and gender relations.
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• It is not advocating for WID’s “adding women” into the development process, but about
rethinking development concepts and practice as a whole through a gender lens.
GAD recognizes that:
• Women’s inequality exists not because they are bypassed or marginalized by

development planners, but because women are not part of the power structures
• Gender relations impact on how development programs are planned and implemented
and which inevitably leads to favoring one gender (men).
 According to the GAD perspective, women were not a neglected resource but
overburdened and undervalued.
GAD states that what is needed is:
 a re-evaluation of women’s considerable contribution to the development process
 a redistribution of the benefits and burdens of development between men and women.
 Unequal gender relations deny women from accessing or obtaining credit, education,
technology and agricultural extension.
 Unlike WID, GAD is critical of the economic growth model of development
GAD values:
 Women’s reproductive roles (bearing and caring roles).
 The fact that women’s double day (paid and unpaid works) benefit both capital and
domestic spheres.
 Unlike WID, GAD views women as already integrated into the development process and
are central to it as they provide unpaid family labour.
 GAD sees women belonging to diverse categories (age, class, marital status, ethnicity,
race and religion) rather than a homogenous “women.”
The importance of WID and GAD

• They enable us to interrogate the development processes as gendered processes.
• Their analytical focus is on the male bias and gendered relations of development and the
inequality of those relations that require transformation.
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• They provide gender analysis on development policies of states, international

development and financial institutions as IMF, WB and the UN.
• They criticize the measures of economic development such as GNP which ignore the
contribution of women to social and economic production.
• They advocate for the creation of gender sensitive development programs.
Table 1: Comparison of WID and GAD
Women in Development (WID) Gender and Development (GAD)
The Approach An approach which views women’s lack of An approach to people centered
participation as the problem development
The Focus Women Relations between women and men
The Problem The exclusion of women (half of the Unequal relations (between women and
productive resource) from the development men, rich and poor) that prevents
process equitable development and women’s full
participation
The Goal More efficient, effective development Equitable, sustainable development with
men and women sharing decision making
and power.
The Solution Integrate women into existing structures Empower the disadvantaged and women
Transform unequal relations and structures
The Strategies Women only projects Identify/address practical needs

determined by women and men to
improve their condition
Women’s components
At the same time address strategic gender
needs of women and men
Integrated projects Address strategic needs of the poor
through people centered development
Increase women’s productivity
Increase women’s income
Increase women’s ability to manage the

household
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From WID to GAD and Beyond

The shift from WID to GAD was particularly important because it transformed the women's
agenda. The WID agenda focused on two main goals: to generate discussions and research on the
role of women in development, and to institutionalize a women's focus within development
agencies and governments with the mandate to integrate women into development processes.
The WID solution, integrating women into the development process, did not question the kind of
development that was being fostered by the donor nations from the industrialized North.
Furthermore, WID focused on women and generally ignored the consequences of different social
realities, that is, the gendered worlds of women and men.
The GAD approach uses gender, rather than women, as an analytical category to understand how
economic, political, social and cultural systems affect women and men differently. Gender is
understood as the social roles, expectations and responsibilities assigned to women and men
because of their biological differences. It is an ideological and cultural construct that shapes
women's and men's realities.
The GAD approach signals three important departures from WID. First, it identifies the unequal
power relations between women and men. Second, it reexamines all social, political and
economic structures and development policies from the perspective of the gender differentials.
And third, it recognizes that achieving gender equality and equity will demand "transformative”
change in gender relations from household to global.
At the household level the gendered division of labor traditionally defines women's role
primarily as family maintenance. This work is unpaid, taken for granted and invisible in
economic terms, but has significant impact on the quality of women's lives and well-being. For
example, when women assume paid work, they also assume the "double work day," paid and
unpaid. The invisibility of women's unpaid work remains a critical issue in national and
international macro policy. For example, the application of IMF and World Bank stabilization
and structural adjustment policies (SAPs) caused many countries to cut back on government
sponsored or subsidized social services. Women bear the burden when public sector services
switch to the household thereby increasing the burden of unpaid work on their already stretched
energy and resources. Based on this analysis, women and pro-equality development practitioners
advocated mainstreaming gender analysis into all policy and programming both in design and
impact assessment. Gender mainstreaming was formally adopted as a transformative strategy at
the Beijing Conference.
Beyond GAD and gender mainstreaming, women today are demanding the full exercise of their
human rights and are developing a rights-based approach to economic policy. In the June 2000
special edition of World Development, Diane Elson and Nilufer Cagatay advocate "a rights
based approach to economic policy which aims directly at strengthening the realization of human
rights, which include social, economic and cultural rights, as well as civil and political rights.
Such an approach goes beyond viewing gender concerns as primarily instrumental to growth, as
is sometimes the case, because it recognizes women’s agency and their rights and obligations as
citizens.” This approach clearly illustrates a profound political shift that became evident at the
Fourth World Conference on Women, where women no longer focused on a narrow range of so-
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called women’s economic and social issues but were demanding voice in all arenas of economic
and social policy making.
Activities – III
1. Comment on the applicability of both WID and GAD in Ethiopia and particularly in your
community.
2. Contact some NGOs working in your area and consult them which approaches they are
implementing and explore why?
Summary
Dear student, this chapter focused on the very important aspects and concepts in gender studies;
the Women in Development (WID) and the Gender and Development (GAD) approaches.
The term “women in development” was coined in the early 1970s by the Women’s Committee of
the Washington, DC. The origin of the Women in Development Movement is believed to be the
second wave of feminism. Proponents of WID see that the results of development will be
successful if only women are fully integrated into the development process. WID assumed that if
women are provided access to resources such as skill training, credits, small-scale income
generating activities and home economics, then they will improve their situation and women will
become full economic partners with men. The WID approach advocated for the implementation
of ‘separate’ or ‘integrated’ projects for women (the belief was that women had spare time
available to undertake these projects). Separate or women-only projects were seen as the right
solution to address women’s marginalization. Five different policy approaches can be identified,
each categorized in terms of the roles of women on which it focuses and the practical and
strategic needs it meets. These approaches which are clearly discussed in this chapter are: The
Welfare Approach, The Equity Approach, The Antipoverty Approach, The Efficiency Approach
and the Empowerment Approaches. There are also various problems and challenges associated
with the WID approaches. Global aid and development agencies and NGOs often promote and
utilize the above mentioned strands of Women in Development. Those that meet with the
greatest amount of success within the WID parameters are those that fashioned their policies and
programs pragmatically.
Gender and Development (GAD) is the new alternative tradition in developmental theory that
issued in the 1980s - out of the defects of Women in Development practice. Gender and
Development (GAD) is concerned with gender and gender relations. It is not advocating for
WID’s “adding women” into the development process, but about rethinking development
concepts and practice as a whole through a gender lens. The GAD approach uses gender, rather
than women, as an analytical category to understand how economic, political, social and cultural
systems affect women and men differently.
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The shift from WID to GAD was particularly important because it transformed the women's
agenda. The GAD approach signals three important departures from WID. First, it identifies the
unequal power relations between women and men. Second, it reexamines all social, political and
economic structures and development policies from the perspective of the gender differentials.
And third, it recognizes that achieving gender equality and equity will demand "transformative”
change in gender relations from household to global.
Checklist
Dear student, below are some of the important points which includes the objectives of this
chapter which you have already gone through. Mark () to say "Yes" or No" in the box below
and evaluate yourself about the topics discussed in the unit. If you tick "No" to most of the
topics, it means that you need to understand more until you achieve the objectives set at the
beginning of the unit. In this case you should go back to the discussion part and read very
carefully until you master all the topics.
Topics of Discussion Yes No
 I have captured the general concepts of the Women in Development
and Gender and Development approaches.
 I can Explain and elaborate the following different approaches of the WID:

 I have understood the practical aspects of the WID approach
 I can describe what the Gender and Development approach is and its
relations with the WID approach
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Self-Assessment Questions
Try to answer the following different types of questions to evaluate yourself concerning the
chapter you have completed studying.
I. True or False Questions
1. The focus of Women in Development (WID) approach is the relationship between

women and men.
2. Gender and Development (GAD) aims for the establishment of institutions or
organizations for women only.
3. Rethinking development concepts and practices as a whole through a gender lens is the
idea of Gender and Development (GAD).
4. Welfare does not demonstrate an overall comprehensive analysis of women’s gender
interests nor provide an adequate response to the complexities of their gender needs.
5. An approach of the Women in Development (WID) is ‘people centered development’.
II. Fill in the Blank Space

1. The origin of the Women in Development Movement is traced to the milieu of the
_________________________.
2. According to ____________________ separate or women-only projects were seen as the
right solution to address women’s marginalization.
3. __________________________ recognized and is classified as the original approach of
the Women in Development (WID) movement.
4. ______________________ is defined as a process - and the result of the process -
whereby the powerless or less powerful members gain greater access and control over
material and knowledge resources.
5. ____________________ is now the predominant WID approach, adopted particularly
since the 1980s debt crisis.
III. Short Answer Questions
1. Compare and contrast the Gender and Development (GAD) and Women in Development
(WID) approaches.
2. WID in practice, at the project level, identified and emphasized certain areas of direct
interest to women. Discuss briefly the most palpable areas of WID actions.
3. What are the problems and challenges associated with the WID approach?
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CHAPTER FOUR
GENDER ANALYSIS FRAMEWORK
Unit Content

4.1. Concepts in Gender Analysis
4.2. The Harvard Analytical Framework
4.3. Moser Framework Gender Planning
4.4. Capacities and Vulnerabilities Analysis (CVA)
4.5. The Longwe Hierarchy of Needs
4.6. Social Relation Frameworks (SRF)
4.7. Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA)
Unit Introduction
Dear student, well come to the fourth chapter of the course “Gender and Development” module.
Now you are going to read the detailed discussion on gender analysis and the frameworks
associated with it.
This chapter starts with a brief discussion on the concepts of gender analysis. Gender analysis is
regarded as a valuable descriptive and diagnostic tool for development planners and crucial to
gender mainstreaming efforts. There are important frameworks available to help as undertake
gender analysis in various development related activities. These include: The Harvard Analytical
Framework, Moser Framework Gender Planning, Capacities and Vulnerabilities Analysis
(CVA), The Longwe Hierarchy of Needs, Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and Social
Relation Frameworks (SRF). This chapter gives due focus to these important frameworks and
discusses the principles and concepts associated with them.
Unit Objectives
 Define gender analysis and explain the concepts related to it
 Master and explain the following gender analysis frameworks:
o The Harvard Analytical Framework
o Moser Framework Gender Planning
o Capacities and Vulnerabilities Analysis (CVA)
o The Longwe Hierarchy of Needs
o Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA)
o Social Relation Frameworks (SRF)
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Why do we need to make gender analysis? And what are the issues to be addressed in
gender analysis?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
4.1. Concepts in Gender Analysis

Gender analysis is a systematic gathering and examination of information on gender differences
and social relations in order to identify, understand, and redress inequities based on gender.
Gender analysis is a valuable descriptive and diagnostic tool for development planners and
crucial to gender mainstreaming efforts. The methodology and components of gender analysis
are shaped by how gender issues are understood in the institution concerned.
During program and project design, gender analysis is the process of assessing the impact that a
development activity may have on females and males, and on gender relations (the economic and
social relationships between males and females which are constructed and reinforced by social
institutions). It can be used to ensure that men and women are not disadvantaged by development
activities, to enhance the sustainability and effectiveness of activities, or to identify priority areas
for action to promote equality between women and men. During implementation, monitoring and
evaluation, gender analysis assists to assess differences in participation, benefits and impacts
between males and females, including progress towards gender equality and changes in gender
relations. Gender analysis can also be used to assess and build capacity and commitment to
gender sensitive planning and programming in donor and partner organisations; and to identify
gender equality issues and strategies at country, sectoral or thematic programming level.
Gender analysis is the collection and examination of information about:
- the different roles of women and men

- the relationship and inequities between them
- their different experience, capacities, needs, constraints, rights issues and priorities
- the reasons for these differences
- the need, strategies and opportunities for change
Gender analysis is part of the wider situational analysis required for every project. It is essential
if project teams are to understand the complexities of social and economic relations in
communities where they are trying to bring about change. The analysis of information is used to
design projects in which:
- both women and men participate in, influence and benefit equally from the project
- women become empowered and experience less discrimination in society
- gender-related constraints to poverty reduction are reduced
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Gender-analysis, through the systematic study of the differences in the roles, responsibilities, and
access to and control over resources of women and men, represents an attempt to understand the
complex nature of intra-household relations for a variety of reasons - notably to either minimize
the negative consequences of development and improve ‘development’ efficiency or to transform
social relations, empowering those in subordinate positions (principally women).
Designed to help their users to integrate gender analysis into social research and planning,
gender-analysis frameworks have many similarities, but differ in scope and emphasis. The
operational need of development researchers and practitioners to simplify the complex (but not
to the extent of being simplistic) requires the selection of a limited number of factors for
analysis; this selection process is informed by the values, assumptions and ideological
preferences of the frameworks’ authors. The level of simplification (in terms of concepts, tools,
level of analysis, etc.) represents a significant difference between gender-analysis frameworks;
however, even the more complex gender-analysis frameworks can only create a crude model of
reality, due to the far more complex nature of real life.
Beyond gender there are potentially numerous (culturally and time specific) axes of difference
within households that affect access to and control over resources, levels of intra-household
poverty, and the effectiveness of development interventions (for example: age, relationship to
household head, illness, disability and incapacity, etc). The critical analysis of these intra-
household differences (as opposed to descriptive documentation) has largely been ignored. The
following are key selected concepts in gender analysis.
Rationale for Gender Analysis:
 It helps in realistic planning
 Allows identification of constraints, and opportunities
 It provides accurate information about the relations of men and women in different activities
based on people’s own experience.
 It brings gender-based inequalities to the forefront and reveals their causes and effects.
 It can transform the gender attitudes of the parties involved.
 It can prevent planning from giving rise to activities that increase inequalities and weaken the
status of women.
 It helps people make better and more sustainable decisions about the contents of development
cooperation projects.
 It increases the impact and quality of development cooperation in general.
What can gender analysis tell us?
 An analysis of gender relations can tell us who has access, who has control, who is likely to
benefit from a new initiative, and who is likely to lose.
 Gender analysis asks questions that can lead us in a search for information to understand why
a situation has developed the way it has.
 It can also lead us to explore assumptions about issues such as the distribution of resources
and the impact of culture and traditions.
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 It can provide information on the potential direct or indirect benefit of a development

initiative on women and men, on some appropriate entry points for measures that promote
equality within a particular context, and on how a particular development initiative may
challenge or maintain the existing gender division of labor. With this information measures of
equity can be created to address the disparities and promote equality.
 In the case of primary education, gender analysis can tell us that a gender gap exists in most
countries; that is, there is a gap between girls' and boys' enrolment and retention in school. In
the majority of countries where there is a gender gap, the gap works against girls, but in
others, it works against boys.
When in the process is gender analysis applied?
 Gender analysis takes place throughout the entire development process, throughout research,
to problem definition, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.
 By examining basic assumptions each step of the way, the interrelationships between social
context and economic factors can be understood and initiatives that respond to those needs can
be designed.
Who undertakes gender analysis?
 It is the task of analysts, policy-makers and program managers located in both donor and
partner countries, in both government and civil society, to work in partnership with women
and men involved to advance gender equality.
 This participatory process provides the context for the creation, implementation and
evaluation of development initiatives to promote gender equality.
 Individuals, groups and communities affected by development initiatives must be involved
from the beginning of the process in order to determine the gender dimensions of the issue at
hand.
 Without local knowledge and expertise, some of the intricacies of the gender roles and social
relationships may not be easily understood.
Elements of gender analysis
 For a good gender analysis, resources and commitment to implement the results of the
analysis are necessary.
Consider also three important points:
 It requires skilled professionals with adequate resources

 It benefits from the use of local expertise
 The findings must be used to actually shape the design of policies, programs and projects
There are a number of different frameworks for undertaking gender analysis. Some of these have
been developed in Northern countries, and others have been developed and adapted by
development practitioners from the South. This chapter briefly discusses each of the gender
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analysis frameworks and some of their limitations that exist within each during the process of
analysis.
We have various frameworks for gender analysis. Have you ever been involved in gender
analysis in applying a framework? If so specify and discuss it briefly before reading the next
section.
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
4.2. The Harvard Analytical Framework

The Harvard Framework (also known as the Gender Roles Framework or Gender Analysis
Framework) is designed to demonstrate that there is an economic rationale for investing in both
men and women. Emerging from the WID (Women in Development) ‘efficiency approach’ to
development, the Framework aims to help planners design more efficient projects and improve
overall productivity by increasing the understanding of men and women’s different roles in a
community.
The Harvard Framework uses four tools. An Activity Profile (Table 4.1) identifies all relevant
productive and reproductive tasks undertaken in a specific community, and indicates who does
what (women/ girls or men/ boys). The Framework can be adapted to indicate the time spent on
an activity and where it took place.
The Access and Control Profile (Table 4.2) identifies the resources used to carry out tasks
identified in the activity profile, and indicates whether men or women have access to resources,
who controls their use, and who controls the benefits of those resources.
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Table 4.1: Example of Harvard Tool 1: Activity Profile

Activities Women Girls Men Boys
Production Activities
Agriculture:
activity 1
activity 2, etc.
Income generating:
activity 1
activity 2, etc.
Employment:
activity 1
activity 2, etc.
Other:
activity 1
activity 2, etc.
Reproductive Activities
Water related:
activity 1
activity 2, etc.
Fuel related:
Food preparation:
Childcare:
Health related:
Cleaning and repair:
Market related:
Other:
Source: March et al, 1999:33 (adapted from Overholt et al, 1985).
Table 4.2: Example of Harvard Tool 2: Access and Control Profile
Access Control
Women Men Women Men
Resources
Land:
Equipment:
Labour:
Cash:
Education/ training,
etc.:
Other:
Benefits
Outside income:
Asset ownership:
Basic needs (food,
clothing, shelter,
etc.):
Education:
Political power/
prestige:
Other:
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An Analysis of Influencing Factors (Table 4.3) draws factors that influence the gender
differences identified in the above two profiles, identifying opportunities and constraints on
increasing women’s involvement in development projects and programs.
Table 4.3: Example of Harvard Tool 3: Influencing Factors
Influencing Factors Constraints Opportunities
Community norms and social

hierarchy:
Demographic factors:
Institutional structures:
Economic factors:
Political factors:
Legal Parameters:
Training:
Attitude of community to
development workers:
Emphasizing the need for better information to improve gender analysis, a Checklist for Project-
Cycle Analysis (Box 4.1) contains a series of questions to be asked at each stage of the project
cycle (identification, design, implementation, and evaluation) to enhance the effectiveness and
efficiency of a project; but the Framework does not indicate what action should logically follow
this data collection and this is usually regarded as the limitation of the approach.
Box 4.1Checklist for Project-Cycle Analysis

The following set of questions are the key ones for each of the four main stages in the project cycle:
identification, design, implementation, evaluation.
WOMEN’S DIMENSION IN PROJECT IDENTIFICATION
Assessing women’s needs
1. What needs and opportunities exist for increasing women’s productivity and/or production?
2. What needs and opportunities exist for increasing women’s access to and control of resources?
3. What needs and opportunities exist for increasing women’s access to and control of benefits?
4. How do these needs and opportunities relate to the country’s other general and sectoral development
needs and opportunities?
5. Have women been directly consulted in identifying such needs and opportunities?
Defining general project objectives
1. Are project objectives explicitly related to women’s needs?
2. Do these objectives adequately reflect women’s needs?
3. Have women participated in setting those objectives?
4. Have there been any earlier efforts?
5. How has the present proposal built on earlier activity?
Identifying possible negative effects
1. Might the project reduce women’s access to or control of resources?
2. Might it adversely affect women’s situation in some other way?
3. What will be the effects on women in the short and longer term?
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WOMEN’S DIMENSION IN PROJECT DESIGN

Project impact on women’s activities
1. Which of these activities (production, reproduction and maintenance, socio-political) does the project
affect?
2. Is the planned component consistent with the current gender denomination of the activity?
3. If it is planned to change women’s performance of that activity (i.e. locus of activity, remunerative
mode, technology, mode of activity), is this feasible, and what positive or negative effects would there be
on women?
4. If it does not change it, is that a missed opportunity for women’s roles in the development process?
5. How can the project design be adjusted to increase the above-mentioned positive effects, and reduce or
eliminate the negative ones?
Project impact on women’s access and control

1. How will each of the project components affect women’s access to and control of the resources and
benefits engaged in and stemming from the production of goods and services?
benefits engaged in and stemming from the reproduction and maintenance of human resources?
benefits engaged in and stemming from the socio-political functions?
4. What forces have been set into motion to induce further exploration of constraints and possible
improvements?
5. How can the project design be adjusted to increase women’s access to and control of resources and
benefits?
WOMEN’S DIMENSION IN PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION
Personnel
1. Are project personnel aware of and sympathetic towards women’s needs?
2. Are women used to deliver the goods or services to women beneficiaries?
3. Do personnel have the necessary skills to provide any special inputs required by women?
4. What training techniques will be used to develop delivery systems?
5. Are there appropriate opportunities for women to participate in project management positions?
Organizational structures
1. Does the organizational form enhance women’s access to resources?
2. Does the organization have adequate power to obtain resources needed by women from other
organizations?
3. Does the organization have the institutional capability to support and protect women during the change
process?
Operations and logistics
1. Are the organization’s delivery channels accessible to women in terms of personnel, location and
timing?
2. Do control procedures exist to ensure dependable delivery of the goods and services?
3. Are there mechanisms to ensure that the project resources or benefits are not usurped by men?
Finances
1. Do funding mechanisms exist to ensure programme continuity?
2. Are funding levels adequate for proposed tasks?
3. Is preferential access to resources by males avoided?
4. Is it possible to trace funds for women from allocation to delivery with a fair degree of accuracy?
Flexibility
1. Does the project have a management information system which will allow it to detect the effects of the
operation on women?
2. Does the organization have enough flexibility to adapt its structures and operations to meet changing or
new-found situations of women?
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WOMEN’S DIMENSION IN PROJECT EVALUATION

Data requirements
1. Does the project’s monitoring and evaluation system explicitly measure the project’s effects on
women?
2. Does it also collect data to update the Activity Analysis and the Women’s Access and Control
Analysis?
3. Are women involved in designating the data requirements?
Data collection and analysis
1. Are the data collected with sufficient frequency so that necessary project adjustments could be made
during the project?
2. Are the data fed back to project personnel and beneficiaries in an understandable form and on a timely
basis to allow project adjustments?
3. Are women involved in the collection and interpretation of data?
4. Are data analyzed so as to provide guidance to the design of other projects?
5. Are key areas of WID/GAD research identified?
Some authors suggest that a detailed activity profile is vital for intra-household analysis in order
to identify who does what, where, when and for how long. The Harvard Framework, however,
only includes productive and reproductive roles, ignoring community work that may place
significant time and energy demands on individuals, and may have important implications
regarding issues of access to and control over resources.
A second key ingredient of intra-household analysis is identifying who has access to resources
and who controls resources, and indicating intra-household processes of competition and
bargaining. However, the Harvard Framework encourages a rather simplistic ‘yes’/ ‘no’
approach to access and control, ignoring a potentially much more complex reality by hiding
differing degrees of access or control, and processes of negotiation and bargaining.
The Framework’s attempt to identify environmental opportunities and constraints through an

analysis of influencing factors is useful, but it tends to treat institutions as having a neutral role
regarding gender power relations. Increasingly it is understood that this not the case, and that the
‘gendered’ nature of institutions significantly effects the outcomes of development interventions.
It can be argued that institutional culture regarding other dimensions of difference (for example
impairment and disability) will equally affect the outcomes of intervention.
The fourth element of the Harvard Framework, Project Cycle Analysis, is designed to assist
users in examining a project proposal or an area of intervention from a gender perspective, and
can be useful for enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of development projects (it may
even be possible to adapt this checklist to help improve policy design, implementation and
evaluation). However, it is not particularly designed to further understanding of intra-household
differences, although it may indicate the impact of interventions on intra-household resource
allocations.
There are further significant limitations of the Harvard Framework in terms of both gender
analysis, and its applicability to analysis of other forms of difference. The tool is static, failing to
indicate changes over time, clearly undermining its effectiveness when analyzing the dynamic
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processes of intra-household relations. The Framework emphasizes the separateness rather than
the connectedness and inter-relatedness of individuals and groups (consequently failing to
identify issues of power distribution), with other underlying inequalities ignored; ‘men’ and
‘women’ are presented as two separate and homogeneous groups. Furthermore, the Harvard
Framework is basically a top-down planning tool that encourages a ‘tick-the-box’ approach to
data collection, and excludes men and women’s own analysis of their situation.
Finally, as the Framework is designed essentially to improve the efficiency of development, it

may encourage development workers to only work with those who already have control (men) if
it is inefficient to include those who don’t (women - for example, in areas where women have a
very reduced role in production).
4.3. The Moser Framework

The Moser Framework forms part of the GAD (Gender and Development) critique of the WID
approach to development, and argues for an integrated gender-planning perspective in all
development works, concentrating on the power relations between men and women (Moser,
1993). The Framework attempts to establish ‘gender planning’ as a type of planning in its own
right, and questions the assumption that planning is a purely technical task.
The Moser Framework uses six principles, tools and procedures (Table 4.5). The first, the
Gender roles identification/ triple role tool maps the gender division of labour. Moser identifies
a ‘triple role’ for low-income women involving reproductive, productive and community-
management activities (primarily an extension of women’s reproductive role), compared to
men’s largely dual role of productive and community-politics activities (organized, formal
politics, often within the framework of national politics). The recognition of women’s triple role
– with the aim of ensuring that tasks are equally valued - highlights work (community-
management) that is often ignored in economic analysis.
The second, Gender needs assessment, (Table 4.4) is based on the concept that women (as a
group) have particular needs that differ from men (as a group) as a consequence of both women’s
triple role, and their subordinate position to men in most societies. Practical gender needs
(PGNs) are a response to immediate perceived necessities identified within a specific context,
and are largely practical in nature (for example, water provision, healthcare, etc.); their
fulfillment will not challenge the existing gender division of labour or women’s subordinate
position in society. Strategic Gender Needs (SGNs) are those that exist because of women’s
subordinate social position, and are related to gender divisions of labour, power and control. If
met, SGNs would enable women to transform existing imbalances of power between men and
women (for example, removal of institutionalized forms of discrimination, measures against
male violence, etc.).
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Table 4.4: Example of Moser Tool 2: Gender Needs Assessment
Women’s practical gender needs Women’s strategic gender needs
• Access to seedlings • Collective organization

• Firewood • Right to speak out
• Needs related to reforestation • Skills in leadership, and
and forestry activities leadership positions in the
• Improved ovens project and community
• Marketing of rattan products • Education
• Specific training
• Paid work
The third tool involves disaggregating control of resources and decision-making within the
household, this links intra-household allocation of resources with the bargaining processes
which determine this. The tool asks who has control over what resources within the household,
and who has what power of decision-making?
The fourth tool, planning for balancing the triple role encourages planners to examine whether
a planned programme or project will increase a woman’s workload in one of her roles, to the
detriment of the others.
The fifth tool is mainly used for evaluation of existing programs and projects (although it can be
used to consider the most suitable approach for future work), and involves Distinguishing
between different aims in interventions: the WID/ GAD policy matrix. The matrix encourages
users to examine how different planning approaches meet the practical and/ or strategic needs of
women.
Moser identifies five different types of policy approach that have dominated development
planning over the last few decades: welfare, equity, anti-poverty, efficiency, and empowerment.
The final tool requires Involving women, and gender-aware organizations and planners, in
planning, which is essential to ensure that real practical and strategic gender needs are identified
and incorporated into the planning process.
Because the Moser Framework aims to establish gender planning as a form of planning in its
own right, it strongly emphasizes planning issues (i.e. planning for balancing the triple role;
distinguishing between different aims in intervention; and involving women, and gender-aware
organizations and planners, in planning). Consequently, a significant portion of the Framework is
not directly concerned with increasing understanding of intra-household differences, but rather
focuses on promoting gender awareness/ understanding within development organizations, and
women’s involvement in planning (equally, therefore, those same aspects are not directly
applicable to understanding non-gender aspects of intra-household difference). This does not
mean that promoting gender awareness, etc. at planning level cannot have an indirect affect on
understandings of intra household differentiation and can have (potentially) empowering effects.
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In fact, these tools may be useful with regard to analyzing and improving planned interventions
that are designed to tackle other aspects of intra-household difference and power imbalances; for
example, promoting the involvement of older or disabled people in project and policy planning,
or improving the disability or age-awareness of personnel.
When analyzing other aspects of intra-household difference, the concept of women’s triple role
is significant; it makes visible all areas of work, it helps promote fair valuing of tasks, and it
reminds planners that productive, reproductive and community work are inter-related (altering
one impacts on the others). The concepts of practical and strategic gender needs are also
valuable; distinguishing between needs of immediate necessity, and those that, if met, will
challenge an individual’s subordinate position within the household, and society.
There are, however, limitations to these potentially important tools. As with the Harvard and
other Frameworks, the Moser Framework fails to address the subtleties of the relationship
between men and women, and how this changes, along with their activities, over time. In fact,
the Moser Framework ignores men as ‘gendered’ beings. Furthermore, the division between
practical and strategic needs is artificial, and some find it unhelpful. Finally, change over time is
not examined as a variable, which downplays the dynamism of intra-household relations.
Table 4.5: Moser Gender Planning Principles, Tools and Procedures

N Principles Tool Procedures Techniques Purpose
o
.
1 Gender roles Gender roles Gender Identification of To ensure equal value for
identification diagnosis, productive/reproductive women and men’s work
objectives / community within the existing gender
and management/ division of labour
monitoring community politics
roles of men and
women and equal
allocation of resources
for work done
in these roles
2 Gender needs Gender needs Assessment of different To assess those needs
assessment practical and strategic relating to male-female
gender needs subordination
3 Equal intra- Disaggregate Gender disaggregated To ensure identification of
household d data at the data control over resources and
resource household power of decision-making
allocation level within the household
4 Balancing of Inter- Gender Mechanisms for To ensure better balancing
roles sectorally entry intersectoral linkages of tasks within the existing
linked strategy between economic, gender division of labour
planning social, spatial,
development planning
5 Relationship WID/GAD Range of policy Performance indicator to

between roles policy matrix approaches: welfare; measure how far
and needs equity; antipoverty; interventions reach
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efficiency; practical
empowerment gender needs and strategic
gender needs
6 Equal control Gender Gender Mechanisms to Ensure strategic gender
over decision participatory consultation incorporate women and needs are incorporated into
making in the planning and representative gender- the planning process
political/ participation aware organizations
planning into the planning
domain process
As a gender analysis framework what issues and concepts are addressed by the capacities
and vulnerability analysis? Write down whatever you perceive concerning this framework.
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
4.4. Capacities and Vulnerabilities Analysis (CVA)

The Capabilities and Vulnerabilities Analysis (CVA) was designed specifically for use in
humanitarian interventions and disaster preparedness. Based on the idea that people’s existing
strengths (capacities) and weaknesses (vulnerabilities) determine the impact that a crisis has on
them, and how they respond to it, the CVA aims to help humanitarian interventions meet
immediate needs, and simultaneously build on the strengths of people and their efforts to achieve
long-term social and economic development.
C & V Analysis is an approach developed by the International Relief/Development Project of

Harvard's Graduate School of Education, based on 30 "success" stories around the world on how
NGOs provided disaster assistance so that it promoted, rather than undermined, long-term
development. The tool has broader application and is used to help donors and recipients ensure
that project planning and implementation support long-term development. It has been used
extensively by the Red Cross and other NGOs, particularly for disaster response and
preparedness, and in such sectors as primary health care, housing, agriculture and the
environment. The basic thesis is that any development initiative is sustainable only if it builds on
local capacities and tackles deeply-rooted vulnerabilities. C & V analysis can help to ascertain
the nature and level of risks that communities face; where the risk originates; what and who will
be affected; what resources are available to reduce risks; and what conditions need to be
strengthened.
The CVA distinguishes between three Categories of capacities and vulnerabilities, using an
analysis matrix: physical, social and motivational capacities and vulnerabilities (Table 4.6).
Despite suffering material deprivation during crisis, women and men will always have some
resources left (to differing degrees and possibly different resources), including skills and
possibly goods; it is important to build on these capacities. Decision-making in social groups
(including households and the wider community) can exclude certain groups (for example,
women), which can increase their vulnerability. Cultural and psychological factors also affect
people’s vulnerability; inappropriate interventions that do not build on people’s own abilities,
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develop their confidence or offer them opportunities for change, may make people feel
victimized and dependent, and promote passivity and fatalism.
Table 4.6: Example of CVA Tool 1: Analysis Matrix
Vulnerabilities Capacities
Physical/ material
What productive resources,
skills and hazards exist
Social/ organizational
What are the relationships
between people?
What are their organizational
structures?
Motivational/ attitudinal
How does the community
view its ability to change?
“Development is the process by which vulnerabilities are reduced and capacities increased”
To make the CVA matrix reflect the complexity of reality, five Additional dimensions of
‘complex reality’ are added to the analysis. These additional dimensions involve disaggregation
of communities by gender; disaggregation according to other dimensions of social relations
(wealth, political affiliation, ethnic/ language group, age, etc.); change over time; interactions/
impact between categories of analysis; and analysis at different scales and levels of society.
Table 4.6: Example of CVA Tool 2: Matrix disaggregated by gender

Women Men Men
Physical/
material
Social/
organizational
Motivational/
attitudinal
As the CVA is confined to humanitarian situations and disaster preparedness, and is aimed at
(homogeneous) group not intra-household analysis, there is little point in critiquing it here.
However, the tool provides a useful concept to consider when analyzing intra-household
difference: all individuals have vulnerabilities and capacities (including psychological ones) that
change over time, and may affect people’s responses or ability to respond to changes within the
household (as a consequence of development interventions). This concept may be particularly
useful when analyzing how certain events, such as illness, alter an individual’s capacities and
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vulnerabilities, and consequently affects their position, role(s) and power and control within the
household. To have significant practical value for analyzing dimensions of intra-household
difference, this tool would have to focus more explicitly on change over time, with capabilities
and vulnerabilities lost, maintained and altered..
Table 4.7: Example of CVA Tool 2: Matrix disaggregated by wealth ranking
Rich Non-poor Poor Rich Non-poor Poor
Physical/
material
Social/
organizational
Motivational/
attitudinal
Source: March et al, 1999:82 (from Anderson & Woodrow, 1989).
What are some of the advantages of using C & V Analysis?

 C & V analysis encourages an understanding of problems (symptoms) and where they
stem from (underlying causes), and points to a systematic diagnosis of the resources,
skills and capacities available to alleviate the problem.
 C & V analysis stresses the importance of social/ organizational, and attitudinal/
motivational capacities and vulnerabilities, rather than treating only physical/ material
factors.
 In distinguishing vulnerabilities from needs, the approach reminds people to look at
deeper root causes of disasters (or other development challenges) rather than only their
aftermath.
 The process is simple, and is designed to be carried out in a participatory manner, and is
ideal for use by and within communities.
 Capacities and vulnerabilities are mapped out in a simple matrix. When repeated over
time, a comparison of matrices can be used to assess changes over time and between
levels (i.e. local, regional).
 A rapid C & V assessment of a project submission or report will reveal quickly whether
some elements critical to sustainable developments have been overlooked.
What are some of the limitations?

 The use of the approach requires expertise in facilitation and strong field experience.
 As a participatory risk assessment methodology, there is some trade-off between
participation and accuracy in terms of measurable indicators. The approach is not meant
to yield accurate, objective data for risk assessment.
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What do you understand about the focus to the women’s empowerment framework of gender
analysis from the terminology itself?
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
4.5. Women’s Empowerment (Longwe) Framework.

The Longwe Framework is intended to help planners question what women’s empowerment and
equality means in practice, and to assess critically the extent to which a development is
supporting this empowerment. The ultimate aim of this Framework is to achieve women’s
empowerment by enabling women to achieve equal control over the factors of production and
participate equally in the development process alongside men.
The Longwe Framework identifies five Levels of equality (Table 4.8), which indicate the
extent to which women are equal with men, and have achieved empowerment: Welfare, Access,
Conscientisation, Participation and Control. These levels are hierarchical (with Control at the
top); if an intervention focuses on the higher levels, the empowering affect is likely to be greater
than if it focuses on the lower levels – welfare interventions are unlikely to be found empowering
by women. Critically, an ideal intervention does not necessarily show activities on every level.
Table 4.8: Example of Women’s Empowerment (Longwe) Tool 1: Levels of Equality
Control
Participation Increased Equality Increased Empowerment
Conscientisation
Access
Welfare
The second dimension of the Framework is the Level of recognition of ‘women’s issues’ (Table
4. 9) – an issue becomes a ‘women’s issue’ when it looks at the relationship between women and
men, rather than simply at women’s traditional and subordinate sex-stereotyped gender roles.
This tool goes beyond assessing the levels of women’s empowerment that an intervention seeks
to address, to identify the extent to which project objectives are concerned with women’s
development, and to establish whether women’s issues are ignored or recognized.
Longwe identifies three levels of recognition of women in project design:
• Negative level, the project objectives make no mention of women’s issues;
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• Neutral level, project objectives recognize women’s issues, and aim to ensure that the
project does not leave women worse off; and
• Positive level, the project objectives are positively concerned with women’s issues, and
with improving the position of women relative to men.
Table 4.9: Example of Women’s Empowerment (Longwe) Tool 1 & 2: Levels of

Equality/ Levels of Recognition
Project Title:
Levels of Recognition Negative Neutral Positive
Levels of Equality
Control
Participation
Conscientisation
Access
Welfare
This Framework is geared primarily toward improving planning, monitoring and evaluation, so
has limited direct applicability to enhancing understanding of non gender aspects of intra-
household difference (although improved planning can contribute indirectly to this
understanding); however, the framework still raises some useful issues. The Framework
develops the concept of practical and strategic gender needs into a progressive hierarchy, which
depends on the extent to which an intervention has potential to ‘empower’; and emphasizes that
empowerment is intrinsic to development. The Framework is also useful in identifying the gap
between rhetoric and reality in interventions.
There are, however, serious limitations to the Longwe Framework. It is static, ignoring changes
over time; it fails to examine the institutions and organizations involved or the macro-
environment; and it ignores other forms of inequality (encouraging the view of women as a
homogeneous group). Furthermore, it examines the relationship between women and men only in
terms of inequality, ignoring the complicated system of rights, claims and responsibilities that
exist between them. In fact, by defining development only in terms of women’s empowerment, it
can tempt users to focus only on women rather than on gender relations or other forms of social
difference. Finally, the hierarchy of levels may be misleading: it may encourage the perception
that empowerment is a linear process; it fails to allow for relative importance of different
resources; and it does not help to differentiate between marginally different impacts.
What do you think the focus of the social relations approach? And how do you relate it
with the socialist feminism?
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
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4.6. The Social Relations Approach

Originating from a socialist feminist background, and developed by Naila Kabeer, the Social
Relations Approach is a method for analyzing gender inequalities regarding the distribution of
resources, responsibilities and power, and for designing policies and programs which enable
women to be agents of their own development. Unlike the previous frameworks, this approach
uses concepts rather than tools to analyze the relevant issues.
Kabeer presents Development as increasing human well-being, which concerns survival, security
and autonomy (Kabeer, 1994). This shifts assessment of development interventions from only
considering technical efficiency, to considering how well they contribute to the broader goals of
survival, security and autonomy. This shift expands the concept of production beyond market
production to include all activities that contribute to improved well-being (including care of the
environment, caring for the sick, nurturing, etc). By expanding the concept of production, Kabeer
forcefully challenges the undervaluing of non-market activities that occurs in some frameworks.
The second concept is that of Social relations, which are the (dynamic) structural relationships
that create and reproduce systemic differences in the positioning of different groups of people,
and determine our roles, responsibilities, claims, resources, and level of control over our own and
others’ lives. Producing crosscutting inequalities which position each individual within the
structure and hierarchy of society, social relations are altered by macro level changes and human
action. According to Kabeer (1994), poverty arises out of people’s unequal social relations,
which dictate unequal relations to resources, claims and responsibilities. It is also through social
relations (for example, networks of family and friends) that many poor people survive.
Consequently, this Approach argues that development interventions should support relationships
that build on solidarity and reciprocity, and build autonomy, rather than reduce it.
Recognizing that inequality is not simply confined to the household but is reproduced across a
range of institutions at macro level, the Social Relations Approach introduces the concept of
Institutional Analysis (Table 4.10 and Fig 4.1).
Identifying four key institutional locations (the state, the market, the community, and family/
kinship), Kabeer challenges the ideological neutrality and independence of institutions, arguing
that they produce, reinforce and reproduce social difference and inequality, that they are inter-
related, and that changes in one will cause changes in the others. Although institutions differ in
many ways, the Approach identifies five common aspects that are distinct but inter-related. By
examining institutions on the basis of their Rules (how things get done), Activities (what is
done?), Resources (what is used, what is produced?), People (who is in, who is out, who does
what?) and Power (who decides, and whose interests are served?) users can understand who does
what, who gains, who loses (which men and which women) (March et al, 1999). These five
categories can be simplified to only three: rules, practices, and power (which are manifested
through the rules and practices).
Table 4.10: The Social Relations Approach: Concept 3: Institutional Analysis – key
institutional locations and organizational/ structural form
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Key institutional locations Organizational/ structural form
State Legal, military, administrative organizations
Market Firms, financial corporations, farming enterprises,

multinationals, etc.
Community Village tribunals, voluntary associations, informal

networks, patron-client relationships, NGOs
Family/ kinship Household, extended families, lineage groupings,

etc.
Fig. 4.1: The Social Relations Approach: Concept 3: Institutional Analysis – the key, inter-
related institutions, and the construction of gender relations as an outcome and process
International Gender Relations (as outcomes)
Environment
Rules, Resources Activities Command
Norms, as Inputs, & control
Customs, Roles, Tasks (Hierarchies
Rights, Resources of Power
as Outputs Labor
Household State Responsibilities, and
Claims, decision
Obligations making)
Community Market
GENDER RALATIONS (as process)
Rules, Practical gender Routinized

Resources, needs practices
Natural
Activities, +
Environment
Power Strategic gender
Interests
Adapted from Kabeer, 1994
The fourth concept, Institutional gender policies examines the degree to which policies
recognize and address gender issues. Gender-blind policies recognize no distinction between the
sexes and are often implicitly male-biased. Gender-aware policies recognize that men and
women are development actors, who are constrained in different, often unequal, ways as
potential participants and beneficiaries in the development process. There are three types of
gender-aware policies (which are not mutually exclusive). Gender-neutral policies, which intend
to leave the existing distribution of resources and responsibilities unchanged.
Gender specific policies, which intend to meet targeted (practical) needs of women and men
within the existing distribution of resources and responsibilities. Gender redistributive policies,
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which intend to transform existing distributions to create more balanced relationships between
men and women.
The Approach also explores the Immediate, underlying and structural factors that cause the
problems, and their effects on the various actors involved. Each of the three factors can be
analyzed in relation to the four types of institutions.
The Social Relations Approach gives a holistic and dynamic analysis of poverty, which
highlights the relationships between groups, emphasizes women and men’s different interests
and needs, and links each level of analysis (household, community, market and state) to each
other. Furthermore, the institutional analysis offers a way of understanding how institutions
inter-relate, and how they can produce reinforce and change social relations and inequalities.
This concept is of significant value when analyzing other aspects of household difference, which
are affected by the rules, practices and power of institutions (for example, impairment/ disability
or age).
Finally, the concept of institutional gender policies, and the differing degrees to which policies
recognize gender issues, provides a potential framework through which to examine the extent to
which policies recognize other forms of inequality and subordination.
The holistic nature of the Approach can, however, be a limitation. Analysis can seem
“complicated, detailed, and demanding”, and requires a very detailed knowledge of the context;
it is also difficult to use with communities in a participatory way because of the complex
concepts (e.g. institutions and organizations). Furthermore, it is difficult to determine what an
institution is, particularly as they do not have definite boundaries.
What do you think is the role of PRA (Participatory Rural Appraisal) in gender analysis?
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
4.7. Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA)

Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA): A commonly-used method for conducting participatory
research on poverty. Building on Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA), PRA’s emerged in the 1980s
and use local graphic representations created by the community that legitimize local knowledge
and promote empowerment. Five concepts are central to PRA: empowerment, respect,
localization, enjoyment, and inclusiveness.
PRA describes a growing family of approaches and methods that are being used 'to enable local
people to share, enhance, and analyze their knowledge of life and conditions, to plan and to act".
PRA stems from several earlier methodologies, including activist and participatory research,
agro-ecosystem analysis, applied anthropology, field research on farming systems, and rapid
rural appraisal (RRA).
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The approach moves away from extractive survey questionnaires and towards participatory
appraisal and analysis; it moves away from appraisals carried out by outsiders and towards
appraisals carried out by people themselves. PRA has developed in reaction to three main
phenomena: 1) dissatisfaction with the anti-poverty biases of urban-based development
professionals; 2) disillusionment with the normal processes and their results; and 3) the need for
more cost-effective methods of learning.
PRA has been used in four major types of processes: 1) participatory appraisal and planning; 2)
participatory implementation, monitoring and evaluation or programs; 3) topic investigations;
and 4) training and orientation of outsiders and villagers. Several methods are used in PRA such
as key informants, semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, participatory mapping
and modeling, trend analysis, seasonal diagramming, wealth ranking, etc.
What are the advantages of using PRA?

 PRA can be an empowering device as local people are given a central role in the
development process.
 By focusing on diversity or information and full participation, PRA actively encourages
even the most marginalized voices in the community, including women and the poorest
of the poor, to share their ideas and knowledge.
 Evidence to date shows that the information shared by rural people through PRA tends to
be both valid and reliable.
 PRA is not a technique that can be used by everyone and risks the danger of being
discredited from mid-use.
 PRA techniques are more difficult than they appear, and require not only proper training
in their use, but also particular aptitudes among practitioner (facilitation skill, ability to
relax and not push the process, showing respect, 'handing over the stick' and being self-
critically aware, willingness to listen, flexibility, etc.).
Activities – IV
1. Choose any of the gender analysis frameworks and try to analyze the existing gender
structure, relations and gender inequality in your own community, for this purpose
prepare some questions based on the framework and ask some people whom you think
are appropriate.
2. Compare and contrast the weaknesses and strengths and applicability of each of the
gender analysis frameworks over another.
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Summary
Dear student, this chapter focused on the very important aspects and concepts of gender analysis
and gender analysis frameworks. Gender analysis is defined as a systematic gathering and
examination of information on gender differences and social relations in order to identify
understand, and redress inequities based on gender. It is the collection and examination of
information about various gender issues. The rationale for gender analysis include: It helps in
realistic planning and Allows identification of constraints, opportunities among others. There are
various frameworks developed in different countries and by practitioners for undertaking gender
analysis.
The Harvard Framework aims to help planners design more efficient projects and improve
overall productivity by increasing the understanding of men and women’s different roles in a
community. Four tools are employed by the framework. These are; An Activity Profile, Access
and Control Profile, Analysis of Influencing Factors, and Project Cycle Analysis.
The Moser Framework attempts to establish ‘gender planning’ as a type of planning in its own
right, and questions the assumption that planning is a purely technical task. This framework uses
six principles, tools and procedures.
The Capabilities and Vulnerabilities Analysis (CVA) was designed specifically for use in
humanitarian interventions and disaster preparedness. The CVA distinguishes between three
Categories of capacities and vulnerabilities, using an analysis matrix: physical, social and
motivational capacities and vulnerabilities to make the CVA matrix reflect the complexity of
reality. Five additional dimensions of ‘complex reality’ are added to the analysis.
The Longwe Framework is intended to help planners question what women’s empowerment and
equality means in practice, and to assess critically the extent to which a development is
supporting this empowerment. The ultimate aim of this Framework is to achieve women’s
empowerment by enabling women to achieve equal control over the factors of production and
participate equally in the development process alongside men. The Framework identifies five
Levels of equality which indicate the extent to which women are equal with men, and have
achieved empowerment: Welfare, Access, Conscientisation, Participation and Control. There are
various limitations of the framework like the other ones.
The Social Relations Approach is a method for analyzing gender inequalities regarding the
distribution of resources, responsibilities and power, and for designing policies and programs
which enable women to be agents of their own development. Unlike the previous frameworks,
this approach uses concepts rather than tools to analyze the relevant issues.
Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) is a commonly-used method for conducting participatory

research on poverty. Building on Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA), PRA’s emerged in the 1980s
and use local graphic representations created by the community that legitimize local knowledge
and promote empowerment. Five concepts are central to PRA: empowerment, respect,
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localization, enjoyment, and inclusiveness. It has also a number of advantages which makes it
easily applicable in gender analysis as a participatory approach
Checklist
 I can define gender analysis and explain the concepts related to it

 I have mastered and can explain each of the following gender
analysis frameworks:
o The Harvard Analytical Framework
o Moser Framework Gender Planning
o Capacities and Vulnerabilities Analysis (CVA)
o The Longwe Hierarchy of Needs
o Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA)
o Social Relations Frameworks (SRF)
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Self-Assessment Questions
1. Gender analysis can be used to assess and build capacity and commitment to gender
sensitive planning and programming.
2. The Moser Framework concentrates on the power relations between men and women.
3. The Social Relations Approach originates from socialist feminist background and
develops methods for analyzing gender inequalities.
4. Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) is simple and doesn’t need special skill or training
for application in gender and poverty analysis.
5. The purpose of Activity Profile in the Harvard Framework is to identify who controls
resource their use, and who controls the benefits of those resources.

1. __________________is a valuable descriptive and diagnostic tool for development
planners and crucial to gender mainstreaming efforts.
2. _________________ is designed to demonstrate that there is an economic rationale for
investing in both men and women.
3. ________________________uses concepts rather than tools to analyze the relevant
issues.
4. _______________________ is designed specifically for use in humanitarian
interventions and disaster preparedness.
5. Among the principles of the Moser Framework, ________________ is based on the
concept that women (as a group) have particular needs that differ from men (as a group)
as a consequence of both women’s triple role, and their subordinate position to men in
most societies.
1. Briefly discuss the important concepts in gender analysis.

2. Discuss very briefly the tools applied in the Harvard Framework of gender analysis.
3. Discuss the five levels of equality identified in the Longwe Framework.
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CHAPTER FIVE
EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN
Unit Content
5.1. Concept of Empowerment
5.1.1. Economic Empowerment
5.1.2. Political Empowerment
5.2. Gender Sensitization
5.3. Gender Mainstreaming and Institutionalization
Unit Introduction
Dear student, well come to the fifth chapter of the course “Gender and Development” module.
The main objective of this chapter is to introduce and acquaint you with issues related women
empowerment. It starts with the discussion on the concepts of empowerment. Empowerment
refers to increasing the spiritual, political, social, or economic strength of individuals and
communities. Empowerment is the process of marginalized people - both women and men –
gaining resources, confidence and opportunity to take control over their lives. Women
empowerment addresses political, social and economic aspects. Gender sensitization is also
briefly discussed in this chapter. Gender sensitizing is about changing behavior and instilling
empathy into the views that we hold about our own and the other sex. The chapter ends by
discussing gender mainstreaming as an important planning tool. Gender mainstreaming is an
organizational strategy to bring a gender perspective to all aspects of an institution’s policy and
activities, through building gender capacity and accountability.
Unit Objectives
 Understand the concept of Empowerment
 Explain economic and political empowerment of women
 Understand and define gender sensitization
 Master and issues in gender mainstreaming
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How do you understand the concept of empowerment from your previous readings? What
are the possible intervention areas which demand for empowerment?
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
5.1. Concept of Empowerment

Empowerment refers to increasing the spiritual, political, social, or economic strength of
individuals and communities. It often involves the empowered developing confidence in their
own capacities.
Sociological empowerment often addresses members of groups that social discrimination

processes have excluded from decision-making processes through - for example - discrimination
based on disability, race, ethnicity, religion, or gender. Empowerment as a methodology is often
associated with feminism. People are sometimes marginalized from the rest of their community
by other groups or individuals.
Sometimes groups are marginalized by society at large, but governments are often unwitting or
enthusiastic participants. For example, the U.S. government marginalized cultural minorities,
particularly blacks, prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This Act made it illegal to restrict
access to schools and public places based on race. Equal opportunity laws which actively oppose
such marginalization, allow increased empowerment to occur. They are also a symptom of
minorities' and women's empowerment through lobbying.
Marginalized people, who have no opportunities for self-sufficiency become, at a minimum,

dependent on charity or welfare. They lose their self-confidence because they cannot be fully
self-supporting. The opportunities denied them also deprive them of the pride of accomplishment
which others, who have those opportunities, can develop for themselves. This in turn can lead to
psychological, social and even mental health problems.
Empowerment is then the process of obtaining these basic opportunities for marginalized people,
either directly by those people, or through the help of non-marginalized others who share their
own access to these opportunities. It also includes actively thwarting attempts to deny those
opportunities. Empowerment also includes encouraging, and developing the skills for, self-
sufficiency, with a focus on eliminating the future need for charity or welfare in the individuals
of the group. This process can be difficult to start and to implement effectively, but there are
many examples of empowerment projects which have succeeded.
In other words, “Empowerment is not giving people power; people already have plenty of power,
in the wealth of their knowledge and motivation, to do their jobs magnificently. We define
empowerment as letting this power out.” It encourages people to gain the skills and knowledge
that will allow them to overcome obstacles in life or work environment and ultimately, help them
develop within themselves or in the society.
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Empowerment includes the following, or similar, capabilities:-
 The ability to make decisions about personal/collective circumstances

 The ability to access information and resources for decision-making
 Ability to consider a range of options from which to choose (not just yes/no, either/or.)
 Ability to exercise assertiveness in collective decision making
 Having positive-thinking about the ability to make change
 Ability to learn and access skills for improving personal/collective circumstance.
 Ability to inform others perceptions through exchange, education and engagement.
 Involving in the growth process and changes that is never ending and self-initiated
 Increasing one's positive self-image and overcoming stigma
 Increasing one's ability in discreet thinking to sort out right and wrong
Empowerment is the process of marginalized people - both women and men – gaining resources,
confidence and opportunity to take control over their lives. Empowerment means being able to
negotiate with and influence people and institutions with power. It can be important as an
individual process, but it is most powerful as a collective, social and political process involving
solidarity and collective action. Women’s empowerment is essential to end gender discrimination
and reduce poverty. Some indicators of empowerment include:
- self-worth, self-confidence and self-reliance

- solidarity, voice and action with like-minded people to demand rights and needs
- economic independence with control over resources and assets
- leadership and influence over decisions; freedom of mobility and association
- knowledge - and its effective use and communication
- ability to ensure the healthy development of children (girls and boys)
- being listened to and treated with respect within and outside the family freedom from
violence, abuse and exploitation
Women Empowerment
Clearly, a common thread uniting each of the major international conferences of the 1990's is
women's empowerment. Furthermore, the international community is now accountable to the
world's women for fulfilling the significant commitments it has made to help make
empowerment a reality of women's lives.
Women's empowerment has five components:
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 women's sense of self-worth;

 their right to have and to determine choices;
 their right to have access to opportunities and resources;
 their right to have the power to control their own lives, both within and outside the home;
and
 their ability to influence the direction of social change to create a more just social and
economic orders, nationally and internationally.
A ‘bottom-up’ process of transforming gender power relations, through individuals or groups

developing awareness of women’s subordination and building their capacity to challenge it. The
term ‘empowerment’ is now widely used in development agency policy and programme
documents, in general, but also specifically in relation to women. However, the concept is highly
political, and its meaning contested. Thus, there are dangers in the uncritical overuse of the term
in agency rhetoric, particularly where it becomes associated with specific activities, or used in
simplistic ways.
Central to the concept of women’s empowerment is an understanding of power itself. Women’s

empowerment does not imply women taking over control previously held by men, but rather the
need to transform the nature of power relations. Power may be understood as ‘power within,’ or
self confidence, ‘power with’, or the capacity to organize with others towards a common purpose
and the ‘power to’ effect change and take decisions, rather than ‘power over’ others.
Empowerment is sometimes described as being about the ability to make choices, but it must
also involve being able to shape what choices are on offer. What is seen as empowering in one
context may not be in another.
Empowerment is essentially a bottom-up process rather than something that can be formulated as
a top-down strategy. This means that development agencies cannot claim to 'empower women',
nor can empowerment be defined in terms of specific activities or end results. This is because it
involves a process whereby women, individually and collectively, freely analyze, develop and
voice their needs and interests, without them being pre-defined, or imposed from above. Planners
working towards an empowerment approach must therefore develop ways of enabling women
themselves to critically assess their own situation and shape a transformation in society. The
ultimate goal of women’s empowerment is for women themselves to be the active agents of
change in transforming gender relations.
Whilst empowerment cannot be ‘done to’ women, appropriate external support can be important
to foster and support the process of empowerment. A facilitative rather than directive role is
needed, such as funding women’s organizations that work locally to address the causes of gender
subordination and promoting dialogue between such organizations and those in positions of
power.
Recently, interest has grown among development professionals in approaches to measuring

women’s empowerment, particularly in relation to microcredit programs. A number of
‘indicators of empowerment’ have been developed in different contexts. Again, caution must be
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exercised in assuming that empowerment can be externally defined and objectively assessed, or
that such indicators can be easily transferred.
How is the status of women in the economic sector or in income generation activities? If there
are really observed inequalities in these regard what do you think should be done?
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
5.1.1. Economic Empowerment
Women have the potential to change their own economic status, as well as that of the
communities and countries in which they live. Yet more often than not, women’s economic
contributions go unrecognized, their work undervalued and their promise unnourished.
Unequal opportunities between women and men continue to hamper women’s ability to lift
themselves from poverty and gain more options to improve their lives. Research shows that
inequalities persist in the way paid and unpaid work is divided between women and men; in the
fact that women remain the sole caregivers at home, and in their limited access to resources.
What is more, these imbalances slow economic growth.
Women’s economic empowerment – that is, their capacity to bring about economic change for
themselves – is increasingly viewed as the most important contributing factor to achieving
equality between women and men. But economically strengthening women – who are half the
world’s workforce – is not only a means by which to spur economic growth, but also a matter of
advancing women's human rights. When governments, businesses and communities invest in
women, and when they work to eliminate inequalities, developing countries are less likely to be
plagued by poverty. Entire nations can also better their chance of becoming stronger players in
the global marketplace.
Some of the positive outcomes of women’s economic empowerment are the following:
 Where women's participation in the labor force grew fastest, the economy experienced
the largest reduction in poverty rates.
 When women farmers can access the resources they need, their production increases,
making it less likely that their families are hungry and malnourished.
 When women own property and earn money from it, they may have more bargaining
power at home. This in turn can help reduce their vulnerability to domestic violence and
HIV infection.
 When women have access to time-saving technologies – such as a foot-pedaled water

pump or a motorized scooter – economic benefits can follow. Researchers have found
that technology helps women increase their productivity as well as launch income-
generating pursuits and entrepreneurial ventures. Those kinds of outcomes empower
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women to become stronger leaders and to more effectively contribute financially to

their families, communities and countries.
Investing in women helps speed up the development of local economies and creates more
equitable societies.
Economic development efforts to combat poverty can only succeed if women are part of the
solution. Doing so yields a double dividend: When women are economically empowered, they
raise healthier, better educated families. Their countries are more economically prosperous
because of it, too.
Understanding of women's economic contributions as well as the hurdles that prevent them from
being successful should expand. Efforts should focus on how gender affects economic
development efforts related to assets and property rights as well as employment, enterprise
development and financial services to empower women in this aspect.
Increasing women's ownership, use and control of assets and property is very essential. Empower
women as economic agents and better their ability to access markets on competitive and
equitable terms. Development partners and government should aim to integrate gender
perspectives into program and institution activities. It is believed that such an approach improves
the likelihood that efforts to strengthen women economically are successful.
Are there women in political powers/positions in your Woreda? Compare the relative number
with their counterparts and indicate what the nest step should be by the concerned bodies.
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
5.1.2 Political Empowerment
Democratic transitions in many countries have ushered in new ideas about the citizen’s role in
political life. The meaning of democracy and the responsibilities it entails are continuously being
negotiated in new contexts of ideological exploration and citizen aspiration. In recent years, as
the process of democratization has become more widespread, the complex relationship between
governance and women’s empowerment has come under increasing scrutiny by academics,
development practitioners, and grassroots constituencies.
Approaches to the overall empowerment of women have begun to integrate tools and strategies
designed to promote democratic values, practices, and institutions. This trend has stimulated
fresh insights on and innovative field programs in the area of integrating gender concerns with
development interventions.
The relationship between good governance and women’s empowerment are critical and here we
add the following three core elements as components of the political empowerment framework.
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Political culture: A democratic political culture offers opportunities for the expression and
reconciliation of different views, demands governmental transparency, encourages citizen
participation, and supports a strong civil society.
Civil society: Characterized by effective citizen representation and participation in political life,
civil society is a constantly evolving network of politically active, aware organizations and
individuals that represent diverse interests, shape public dialogue, and influence political
outcomes.
Government institutions: The creation of democratic bodies determines the degree to which
government is transparent and accessible and whether policies reflect an equitable balance of
society’s interests. If successful, organizations and individuals will be able to themselves freely
advocate for changes in policies, programs, laws, regulations, and institutions.
A democratic political culture functions and is critical to the advancement of women, primarily
because it encourages political consciousness and action. Consequently, as political alliances are
formed and information is shared, power relations within society and the political arena shift,
allowing previously marginalized groups (such as women) to identify and fight for their goals.
When this point is reached, the social capital (i.e., the relationships, institutions, and norms that
facilitate cooperation among various groups) of a country is enhanced, and democracy can then
gain a stronger foothold.
A vibrant civil society is a prerequisite of democracy. By building constituencies around

particular political concerns, civil society ensures that a range of citizens and interests can gain
access to political systems. Civil society actors, in particular politically conscious organizations
and individuals, also contribute to the development of political skills on the part of constituents,
a necessary component if citizen participation is to be firmly established and remain a consistent
factor in political life.
The nature of political culture and the role of civil society in a given context is determined in part
by government institutions, such as legislatures, ministries, judicial entities, and local agencies.
Such institutions make up a realm in which civil society actors can work to fulfill their political
goals and in which policymakers and political leaders can demonstrate their commitment to the
democratization process. Importantly, institutions provide a basis for judging government
accountability with regard to responsibilities to citizens and the creation of conditions that
catalyze and reinforce both political activity and empowerment by groups of citizens.
As a democratic political culture expands worldwide, it is increasingly important to examine how

women—and often the institutions to which they belong—take on new roles and identities,
develop new skills, claim individual and collective rights, participate in public decision-making
processes, and establish an equal footing with their male counterparts.
Different research projects generated a deeper understanding of the reasons for women’s
exclusion from civic life and about how best to foster their participation in democratic process, in
particular regarding the tools and strategies that can be applied to promote participatory values,
practices, and institutions.
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The following recommendations for program planning and implementation are subdivided into
three broad categories:
Tools and Strategies to Foster and Strengthen Women’s Participation:
 Support policy analysis activities.

 Promote human rights education.
 Continue skill building and support for women in public office.
 Use advocacy training as a means to understand and challenge inequitable societal
structures
Power of the Collective Voice and Experience:
 Facilitate the development of diverse networks for women’s groups.

 Support institutional capacity building.
 Create forums for women to exchange ideas and reflect on their experiences.
 Develop a written record for other organizations.
Credibility as a Vital Asset:
 Create and widely disseminate a credible body of information.

 Collect gender-disaggregated information as a powerful tool for monitoring and assessing
women’s progress.
The following are lessons that come from collective project experiences:
 Sustainable development requires women’s active participation in public decisionmaking.

 Political consciousness results from critical thinking.
 Small steps provide the foundation for enduring social change.
What is your perspective towards the other gender (concerning roles and behaviours of
your opposite gender)? ___________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
5.2. Gender Sensitization
Gender sensitization refers to the modification of behavior by raising awareness of gender

equality concerns. Gender sensitizing "is about changing behavior and instilling empathy into the
views that we hold about our own and the other sex." It helps people in "examining their
personal attitudes and beliefs and questioning the 'realities' they thought they know." Thus a
gender sensitized person not only acquires new patterns of behavior towards persons of 'other'
gender, rather sensitization also enables him/her to question his/her attitude, beliefs and values
related to the gender concerns.
Do you think that a gender perspective is considered in the different plans and programs
of the offices in your area? Why do you think we need to consider gender issues in such aspects?
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______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
5.3. Gender Mainstreaming and Institutionalization
Gender mainstreaming is an organizational strategy to bring a gender perspective to all aspects of
an institution’s policy and activities, through building gender capacity and accountability.
Mainstreaming is a process rather than a goal that consists in bringing what can be seen as
marginal into the core business and main decision making process of an organization.
The 1970s strategies of integrating women into development by establishing separate women’s
units or programs within state and development institutions had made slow progress by the mid-
1980s. In light of this, the need was identified for broader institutional change if pervasive male
advantage was to be challenged. Adding women- specific activities at the margin was no longer
seen as sufficient. Most major development organizations and many governments have now
embraced ‘gender mainstreaming’ as a strategy for moving towards gender equality.
With a mainstreaming strategy, gender concerns are seen as important to all aspects of
development; for all sectors and areas of activity, and a fundamental part of the planning process.
Responsibility for the implementation of gender policy is diffused across the organizational
structure, rather than concentrated in a small central unit.
Such a process of mainstreaming has been seen to take one of two forms. The agenda-setting
approach to mainstreaming seeks to transform the development agenda itself whilst prioritizing
gender concerns. The more politically acceptable integrationist approach brings women’s and
gender concerns into all of the existing policies and programs, focusing on adapting institutional
procedures to achieve this. In both cases, political as well as technical skills are essential to a
mainstreaming strategy.
Any approach to mainstreaming requires sufficient resources, as well as high-level commitment

and authority. A combined strategy can be particularly powerful. This involves the synergy of a
catalytic central gender unit with a cross-sectoral policy oversight and monitoring role, combined
with a web of gender specialists across the institution. The building of alliances both within the
institution and with outside constituencies, such as women’s organizations, is crucial for success.
Mainstreaming tools include gender training, introducing incentive structures which reward
efforts on gender, and the development of gender-specific operational tools such as checklists
and guidelines.
Principles of Gender mainstreaming
Principle 1: Transforming the mainstream is a prerequisite for and an integral element (rather
than a consequence) of the full realization of women’s human rights and gender
equality.
Principle 2: Women must become empowered and informed decision makers on mainstream
issues. This vision must explicitly recognize the rights of different groups of women
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— poor women, indigenous women, disabled women, etc to participate in decision

making on mainstream issues. Mainstreaming approaches on the role of women in
leadership and decision-making have emphasized getting ‘women’s issues’ and a
gender perspective into the mainstream.
Principle 3: Women’s human rights can only be realized through the transformation of gender
power relations at all levels. A rights-based perspective must be explicitly based on
challenging prevailing power relations. This may, and often will, include addressing
unequal power relations among groups of women, as well as between women and
men.
Elements of a Gender Mainstreaming Strategy: A 14-Point Framework
Fourteen elements of a complete gender mainstreaming strategy
While it is of absolute importance not to conflate these three spheres, it is also useful to think of
them as ‘levels’ that a unified organizational gender mainstreaming strategy must encompass. At
each level there are several of the 14 elements to be put in place, including tracking and reporting
mechanisms adapted to the issues relevant to each level.
Level One: Organizational structures, policies, procedures and culture
An organization able to contribute substantively to greater gender equality would have the
following six structures, policies and procedures in place.
Element 1: A clear policy on its commitment to gender equality, supported by the proactive
drive of senior and middle management (political will), and expressed in a written policy or
mission statement.
Element 2: Time-bound strategies to implement the policy, which are developed in broad
consultation with staff, and include mechanisms to ensure that staff understand the policy and its
implications for their everyday work, and have the competencies and resources required to
implement it effectively.
Element 3: Human resource practices which are sensitive to the gender needs and interests of
both men and women on the organization’s staff, as well as in their constituency. Human
resource strategies have a dual internal/external function in relation to gender mainstreaming:
(a) internally, they advance the organization’s ability to practice and model gender equality
in its own internal functioning, for example to be equitable in its hiring and promotion
practices, and recognize the links between the personal and professional responsibilities
of staff; and
(b) Externally, they enable the organization to contribute more effectively to greater gender
equality in its program and impact, for example by including commitment and
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competence to work for gender equality in job descriptions, terms of reference and
performance criteria.
Element 4: Internal tracking and monitoring capability to ensure that strategic milestones are
being reached, and to support both organizational learning and management accountability.
These might include monitoring of staff recruitment and promotion, budgetary allocations,
procurement from companies that implement ILO conventions regarding female employees, and
the performance of managers and supervisors in discussing and following up on gender equality
initiatives.
Element 5: A central gender mainstreaming unit with policy responsibility and a mandate to
guide the overall gender mainstreaming process. Some organizations also have specific units to
support the incorporation of gender issues into their programs, while others combine the policy
and program functions.
Element 6: A recognized network of staff responsible for gender equality issues in their
respective work units, coordinated as a team by the policy unit (often called a Gender Focal
Point Network). Ideally, this network takes the form of a community of practice that is self-
organizing, knowledge sharing, peer supporting and serves as an acknowledged channel for the
integration of learning on gender equality into the organization’s functioning.
Level Two: The organization’s program
Although gender mainstreaming involves far more than project and program design and
implementation, an organization’s program is the ‘heart’ of gender mainstreaming. It is the arena
in which commitment to gender equality takes concrete form in the community served by the
organization. An effective gender mainstreaming strategy therefore includes at least the
following four programming elements:
Element 7: Systematic ongoing consultation with women, as well as men, to identify their own
priorities, success stories, lessons learned tools, and mechanisms. This is only possible in
organizations that genuinely value consultation and the types of knowledge that it produces and
allocate the necessary staff and budgetary resources. Consultation does not end with the design
phase of the project, but must be undertaken throughout project implementation. This is of
critical importance, because the ultimate impact will be watered down if the project strays from
community concerns, or does not adjust to any changes in these concerns (see also Element 11
below).
Element 8: Project management that is technically proficient, aware of the implications of

gender differences for project outcomes, remains in touch with the constituency, and establishes
positive incentive and accountability mechanisms to ensure consistent results is extremely
important.
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Element 9: Effective monitoring and reporting mechanisms capable of reflecting how far the
project is contributing to greater gender equality.
Element 10: Gender analysis (a subset of socioeconomic analysis) that explores the national and
international context in which the concerned communities are operating, clarifies the ways in
which this context impacts differently on women and men and the implications of these
differences for project activity.
Level Three: The outcomes and impact
The outcomes and impact of effective gender mainstreaming activity in Levels One and Two are
seen in progress towards measurable improvement in meeting women’s practical needs and
strategic interests, and greater gender equality (both formal and substantive) in the communities
served. It is important to show that substantive activity has not simply reached a certain number
of women, but that it has improved equality between women and men.
Element 11: Relevant baseline information, and appropriate milestones and indicators, derived
from gender analysis, so that progress towards greater gender equality can be identified and
described.
Element 12: Consultation with the community concerned to check and compare their
perspectives with the information revealed by formal indicators.
Element 13: Clear reporting mechanisms that can get the word out efficiently.
Element 14: Good relationships with the media, opinion leaders and decision makers both in the
community being served, and in the wider society, so that lessons learned can be effectively
ouldisseminated, and absorbed into social practice.
Activites – V
1. Discuss with your classmates or colleagues about the inequality of men and
women in various spheres such as the economic and political spheres and
recommend the actions which should be taken?
2. Compares and contrast among the empowerment approach and what

circumstances they are to be applied.
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Summary
Dear student, this chapter’s is women empowerment and gender issues such as gender
sensitization and gender mainstreaming. Empowerment refers to increasing the spiritual,
political, social, or economic strength of individuals and communities. It often involves the
empowered developing confidence in their own capacities. Empowerment is the process of
marginalized people - both women and men – gaining resources, confidence and opportunity to
take control over their lives.
Women empowerment is a component of this framework. Women’s economic empowerment –
that is, their capacity to bring about economic change for themselves – is increasingly viewed as
the most important contributing factor to achieving equality between women and men. Women’s
economic empowerment has some of the positive outcomes. Investing in women helps speed up
the development of local economies and creates more equitable societies. . In recent years, as the
process of democratization has become more widespread, the complex relationship between
governance and women’s empowerment has come under increasing scrutiny by academics,
development practitioners, and grassroots constituencies.
Gender mainstreaming is an organizational strategy to bring a gender perspective to all aspects of

an institution’s policy and activities, through building gender capacity and accountability.
Mainstreaming is a process rather than a goal that consists in bringing what can be seen as
marginal into the core business and main decision-making process of an organization. With a
mainstreaming strategy, gender concerns are seen as important to all aspects of development; for
all sectors and areas of activity, and a fundamental part of the planning process. Responsibility
for the implementation of gender policy is diffused across the organizational structure, rather
than concentrated in a small central unit. Gender mainstreaming principles and its elements are
also discussed in this chapter.
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Checklist
 I have understood the concepts of Empowerment
 I can explain economic and political empowerment of women
 I have understood and can define gender sensitization
 I have mastered the issues of gender mainstreaming
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 Self-Assessment Questions
Try to answer the following different type of question to evaluate yourself concerning the
3. Empowerment is all about giving people power.F
4. Gender mainstreaming is a means to an end.T
5. People who are not fully self-supporting and dependent on others lose their self-
confidence. T
6. Mostly, women’s economic contributions get unrecognized, their work undervalued and
their promise are unnourished T

1. SOCIOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT often addresses members of groups that social
discrimination processes have excluded from decision-making processes.
2. EMPOWERMENT means being able to negotiate with and influence people and
institutions with power.
3. GENDER MAINSTREAMING is an organizational strategy to bring a gender

perspective to all aspects of an institution’s policy and activities, through building gender
capacity and accountability.
4. GENDER SENSITIASTION refers to the modification of behavior by raising awareness

of gender equality concerns.
1. What are the core elements in the women’s political empowerment frameworks? Political
culture, Civil Society and Government Institution
2. Discuss the principles and elements of gender mainstreaming. Gender mainstreaming has
three main principles and 14 elements organized under levels
3. Briefly discuss some of the positive outcomes of women’s economic empowerment.
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CHAPTER SIX
INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT FOR WOMEN MOBILIZATION
Unit Content
6.1. Concepts of social mobilization and women
6.2. The Role of Government
6.3. The Role of NGOs
Unit Introduction
Dear student, well come to the third chapter of the course “Gender and Development” module.
This chapter discusses issues related to women mobilization very briefly. Women mobilization is
part of the social mobilization concept. Therefore, the chapter starts in defining and illustrating
the concepts of social mobilization. Social Mobilization is defined as “the process of enabling
the poor, marginalized and disenfranchised segments of society to build and manage their own
organizations and thereby participate in decisions affecting their day-to-day lives through the use
of their own creativity”. Different facilitators may be engaged in the mobilization activities. The
government plays its own roles in creating conducive institutional environment for mobilization.
The role of NGOs is also important in women mobilization. NGOs play roles of catalyzing and
enabling the formation of grassroots women's organizations. They also play role of supporting
grassroots organizations, linking them together and helping transform.
Unit Objectives
 Understand the concepts of social mobilization and women
 Understand the role of government
 Explain the role of NGOs in women mobilization
What aspects does social mobilization entail? What do you think is the purpose of social
mobilization for women?
6.1. Concepts of Social Mobilization and Women
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Social Mobilization may be defined as “the process of enabling the poor, marginalized and
disenfranchised segments of society to build and manage their own organizations and thereby
participate in decisions affecting their day-to-day lives through the use of their own creativity”.
Social Mobilization can also be defined as “a process of engaging a large number of people in
joint action for achieving societal goals through self-reliant efforts. Its immediate expected
outcomes are the mobilization of all possible resources and the sustained adoption/utilization of
appropriate policies, technologies or services through the modification of attitudes and behavior
of various social actors”.
Social Mobilization “is a process of organizing the target groups to take initiatives and assert
themselves”. It seeks to make people more aware of the resources available to them, to raise their
consciousness and to give them the motivation to undertake development activities for their own
betterment in the long run social mobilization aims at empowering people to demand and
generate the satisfaction of their needs.
Social mobilization is an approach and tool that enables people to organize for collective action,
by pooling resources and building solidarity required to resolved common problems and work
towards community advancement (UNDP, 2002). It is a process that empowers women and men
to organize their own democratically self-governing groups or community organizations which
enable them to initiate and control their own personal and communal development, as opposed to
mere participation in an initiative designed by the government or an external organization.
Mobilization is a transformational approach which empowers marginalized communities to

challenge dominance and create changes in their lived situations. Social mobilization is about
empowering the poor based on three vital parameters of power namely, a) their own capital, b)
their own knowledge, and c) their own organizations. The idea of empowerment is based on the
assumption that there are three fundamental sources of power, that is:
 Capital is power and for self-reliance, the habit of saving must be included
 Knowledge is power; no development can be sustained without the process being

grounded in one’s own knowledge base, culture and skills.
 Organization is power for participation to be effective and dynamic; the groups must
respect the principle of social, economic and cultural homogeneity.
Social Mobilization is the process of dialogue, negotiation and consensus building for action by
people, communities, and organizations etc. to identify, address and solve a common problem. It
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can be an effective strategy to create the kind of supportive environment necessary to create
sustained behavioral change that will bring about community participation for sustainability and
self-reliance. To achieve this, the strategy mush reach from the highest levels of societal power
to the hardest to reach and the most disempowered families and community.
Each mobilization is derived from a thorough probing and understanding of felt needs in due
order of priority. The interactive nature of the process results in a progressive deepening of the
understanding of their problems and how they can be collectively addressed. Through a process
of reflection-action-reflection, the spirals of activities move simultaneously on both the material
front as well as on the mind. The important aspect of social mobilization is that the minds of the
people are affected, consciousness is raised and creativity is realized while at the same time
immediate material benefits are enjoyed by the prime actors.
Social Mobilization is the process of pooling together, harnessing, actualizing and utilizing
potential human resources for the purpose of development. It is a process whereby human beings
are made aware of the resources at their disposal, and are also motivated and energized to
collectively utilize such resources for the improvement of their spiritual and material conditions
of living.
The NGOs, as a social force facilitate collective action and people’s mobilization. The NGOs
play in making the people environmentally aware and sensitive to take part in the social activism
through social mobilization process.
Empowerment of poor, particularly women, and social mobilization are the possible process for
eradicating poverty. Poverty can be effectively eradicated only when the poor start contributing
to the growth process through their active involvement. Voluntary organization, community
based self-help groups and local governmental organizations have a substantial role to play.
The experiences across different countries have shown that group formation and development are
not a spontaneous processes. A facilitator working closely with the communities at grassroots
level can play a critical role in the group formation and development. The quality of the groups
can be influenced by the capacity of the facilitator. The facilitator may or may not be an official.
In some cases, NGOs can not only work as facilitators but also help in Social Mobilization,
Training, and capacity building of facilitators being used.
Women need to be viewed not as beneficiaries but a active participants in the process of
development and change. Empowerment of women can be effectively achieved if poor women
could be organized into groups – for community participation as well as for assertion of their
rights in various services related to their economic and social well being.
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Women’s empowerment is not only in financial terms but also in attitudinal and motivational
factors. There is no need for much inventions and innovation to empower rural women and what
needed is reorientation, mobilization and realization of women friendly environment in the rural
areas.
Empowerment is the process of building capacities of creating an atmosphere, which enables

people to fully utilize their creative potential in pursuance of quality of life. Empowerment gives
women the capacity to influence decision-making process, planning, implementation and
evaluation. It also deepens and popularizes the democratic process.
What could be the role of government in the social mobilization of women?

______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
6.2. The Role of Government

Different actors play their own roles in women’s mobilization. Among these, various
government and non-government organizations can be considered as the major ones. Particularly
the government plays an important role in creating conducive institutional and political
environment for women mobilization. These will enable women themselves to organize and
mobilize themselves and contribute their own share to the development process. If this is so other
NGOs and other women activist groups can fulfill their missions of empowering and mobilizing
women from their marginalization within societies.
The state portrays itself as a neutral actor committed to creating equality in the society. By
conferring citizenship on its populace, it promises to treat them as equal. Recognizing that
people are placed in unequal relationships, it enacts legislation to equalize the social
relationships. Through affirmative action, it tries to create conditions for excluded groups to take
part in political decision-making. Acknowledging that capacities and resources are unequally
distributed across various sections, it also promotes equality of opportunities through special
provisions regarding education and employment so that people can compete as equals.
According to experiences gained from different countries, centralized policy and planning
procedures strengthen the hands of the state while weakening the participation of marginalized
groups and women. The state-citizen relationship, which the state shaped according to its own
convenience, has left marginalized groups as mere recipients of state-given patronage, a grossly
inadequate response to their needs. To reshape this relationship, the policy environments and
institutions should designed in a way it favors the citizens
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What roles do you think the NGOs should play in the women mobilization?
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
6.3. The Role of NGOs

There are various roles of NGOs in the grassroots women's mobilization. The first role that
NGOs have is to help build grassroots women's movements where they don't exist. They have to
be catalysts in creating spaces for poor women to gather, mobilize, and organize. Their first
priority of NGOs should be to catalyse and enable the formation of grassroots women's
organizations. We cannot speak of a "women's movement" without this kind of grassroots base.
The second critical role NGOs have to play is supporting grassroots organizations, linking them
together and helping transform. They must also support women's groups to develop critical
social change and action agendas. It is important that they do not impose agendas but provide
information, analysis, and alternative viewpoints about issues. For example, if there are women
who are facing the collapse of a market for resin that they used to gather from the forest, it is
essential for NGOs help women understand the factors and the larger forces that might have led
to that collapse. Such factors include examining how liberalization, deregulation and de-
controlling of certain markets might have allowed very cheap synthetic resin to be imported
which has totally replaced their economic activity. This is a concrete example of how NGOs can
help facilitate the building of agendas and the broadening of the information base and analytical
frameworks that grassroots women have.
The third role is to step back and support the mobilization and its leadership in multiple ways.
One such way is by opening up advocacy spaces – instead of occupying the advocacy spaces
themselves, which is what they tend to do now. They should encourage movements to use things
like research, data collection, and the creation of alternative analyses, as well as to promote
changes in the patterns of engagement and negotiation with state authorities so that this
relationship is not always one of confrontation or supplication, but it can move towards
partnership and negotiation.
The fourth important role that NGOs can play is to enable grassroots women's movements to
form alliances and partnerships with a range of other movements and other civil society actors, in
order to change the agendas and perspectives of these other movements. If women have a
formidable mass base they can't be ignored. But today women are not seen, in many parts of the
world, as any kind of political force or as a mass base. This is partly because NGOs have been
content to treat them as beneficiaries of various kinds of economic development programs. They
are content to organize them into extremely successful savings and credit groups, for example, or
into extremely successful microenterprise programs.
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A fifth role - NGOs have to constantly re-examine their role and relationship vis-a-vis grassroots
women's organizations and later when they become well organized.
Activity - VI
1. Do you think that social mobilization of women is required at higher education institutions in
Ethiopia? If yes, justify its purpose and how it could be realized. Include the existing activities
related to women/girls mobilization.
Summary
Dear student, this chapter discussed the issues of women mobilization. Social Mobilization is
defined as “the process of enabling the poor, marginalized and disenfranchised segments of
society to build and manage their own organizations and thereby participate in decisions
affecting their day-to-day lives through the use of their own creativity. Social mobilization is an
approach and tool that enables people to organize for collective action, by pooling resources and
building solidarity required to resolve common problems and work towards community
advancement. Mobilization is a transformational approach which empowers marginalized
communities to challenge dominance and create changes in their lived situations.
The idea of empowerment is based on the assumption that there are three fundamental sources of
power that is: Capital, Knowledge and Organization. Different actors play their own roles in
women’s mobilization. Particularly the government plays an important role in creating a
conducive institutional and political environment for women mobilization.
And NGOs also have various roles in women mobilization. They have to be catalysts in creating
spaces for poor women to gather, mobilize, and organize. They also play roles in the grassroots
women's mobilization. The first role that NGOs have is to help build grassroots women's
movements where they don't exist in addition to others discussed in the chapter.
Checklist
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 I have understood the concepts of social mobilization and women
 I have understood the role of government in mobilization
 Explain the role of NGOs in women mobilization
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1. Mobilization contributes for poverty eradication.
2. Government alone should take the responsibility of mobilizing women.
3. Women mobilization plays its part in their empowerment.
4. NGOs and states do have conflicting interests in women mobilization.
5. NGOs should only work as facilitators in social mobilization
II. Short Answer/Discussion Questions
1. Briefly discuss the concept of social mobilization
2. The idea of empowerment is based on the assumption that there are three fundamental
sources of power. What are these fundamental sources of power?
3. Discuss the role of NGOs in women mobilization very briefly.
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CHAPTER SEVEN
WOMEN ISSUES IN THE COOPERATIVE AND ECONOMIC

DEVELOPMENT
Unit Content
7.1. Women Role Participation in Cooperatives
7.2. Cooperatives in Poverty Reduction and Food Security
7.3. Women and Small Scale Business Development
Unit Introduction
Dear student, well come to the last chapter of the course “Gender and Development” module.
The focus of this chapter is women issues in cooperatives and economic development. The first
sub-topic is the discussion of the role of women in cooperatives. Women’s Cooperatives have
played an important role in rural development in mobilizing limited resources for women
farmers and producers. Cooperatives also have significant roles in poverty reduction and food
security of nations. Most scholars of the field strongly believe that cooperatives can contribute a
great deal to poverty alleviation. Cooperatives also provide Opportunity, Empowerment and
Security to the poor members of a society. Women also have important roles in small scale
business development. Small-scale businesses present a constructive option for income
generation. In many developing countries, a high percentage of small scale businesses that cater
to local needs are controlled or owned by women.
Unit Objectives
 Understand and describe Women’s Role and Participation in Cooperatives
 Explain the role of Cooperatives in poverty Reduction and Food Security
 Understand the issues related to Women and Small Scale Business Development
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Write down your understanding about cooperatives. Think of the cooperatives in your
area, what are the peculiarities of the cooperatives which are found in your area?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
7.1. Women Participation in Cooperatives

A cooperative enterprise is a group-based form of business which is owned and controlled by the
same people who use its services. Cooperative enterprises are directed by norms, values and
cooperative principles. Cooperatives are able to promote economic and social development
because they are commercial organizations that follow a broader set of values than those
associated purely with profit orientation. This is because cooperatives are owned by those who
use their services the decisions taken by cooperatives balance the need for profitability with the
wider interests of the community. They also foster economic fairness by ensuring equal access to
markets and services for the membership base, which is open and voluntary. Cooperatives play
an important role in job creation by directly providing productive self-employment for several
million worker owners of production and service provision cooperatives and non employees of
these and other cooperative enterprises. Enterprise development most particularly the promotion
of small and medium enterprises has been adopted as a strategy for job creation and economic
growth in a large number of countries. More awareness and knowledge about cooperative form
of enterprise, as an option to conduct business, is widely needed by the people most likely to
benefit from it.
Furthermore, apart from their economic potentials cooperatives are also reported to offer their
members socio-psychological benefits such as a sense of security and belonging, an awareness of
personal influence and importance in the local organization. For member entrepreneurs,
cooperatives provide the setting for collective problem-solving and articulation of strategic and
basic needs. The support and mutual encouragement a group of entrepreneur can assist each
other in order to maintain or boost their self-confidence. Solidarity, social responsibility, equity
and caring for others are among the core values on which genuine cooperatives are based. During
the past decade, there has been a growing interest in the role of cooperatives in social and
economic development within the United Nations system. The United Nations General Assembly
officially adopted the core guidelines on cooperative development in 2001 and issued a report
under the title “Cooperatives in Social Development” in 2005 that noted the potential of
cooperatives in promoting poverty eradication and enhancing social integration. Recognizing the
importance of cooperatives in job creation, mobilizing resources and promoting the fullest
participation in the economic and social development of all people, international agencies have
been actively carrying out various cooperative projects. Cooperatives have shown to be
particularly effective in agriculture. Cooperatives are now significant economic and social actors
with a membership of approximately 800 million throughout the world. Cooperatives continue to
be an important means by which to overcome economic difficulties. For example, the economic
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crises in the 1930s and 1970s gave an impetus for the upsurge in funding new cooperatives to
deal with the disastrous situations after the Second World War.
Women’s Cooperatives: Women’s agricultural cooperatives have played an important role in

rural development in mobilizing limited resources for women farmers and producers. Many
traditional cooperatives continue to hold governing structures not conducive to free participation
as they are governed by a primarily male-dominated structure. For gender mainstreaming in rural
development, it is important to promote women’s participation in cooperative entrepreneurship.
In agricultural activities, where many traditional cooperatives continue to hold governing
structures not conducive to women’s free participation, a potential option offering promise for
rural women to form their own cooperatives. While efforts are being made to improve women’s
status within existing cooperative institutions, the establishment of women-led or women
member cooperatives poses strong potential for sustainability promoting women’s
entrepreneurship in the agricultural sector. In addition, to offer potentials in fostering women’s
entrepreneurship, income generation and empowerment women’s cooperatives offer several
potentials benefits. A primary benefit is that it can serve as a major support network. It also
offers the opportunity for women to exercise decision making power.
A Canadian study reported that, women’s organic farmers’ emphasize the organic community,
composed of women’s cooperatives, as a support network, a learning environment and a social
group for both new and established farmers. According to the Canadian 2001 census of
agriculture, women farmers are active in the organic farming movement as members of
community supported agriculture and cooperatives. Cooperative enterprises can take on different
forms. They can be set up by a group of enterprises or by individual entrepreneurs wishing to
benefit shared services, cheaper goods, easier access to market or higher prices for their
products.
Furthermore, according to Sanyang and Huang (2008) barriers to green or organic cooperative
entrepreneurship can be small in many cases because organize at community level, cooperative
usually can use available resources and practices that make low input and less initial investment
possible for small-scale farmers and entrepreneurs. For example, women link, a leading woman’s
green cooperatives in the Republic of Korea, started with only 220 households at the community
level and a small capital of US$ 13,000. It currently has about 12,000 multi-community-based
members and has increased sales volume 24 times between 1990 and 2005. It is linked mostly
with small-size green producers’ cooperatives at the community level in rural areas.
Women’s Cooperatives by Their Functions: Cooperatives can be formed for a number of

reasons. As long as there are common economic, social and/or cultural needs for which women
farmers feel it is advantageous to join together and form enterprises that are jointly owned and
democratically controlled, cooperatives are beneficial. Agricultural cooperatives can also be
classified by their functional services to members. It is not unusual for some cooperatives to have
large national and/or international operations comprised of multiple functions while some
cooperatives concentrate in one specific area and the following provides description of key
functions of agricultural cooperatives.
Farmers’ and agricultural producers’ cooperatives Farmers’ cooperatives enable small women
farmers to take collective action to reduce input costs and marketing risks. Through cooperatives,
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the farmers can do collective bargaining or purchasing to get the best deals on seeds, supplies
and equipment and gain economies of scale. For example, small women farmers who cannot
afford to buy heavy equipment on their own. Through cooperative, they can purchase the
equipment jointly and/or lease them from the cooperative feel. Producers’ cooperatives may also
integrate an information centre or include an extension agency involved in work helping to
stimulate new crops and farming techniques. Some of them are also active in community
development and education in areas of farming as well as primary level business management
and government lobbying.
Agro and Food Processing Cooperatives: Agro and food processing cooperatives are
cooperatives which engage in value-added activities from primary agricultural products.
Cooperative form of enterprises makes it possible the joint purchase of expensive agro and food
processing equipment and machineries which normally would not be possible for small scale
agricultural producers. They offer the benefits of enabling the small producer to enter
substantially more lucrative and profit making areas. Business in processed products is
substantially more lucrative than business in primary goods. A study revealed that prices of
primary products such as coffee, cocoa and sugar dropped from 200 to 400 percent while the
value of processed goods such as instant coffee, chocolate bars and corn flakes increased more
than 200 percent from 1980 to 2000. Furthermore, another study in Mexico noted that value-
adding activities accounted for a 350 percent increase farmers’ income. Cooperative
entrepreneurship increases small women farmers’ prospects of being able to enter into these
types of agri-business (Sanyang and Huang, 2008)
Marketing Cooperatives: Marketing cooperatives is a business organization owned by farmers

to collectively sell their products. It allows producers to collectively accomplish functions they
could not achieve on their own. Most agricultural producers have relatively little power or
influence with large agri-business or food companies that purchase their commodities. Joining
with other producers in a cooperative can give them greater power in the market place. In
addition, cooperatives can give producers more control over their products as they make their
way to consumers by allowing them to bypass one or middlemen in the market channel. Farmers
capture more of the returns that would otherwise go to others.
Agricultural Consumers’ Cooperatives: Agricultural consumers’ cooperatives are composed

of members who are regular consumers of agricultural products. They provide their members
with safe, quality standard food at relatively low cost through collective purchases and direct
trade with producers, eliminating the retailer’s margin. In Republic of Korea, women are very
active in community-based green consumers’ cooperatives. In 2002, 61 percent of the members
at the decision-makers level of community-based consumer cooperatives were women. Similarly,
in Japan has a great number of well developed green consumers’ cooperatives and most of their
members are women. Nearly 6 million households belong to consumers cooperatives founded at
the community level (Sanyang and Huang, 2008)
Generally, women have been the focus of attention of all international and national development
programs. Efforts have been directed at empowering them in all fields of activity. Special
programs have been instituted to improve their social and economic status through provision of
education, employment, health-care and involvement in social and economic institutions,
including cooperatives. Cooperative institutions and especially the agricultural cooperatives are
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the agencies which hold enormous potential for the development of women, and more
particularly the rural women. Rural women are actively involved in the process of food
production, processing and marketing. They often lack the legal status which prohibits them to
have access to credit, education and technology. Cooperative institutions can help accelerate the
process of development and participation of women in their organizational and business
activities.
Write your view about the roles of cooperatives in alleviating poverty.

______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
7.2. Cooperatives in poverty Reduction and Food Security

There are various definitions and understandings about poverty. The World Bank has listed the
following as faces of poverty: Poverty is hunger. Poverty is lack of shelter. Poverty is being sick
and not being able to see a doctor. Poverty is not being able to go to a school, not knowing how
to read, and not being able to speak properly. Poverty is not having a job, is fear for the future,
living one day at a time. Poverty is losing a child to illness brought about by unclean water.
Poverty is powerlessness, lack of representation and freedom.
More than three billion people throughout the world (nearly half the world's population) live on
less than USD$2 a day. Nine out of ten people in poverty live in developing countries; the
majority in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Over one billion people live on less than USD$1 a day; approximately 70% of these people are
women. About 820 million people around the world lack access to enough food to lead healthy
and productive lives.
In most communities, women and girls are more likely to be affected by poverty than men and
boys, because of their primary care role in the family and their unequal access to economic
opportunities.
In September 2000, at the United Nations Millennium Summit, world leaders agreed to a set of
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that aimed to make substantial progress in solving the
problems of poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation and discrimination
against women.
Strategies for Poverty Alleviation: The UNDP report recognizes that strategies would differ
from country to country. Nevertheless, it proposed the following six priorities for global action
on poverty alleviation:
(a) Start with empowering women and men to participate in decisions that affect their lives
and that enable them to build their strengths and assets.
(b) Gender equality is essential for empowering women and for minimizing poverty.
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(c) Sustained poverty reduction requires pro-poor growth in all countries.

(d) Globalization offers great opportunities, but only if it is managed more carefully and
with more concern for global equity.
(e) The state must provide an enabling environment for broad-based political support and
alliances for pro-poor policies and markets.
(f) Special international support is needed for special situations, such as to open
agricultural markets for the exports from poor countries.
It is estimated that there are now over 760 million individuals who have chosen the Cooperative
Advantage. Values, principles, ethics and business competence constitute the Cooperative
Advantage, both for members and for the communities in which they operate. Since cooperatives
are member-owned and member-controlled under democratic principles, they certainly put
people first. Increasingly, they are embracing cooperative entrepreneurship in order to make
them competitive enterprises. Therefore, most scholars of the field strongly believe that
cooperatives can contribute a great deal to poverty alleviation. Let us see what they can do in the
six priority areas listed by the UNDP.
The important question we have to answer is then “What is the role of cooperatives in achieving
the Millennium Development Goals?” In other words how could cooperatives contribute to
poverty reduction and food security, because the Millennium Development Goals are all about
these issues?
The UN regularly recognizes the contribution of cooperatives to poverty reduction. The UN

General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council, the Department for Policy Coordination
and Sustainable Development; the International Labour Organization (ILO) and Food and
Agriculture Org (FAO) have been working with cooperatives for many years.
Let us see what they can do in the six priority areas listed by the UNDP.
(a) Empowerment of men and women: This strategy entails the following:
 Political commitment to securing and protecting the political, economic, social and civil
rights of poor people;
 Policy reforms and actions to enable poor people to gain access to assets so as to make
them less vulnerable;
 Education and health care for all, including safe water and sanitation;
 Social safety nets to prevent people from falling into destitution or to rescue them from
disaster.
Both directly and indirectly, cooperatives help both members and employees to escape from
poverty or to protect those of them who may be facing the risk of poverty. In the 22 Caribbean
state members of the CCCU, credit union membership (90%) of all cooperatives in the sub-
region) represents an effective penetration of 25% of population and 45% of the labor force.
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National credit union leagues have influenced cooperative legislation to favor more self
regulation and government-private sector cooperation.
In many countries, cooperatives are in the forefront in the production and marketing of
foodstuffs, electricity and consumer goods as well as financial, insurance and social services (see
box). For example, cooperatives control 100% of market share in potato production in the
Netherlands, 40% of agricultural marketing in South Korea, 33% of the Finnish banking sector
and 13% of electricity supply in the United States. The COK Credit Union Limited is a major
player in the Jamaican economy in terms of assets mobilization, competitive financial services
and employment creation.
Table 7.1: Contribution of cooperatives to economic empowerment

CONTRIBUTION OF COOPERATIVES TO
ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT
Sector/Activity Country Example Market Share
Agriculture
(a) Potato Production Netherlands 100%
(b) Fisheries Malta 90%
(c) Cotton Production Burkina Faso 77%
Agricultural Marketing Korea 40%
Exports Uruguay 40%
Consumer India 37%
Health Colombia 24%
Banking Finland 33%
Insurance Honduras 27%
Credit Cyprus 35%
Electricity U.S.A. 13%
Information Technology
Operations Brazil 4.7%
Source: ICA, The Co-operative Advantage, June 2001
(b) Gender equality
In the Caribbean, women account for 58% of credit union members and 42% of elected leaders.
One of the biggest, and perhaps the most innovative, of the credit unions has a woman as its
chief executive. The cooperative movement actively promotes this healthy development.
Nevertheless, women (and the youth) lag behind in share of assets and access to credit. A
disturbing trend in the Caribbean is that girls are becoming more educated than boys. Since
education is a major means for poverty alleviation, a situation is developing where poorer boys
feel inferior to better off girls. Already, domestic violence, single parenting and common law
marriages are on the upswing. The CCCU can lead the national leagues to do something in this
area as a community service to promote gender equality in due course.
(c) Pro-poor growth
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Rapid economic growth is desirable, but wealth distribution is equally important. UNDP data
show that in 29 of 68 developing countries, the ratio of the incomes of the richest 20% to those
of the poorest 20% exceeds 10 to 1. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the richest 20% have
average incomes of US$17,000 whereas the poorest 20% earn US$930, a ratio of 18 to 1.Such
inequalities breed social discontent and violence.
(d) Global benefits from global competition
There are various cooperatives operating at the international level and these are creating better
market opportunities for the producers. A recent development at the international level is
International Cooperatives Alliance (ICA’s) winning of an own top level. Cooperatives operate
as members of this global family.
(e) An enabling environment for pro-poor policies and markets
Cooperatives in most places are in a very good position to join community groups, professional
associations, trade unions, private companies, the media, political parties and government
institutions to form broad-based partnership for poverty alleviation.
(f) Special international support
A major contributor to worsening poverty in developing countries is corruption of leaders and

officials in the public and private sectors, due largely to the weak institutional infrastructure for
promoting accountability. Consequently, budgets for poverty alleviation could be diverted into
wrong hands. A related development is that the greater part of foreign aid or investment may go
back to the donors by way of expatriate technical assistance personnel and equipment.
Through the ICA, the UN and other international agencies, cooperatives can join the
international movement for promoting transparency and enforcing international standards.
Cooperative enterprises provide the organizational means whereby a significant proportion of

humanity is able to take into its own hands the tasks of creating productive employment,
overcoming poverty and achieving social integration.
Cooperatives “continue to be an important means, often the only one available, whereby the
poor, as well as those better off but at perpetual risk of becoming poor, have been able to achieve
economic security and an acceptable standard of living and quality of life”
The 1995 World Summit for Social Development declared itself fully committed to utilizing and
fully developing the potential and contribution of cooperatives to the eradication of poverty. In
1996 a resolution was adopted at the UN General Assembly urging that due consideration be
given to the role, contribution and potential of cooperatives in achieving social and economic
development goals. ILO Recommendation recognizes the need for governments to provide a
supportive framework for cooperative development, but insists that cooperatives are autonomous
associations of persons that have their own values and principles.
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The promotion of micro-finance as a ‘best practice’ that enables poor people to create economic
opportunities for themselves, and banks owned by the poor are essentially cooperatives.
Development must be community-driven, with funds channelled directly to community groups,
and with capacity building of self-help groups being the key to success.
A rural strategy would include a range of market mechanisms such as credit for farmers, storage,
transport and marketing, all of which are usually provided by farmer cooperatives. The
importance of civil society is emphasized, and local nongovernmental organizations and local
groups organized for implementation of projects are regarded as important. Again, these are
likely to take a cooperative form, even if called by other names.
At the local level, cooperative forms of organization should be used more explicitly so that
action has greater chance of successfully reaching and benefiting the poor. Existing cooperatives
should be strengthened, expanded or replicated to meet the needs of poor people who would like
to become members, and new cooperatives should be formed to meet needs identified by the
poor themselves.
Cooperatives provide Opportunity, Empowerment and Security to the poor members of a society.
Opportunity: Cooperatives open up markets by organizing supply of inputs and marketing of

outputs. They provide a means by which credit can be given when needed, and a safe form in
which poor people’s savings can be invested. International cooperative trading organizations
have been created that have significantly improved the export potential of producer cooperatives,
and the importing activity of consumer cooperatives. The cooperatives can be used in the
provision of infrastructure such as water supply and irrigation, and in environmental schemes.
Empowerment: Cooperatives relied on the strength that comes from acting collectively to
empower individuals. Unique characteristic: member-based organizations set up for economic
aims, with one person one vote and with all surpluses returned either to individual members or to
the community as a whole. In rural areas, they will be gaining access to markets through supply
and marketing cooperatives, but also improving the environment by afforestation, providing
water supply and irrigation, and so on. They will be supported by micro-credit schemes that are
also run along cooperative lines.
Security: Cooperatives can help to reduce the risk to individuals through pooling risks at the
level of the enterprise. Large cooperatives offer their members insurance. Agricultural
cooperatives in the developed world provide a wide range of insurance products to their
members. In Japan and the United States, for instance, their insurance arms have become some
of the biggest insurers in the world. Consumer cooperatives in the UK offer their members free
life insurance. Some cooperative system offers its worker-members a full range of social security
benefits, including pensions. Micro-credit enterprises and cooperatives have proved to be
effective in delivering publicly funded health and social insurance to very poor people.
There are various case studies worldwide which have shown just how widely the cooperative
form can be applied, and how it can succeed in helping the poorest and most vulnerable people to
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become organized. They show that, provided the method of development is participatory, the
cooperative form is replicable. Where there are alternative, for-profit alternatives the cases
demonstrate that the cooperative form is – for the aim of poverty reduction – superior.
What are the possible employment opportunities for women in your area? Are
women getting equal opportunities in income generation activities?
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
7.3. Women and Small Scale Business Development
Lack of land for farming is perhaps the severest constraint faced by the rural poor, and one that
affects more women than men. In rural areas, there are very few employment opportunities;
moreover, work as casual and seasonal labourers in agriculture or construction may not be an
option for women. For those with little or no land, some projects have provided strong support
for non-farming activities, such as marketing, processing, and other microenterprises.
Self-employment in small-scale businesses presents a constructive option for income generation.

In many developing countries, a high percentage of small scale businesses that cater to local
needs are controlled or owned by women. Women’s enterprises tend to be relatively small, have
informal structures, flexibility, low capital needs, modest educational requirements, high labour
intensity, and depend on local raw materials. They are also characterized by their dependence on
family labour and limited technical and managerial skills. Commonly, these enterprises are not
registered, maintain no business records and do not have access to credit from formal credit
institutions.
Rural women are active participants in retail trade and marketing, particularly where trade is
traditional and not highly commercialized. In many parts of Asia, women market foods such as
vegetables; in Africa, they distribute most major commodities; and in the Caribbean, women
account for nearly all local marketing. Through their marketing efforts, women provide valuable
links among farmers, intermediaries and consumers. Petty trade often thought of in the past as
non-productive, in fact serves to stimulate the production and consumption linkages in the local
economy. In Ethiopia, women are widely engaged in the informal economic activities of income
generation.
Different NGOs have facilitated a variety of microenterprise developments among the rural poor
by helping both men and women form groups in order to gain access to services, including
credit.
The features that characterize rural women’s work — labour intensity, local materials and local
markets — also constrain product diversification and market expansion. Other constraints
include lack of field-tested appropriate technology, interference by men in the use of capital
reserves, lack of infrastructure and transportation, lack of managerial skills, direct and indirect
competition with formal enterprises and lack of access to credit and financial services. There are
various ways to overcome these obstacles in three ways: principally through its loan projects,
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through technical assistance grants, and by helping focus the attention of national governments,
donors and NGOs on improving existing activities and creating new opportunities.
Activities – VII
1. Identify the small scale businesses where women are involved in. What are the
challenges faced by women in these activities? Identify the concerned offices if
necessary and consult them.
2. Discuss the contribution of cooperatives to women, give special emphasis to

agricultural cooperatives.
Summary
Dear student, the main focus of this chapter is women issues in the cooperative and economic
development. A cooperative enterprise is a group-based form of business which is owned and
controlled by the same people who use it services.. Cooperatives have shown to be particularly
effective in agriculture. Cooperatives are now significant economic and social actors with a
membership of approximately 800 million throughout the world. Cooperatives continue to be an
important means by which to overcome economic difficulties. Women’s Cooperatives: Women’s
agricultural cooperatives have played an important role in rural development in mobilizing
limited resources for women farmers and producers.
Cooperatives have important contributions in poverty reduction and food security. The 1995
World Summit for Social Development declared itself fully committed to utilizing and fully
developing the potential and contribution of cooperatives to the eradication of poverty Both
directly and indirectly, cooperatives help both members and employees to escape from poverty
or to protect those of them who may be facing the risk of poverty. In many countries,
cooperatives are in the forefront in the production and marketing of foodstuffs, electricity and
consumer goods as well as financial, insurance and social services. There are various case studies
worldwide which have shown just how widely the cooperative form can be applied, and how it
can succeed in helping the poorest and most vulnerable people to become organized.
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Checklist
 I have understood and can describe Women’s Role and
Participation in Cooperatives
 I can explain the role of Cooperatives in poverty Reduction
and Food Security
 I have understood the issues related to Women and Small
Scale Business Development
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1. Scholars of the field strongly believe that cooperatives can contribute a great deal to
poverty alleviation.
2. In many developing countries, a high percentage of small scale businesses that cater to
local needs are controlled or owned by women.
3. Even though cooperatives are not member-owned and member-controlled under

democratic principles, they certainly put people first.
4. Various international organizations recognize that cooperatives do have significant role in

poverty reduction.
5. In many developing countries, a high percentage of small scale businesses that cater to
local needs are controlled or owned by women.
1. ______________________is a group-based form of business which is owned and

controlled by the same people who use it services.
2. ______________________ are composed of members who are regular consumers of

agricultural products.
3. _____________________ is a business organization owned by farmers to collectively

sell their products.
4. ______________________ are cooperatives which engage in value-added activities from

primary agricultural products.
5. ______________________ in small-scale businesses presents a constructive option for

income generation.
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6. Glossary of Important Gender Terms

7.
8. Culture: The distinctive patterns of ideas, beliefs, and norms which characterise the way
of life and relations of a society or group within a society.
9. GAD: In contrast to WID (or Women and Development), the GAD (or Gender and
Development) approach focuses on the socially constructed basis of differences between
men and women and emphasizes the need to challenge existing gender roles and relations
10. Gender Analysis: The systematic gathering and examination of information on gender
differences and social relations in order to identify, understand and redress inequities
based on gender
11. Gender Awareness: Gender awareness is an understanding that there are socially
determined differences between women & men based on learned behaviour, which affect
their ability to access and control resources. This awareness needs to be applied through
gender analysis into projects, programmes and policies.
12. Gender Discrimination: The systematic, unfavourable treatment of individuals on the

basis of their gender, which denies them rights, opportunities or resources.
13. Gender Division of Labour: The socially determined ideas and practices which define
what roles and activities are deemed appropriate for women and men.
14. Gender Equality and Equity: Gender equality denotes women having the same
opportunities in life as men, including the ability to participate in the public sphere.
Gender equity denotes the equivalence in life outcomes for women and men, recognising
their different needs and interests, and requiring a redistribution of power and resources
15. Gender Mainstreaming: An organisational strategy to bring a gender perspective to all

aspects of an institution’s policy and activities, through building gender capacity and
accountability
16. Gender Needs: Shared and prioritised needs identified by women that arise from their
common experiences as a gender.
17. Gender Planning: The technical and political processes and procedures necessary to
implement gender-sensitive policy.
18. Gender Relations: Hierarchical relations of power between women and men that tend to
disadvantage women.
19. Gender Training: A facilitated process of developing awareness and capacity on gender
issues, to bring about personal or organisational change for gender equality
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20. Gender Violence: Any act or threat by men or male-dominated institutions, that inflicts
physical, sexual, or psychological harm on a woman or girl because of their gender
21. Gender-blind: Gender blindness is the failure to recognise that gender is an essential
determinant of social outcomes impacting on projects and policies. A gender blind approach
assumes gender is not an influencing factor in UNDP projects, programmes or policy
22. Gender-sensitivity: Gender sensitivity encompasses the ability to acknowledge and
highlight existing gender differences, issues and inequalities and incorporate these into
strategies and actions.
23. Intra-household Resource Distribution: The dynamics of how different resources that
are generated within or which come into the household, are accessed and controlled by its
members
24. Patriarchy: Systemic societal structures that institutionalise male physical, social and
economic power over women
25. Sex and Gender: Sex refers to the biological characteristics that categorise someone as
either female or male; whereas gender refers to the socially determined ideas and
practices of what it is to be female or male
26. Social Justice: Fairness and equity as a right for all in the outcomes of development,
through processes of social transformation
27. WID: The WID (or Women in Development) approach calls for greater attention to
women in development policy and practice, and emphasises the need to integrate them
into the development process.
28. Women’s Empowerment: A ‘bottom-up’ process of transforming gender power

relations, through individuals or groups developing awareness of women’s subordination
and building their capacity to challenge it
29. Women’s Human Rights: The recognition that women’s rights are human rights and
that women experience injustices solely because of their gender.
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Answer Key for Chapter THREE Self Assessment Questions

1. False 4. True
2. False 5. False
3. True
II. Fill in the Blank Questions

1. Second wave feminism 4. Empowerment
2. Women in Development (WID) 5. The efficiency approach
3. The Equity approach
III. Short answer Questions

1. GAD and WID do have varying approaches, Focus, Problem, Goal and Strategies.
For more clarification go back to the sub-topic “Gender and Development” and
specifically refer table 1: “Comparison of WID and GAD” and read more discussion.
2. The most important areas of the WID in practice actions identified are the issues of Land,
Health, Credit, Skill Training, Income Generation and Technology.
For more clarification and further discussion on each of WID identified areas of actions
you should go back to the sub-topic “Women in Development in Practice”.
3. The problems with the WID include: categorize women as separate and homogeneous
entities; do not question existing structures; and treated women identically to men.
For the challenges in the WID approach and more clarification and further discussion on
the question go back to the sub=topic the “the WID approach” and problems and
challenges part.
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Answer Key for Chapter Four Self Assessment Questions

1. True 4. False
2. True 5. False
3. True

1. Gender analysis
2. The Harvard Framework
3. Social Relations Approach
4. The Capabilities and Vulnerabilities Analysis (CVA)
5. Gender needs assessment

1. For this question refer the first section of this chapter: “Concepts in Gender Analysis”.
2. The Harvard Framework uses four tools. These are: An Activity Profile, Access and
Control Profile, An Analysis of Influencing Factors, and Project Cycle Analysis.
For more clarification and discussion on the four tools go back to the sub-topic “The
Harvard Framework” read more and add to your knowledge of the framework.
3. The five levels of equality for analysis identified in the Longwe framework include
Welfare, Access, Conscientisation, Participation and Control.
For more clarification and discussion on the five levels of equality, go back to four tools
go back to the sub-topic The Longwe Framework and the tables illustrating the
framework.
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Answer Key for Chapter Five Self Assessment Questions

1. False 3. True
2. True 4. True

1. Sociological empowerment 3. Gender mainstreaming
2. Empowerment
4. Gender sensitization

1. Political culture, Civil society and Government institutions
For more discussion and clarification you can return to the discussion in the subsection
“political empowerment”.
2. Gender mainstreaming has three main principles and 14 elements organized under levels.
Refer the discussion part for detailed response.
For detailed and additions answer to this question go back to the sub topic “Principles of
gender mainstreaming”
3. Refer the sub-section “Economic empowerment”
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Answer Key for Chapter Six Self Assessment Questions

1. True 4. False
2. False 5. False
3. True
II. Short answer/discussion Questions

1. Briefly discuss the concept of social mobilization
For more clarification and adding more discussion go back to the sub-topic “ Concepts
of Social Mobilization and Women” and read more.
2. Capital, Knowledge, and Organization
For more clarification and adding more discussion go back to the sub-topic “ Concepts
of Social Mobilization and Women” and read more.
3. Role of NGOs include:
 Catalyse and enable the formation of grassroots women's organizations.
 Supporting grassroots organizations in various ways
 Step back and support the mobilization and its leadership in multiple ways
 Constantly re-examine their role and relationship
 Enable grassroots women's movements to form alliances and partnerships
For further clarification and adding more discussion go back to the sub-topic “ The Role
of NGOs in Mobilization and Women” and read more.
OSU EcDF Page 90

Answer Key for Chapter Seven Self Assessment Questions

1. True 4. True
2. True 5. True
3. False

1. A cooperative enterprise
2. Agricultural consumers’ cooperatives
3. Marketing cooperative
4. Agro and food processing cooperatives
5. Self-employment
OSU EcDF Page 91

UNIT 3-6 Gender Module

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UNIT 3-6 Gender Module

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Gender and Development Module 2018 G.

WOMEN IN DEVELOPMENT (WID) AND GENDER AND

3.1. WID Approaches

 The Welfare Approach

3.2. WID in Practice

3.3. Gender and Development (GAD) Approach

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 Explain and elaborate the following different approaches of the WID:

 The Welfare Approach

 Understand the practical aspects of the WID approach

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WOMEN IN DEVELOPMENT (WID) AND GENDER AND

3.1. The Women in Development (WID) Approaches

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Subsequent to Boserup, there was a string of Women in Development theorists including

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Key Strands of Women in Development

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Development under welfare is fundamentally conceptualized as a process of economic and social

As economic advancement is privileged under Welfare, resources such as job opportunities,

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Founded on liberal feminist thinking, Women in Development identifies inequality as being

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challenges women’s subordinate position. It is criticized as Western feminism, is considered

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In general, Anti-poverty, as a WID approach, is a toned-down version of equity, adopted from

Accordingly, women’s participation in development is ensured through their increased

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3.2. Women in Development in Practice

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Ensuing WID interventions consist of many grassroots-level educational programs which

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3.3. Gender and Development (GAD) Approach

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Gender and Development Theoretical Implications

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GAD recognizes that:

• Women’s inequality exists not because they are bypassed or marginalized by

GAD states that what is needed is:

 a re-evaluation of women’s considerable contribution to the development process

 Unlike WID, GAD is critical of the economic growth model of development

 Women’s reproductive roles (bearing and caring roles).

The importance of WID and GAD

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• They provide gender analysis on development policies of states, international

• They advocate for the creation of gender sensitive development programs.

Table 1: Comparison of WID and GAD

Women in Development (WID) Gender and Development (GAD)

The Focus Women Relations between women and men

Transform unequal relations and structures

The Strategies Women only projects Identify/address practical needs

Increase women’s income

Increase women’s ability to manage the

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From WID to GAD and Beyond

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Topics of Discussion Yes No