Gender and Development

In recent years, there has been an increasing awareness that development has had a differential impact on the relations between men and women; usually to the detriment of the latter.

In the 1970s and 1980s, there was a new emphasis among international and bilateral agencies on gender matters in development. This shift was shaped in part by the emergence of a range of feminist and progressive social theories at the time. The major concern was that women were being overlooked or marginalised in four crucial areas, namely political rights, legal rights, access to education and training, and their working lives.

Two broad theoretical positions can be identified: the Women in Development (WID) and the Gender and Development (GAD) approaches. The former tended to coincide with positions adopted by various governments and international development organisations in the later 1970s and after, though in a somewhat diluted form. The Gender and Development (GAD) approach was shaped by the elaboration and changes proposed by academics and development professionals and activists, and have gradually/partially supplanted the Women in Development (WID) in national and international bodies.

The Women in Development (WID) approach focused almost exclusively on women.

It was argued that women would not benefit from economic growth unless the entire development process was reshaped with a view to improving the condition of women in particular. A central strategy implied a ‘mainstreaming’ of women through their integration into economic, social and political life. There was also an emphasis on treating women on equal terms with men.

A key criticism of the Women in Development approach was that it focused more on the notion of women’s exclusion from the development process than on the flawed ways in which they had been incorporated in the process. A further criticism leveled at the Women in Development (WID) perspective was that it tended not to situate women’s subordination within a wider network of gender relations. There was also a growing realisation among policy makers and development agencies that addressing inequality of gender relations and the disparity between women’s contributions to society and their rewards demanded a much broader approach than merely directing aid programmes to women.

The Gender and Development (GAD) approach, by contrast, emphasises that women should be incorporated into the development process in different ways to take due cognisance of class, colour, ethnic and religious and cultural factors. It also stressed that women and men’s lives in their entirety should be the focus of development thinking. In recent years, there has been a shift to the alternative Gender and Development (GAD) perspective among development agencies and practitioners, but again the more critical thrust of the Gender and Development (GAD) analysis has been blunted in practice. Also, the problem with the Gender and Development (GAD), according to some critics, was that it allowed more conservative approaches to dominate and some of the cutting edge of the feminist theory that informed the earlier WID approach to be diluted.

The emphasis in recent years has been to move beyond fixed positions. Key research themes include the gendered consequences of structural adjustment; the re-visiting of women’s work; the international division of labour; and exploring the complexities of the relationships between development, gender and globalisation.

2.3.4 ‘People-centered’ Development

This broad perspective in the early 21st century represents both mainstream and formally ‘alternative’ perspectives regarding the importance of looking beyond traditional economically oriented indicators and definitions of development. It represents, inter alia, an expanded dimension in the relevant United Nations development agencies, as well as a number of international development bodies. The perspective emphasises, inter alia, the need to build human resources and capacity;

the need for more decentralised and participatory forms of development policy and application; the need to utilise more efficiently the various institutions and organisations of civil society (including NGOs); and according gender and human rights a higher priority than previously.

In the 1970s and 1980s, there was probably a greater division between mainstream developments and ‘alternative’ forms of development. More recently, the boundaries have become blurred, as mainstream development thinking has incorporated various aspects of alternative development, such as equity, gender, sustainability and participation, though these emphases have often been diluted in practice. The second half of the 1980s and earlier 1990s saw a growing systematisation of work on people- and human-centered development, and this was taken up in part in several bilateral and international development agencies, including the United Nations development wing.

The First Human Development Report of 1990 prepared by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) aimed for a more comprehensive concept of human development, which it defined as a process of enlarging people’s choices (Martinussen, 1997:38). The UNDP’s 1990 Human Development Report incorporated central features of the people-managed strategy (UNDP’s Human Development Report, 1990:332; Martinussen, 1997:38).

Human or people-centered development has assimilated some of the themes of the basic needs theory and incorporates a range of material from ‘alternative’ development thinking (Pieterse, 1998). It emphasises that growth without equity and some form of redistribution of wealth and resources does not necessarily constitute development.

There is also recognition that poverty is not an issue of poor material living standards

only, but also of lack of choice and capability. Therefore, development also means restoring/reclaiming and reinforcing basic human capabilities and freedoms. As empowerment, participation and freedom of choice have a political dimension, there is consequently a greater emphasis on the processes of democratisation at local and national levels. A related theme is the building of a more vigorous civil society in the various countries – a step that is essential to the construction of a more robust democratic political culture. It also incorporates the notion of sustainable development (in its less contentious guises) and takes cognisance of the growing importance of gender in development thinking by emphasising the relatively equal status and participation of women in society (Martinussen, 1997:331-342 and Pieterse, 1998:29).

According to a number of critics, there is an inherent vagueness about the ‘human development’ approach, which makes it difficult to find specific policy expression. Also, as Pieterse (1998) points out: “Human development, while it endorses some of the same principles as popular development, remains on the whole state-centered, top-down social engineering, in which the state is viewed as the main agent for implementing human development policies.” More broadly speaking, such approaches take little account of the gross imbalances in the global economy that will inevitably constrain the impact of local – no matter how well-intended – interventions (Pieterse,1998:29).