By the end of this session, the participants should have a basic understanding of development approaches to gender and be informed on the evolution in approaches.

It is important for participants to understand how the use of different approaches impacts and is impacted by development goals. In addition, understanding the evolution of approaches will aid in assisting participants to appreciate the rationale for gender equality.

Slide 11

1.47      Women in Development (WID) first came to prominence in the early 1970s as an approach to include women in development. Research and information collected throughout the UN Decade for Women (1975-85) highlighted the existing poverty and disadvantage of women and their invisibility in the development process. Different policy responses and interventions focused on women as a separate group resulting in women’s concerns being “added on” and peripheral to mainstream development efforts. This frequently resulted in adding components and actions targeted only to women rather than integrating them fully into the project activities. WID policies and interventions have, in the main, concentrated on women’s productive work. The failure to make an explicit link to women’s reproductive work has often added to women’s workload. Gradually, it was recognized that an approach that focused on women in isolation was inadequate and not sustainable because it did not take into account the overall project objectives or integrate women fully into their implementation. Moreover, it did not address or change unequal gender relations in various social and economic settings.

1.48      The Gender and/in Development (GAD or GID) perspective emerged in the late 1980s as response to the prevailing Women in Development (WID) approach. The Gender and Development (GAD) approach was developed as a response to the failure of WID projects to effect qualitative and long-lasting changes in women’s social status. GAD focuses on social, economic, political and cultural forces that determine how men and women participate in, benefit from, and control project resources and activities differently. This approach shifts the focus from women as a group to the socially determined relations between women and men.[7]

1.49      The GAD/GID approach promotes a development process that transforms gender relations in order to enable women to participate on an equal basis with men in determining their common future. The emphasis has shifted to the more strategic needs of women, leading to a sharpening of the gender focus

of preparatory analysis.[8] Although the approach emphasizes the importance of women’s collective organization for self empowerment, the target groups are still primarily women.

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1.50      Gender Equality has become a much more commonly accepted principle and, once the links between gender and poverty were made explicit, approaches shifted again. Today, gender is about both men and women. Now, institutions take a much more comprehensive approach to analysis and design of development interventions, one that takes into account the situation and needs of both women and men. Several critics feel that dealing with both men and women may dilute the focus on women, who are clearly the more disadvantaged sex all over the world. The gender equality approach, therefore, calls for gender analysis to determine the needs of both women and men, followed by interventions targeted to one or the other sex (or both) as necessary. This approach also recognizes that both women and men must be targeted to successfully address problems such as HIV/AIDS, family planning, or violence.

1.51      For example, higher incidence of alcoholism and other risky behaviors among men can call for public education campaigns to address and changes these patterns, while lower school enrolment or completion rates for girls can call for providing schools that are closer to their homes, sex-specific latrines, or vouchers for school attendance. In fact, improving school quality has been shown to increase school attendance and completion among boys as well as girls. Because women are often the most disadvantaged, the Millennium Development Goals also emphasize gender equality and women’s empowerment.

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1.52      Gender equality is now a core element of the Bank’s strategy to reduce poverty. There is a clear understanding that unless women and men have equal capacity, opportunity and voice, the poverty-reduction agenda set out in the Millennium Declaration, and the resulting MDGs, will not be achieved. In September 2001, the Bank adopted a strategy to bring gender equality issues into the mainstream of its country assistance, Integrating Gender into the World Bank’s Work—A Strategy for Action. The strategy rests on a country-led, country-specific approach, and recommends three basic steps to integrate gender equality issues into Bank operations:

1. Conduct periodic assessments of gender-based barriers to economic growth and poverty reduction in each of the Bank’s active client countries, through a Country Gender Assessment (CGA);

2. Use the assessment findings in country dialogue to identify priority gender-responsive interventions; and

3. Integrate gender analysis and gender-responsive interventions into projects in the priority sectors identified in the assessment and agreed to in the country dialogue.

Gender polarization is a concept that what is feminine cannot be masculine and what is masculine cannot be feminine. It is expected of men and women to display stereotypic gender roles. It utilizes the differences between the two groups of male and female to designate particular characteristics to group members of one group and not the other. Sandra Bem describes the relationship between men and women as a division of social responsibilities. Women are seen suitable for private concerns, such as familial issues, and men as the public representatives, or professional individuals. Women should know just enough about professional business that allows her to empathize with her husband when needed and is denied access to power through other political and professional aspects.[1] In her book, The Lenses of Gender, Bem mentions that there is still hope for the dismantling of gender polarization. By dissolving the use of gender polarization the distinction between male and female would no longer be the dimension around which culture is organized. She recommended that a social revolution as well as a psychological revolution would need to take place in order to widen the viewpoint of a person’s sex being completely given by nature.

GENDER EQUALITY

Empowering Women

Despite many international agreements affirming their human rights, women are still much more likely than men to be poor and illiterate. They usually have less access than men to medical care, property ownership, credit, training and employment. They are far less likely than men to be politically active and far more likely to be victims of domestic violence.

The ability of women to control their own fertility is absolutely fundamental to women’s empowerment and equality. When a woman can plan her family, she can plan the rest of her life. When she is healthy, she can be more productive. And when her reproductive rights—including the right to decide the number, timing and spacing of her children, and to make decisions regarding reproduction free of 

discrimination, coercion and violence—are promoted and protected, she has freedom to participate more fully and equally in society.

Understanding gender equality and women's empowerment

Gender equality implies a society in which women and men enjoy the same opportunities, outcomes, rights and obligations in all spheres of life. Equality between men and women exists when both sexes are able to share equally in the distribution of power and influence; have equal opportunities for financial independence through work or through setting up businesses; enjoy equal access to education and the opportunity to develop personal ambitions. A critical aspect of promoting gender equality is the empowerment of women, with a focus on identifying and redressing power imbalances and giving women more autonomy to manage their own lives. Women's empowerment is vital to sustainable development and the realization of human rights for all.

Where women’s status is low, family size tends to be large, which makes it more difficult for families to thrive.Population and development and reproductive health programmes are more effective when they address the educational opportunities, status and empowerment of women. When women are empowered, whole families benefit, and these benefits often have ripple effects to future generations.

The roles that men and women play in society are not biologically determined -- they are socially determined, changing and changeable. Although they may be justified as being required by culture or religion, these roles vary widely by locality and change over time. UNFPA has found that applying culturally sensitive approachescan be key to advancing women’s rights while respecting different forms of social organization.

Addressing women’s issues also requires recognizing that women are a diverse group, in the roles they play as well as in characteristics such as age, social status, urban or rural orientation and educational attainment. Although women may have many interests in common, the fabric of their lives and the choices available to them may vary widely. UNFPA seeks to identify groups of women who are most marginalized and vulnerable (women refugees, for example, or those who are heads of households or living in extreme poverty), so that interventions address their specific needs and concerns. This task is related to the critical need for sex-disaggregated data, and UNFPA helps countries build capacity in this area.

Key issues and linkages

Reproductive health:    Women, for both physiological and social reasons, are more vulnerable than men to reproductive health problems. Reproductive health problems, including maternal mortality and morbidity, represent a major – but preventable -- cause of death and disability for women in developing countries. Failure to provide information, services and conditions to help women protect their reproduction health therefore constitutes gender-based discrimination and a violation of women’s rights to health and life.

Stewardship of natural resources   : Women in developing nations are usually in charge of securing water, food and fuel and of overseeing family health and diet. Therefore, they tend to put into immediate practice whatever they learn about nutrition and preserving the environment and natural resources.

Economic empowerment:    More women than men live in poverty. Economic disparities persist partly because much of the unpaid work within families and communities falls on the shoulders of women and because they face discrimination in the economic sphere.

Educational empowerment:    About two thirds of the illiterate adults in the world are female. Higher levels of women's education are strongly associated with both lower infant mortality and lower fertility, as well as with higher levels of education and economic opportunity for their children.

Political empowerment:    Social and legal institutions still do not guarantee women equality in basic legal and human rights, in access to or control of land or other resources, in employment and earning, and social and political participation. Laws against domestic violence are often not enforced on behalf of women.

Empowerment throughout the life cycle: Reproductive health is a lifetime concern for both women and men, from infancy to old age. UNFPA supports programming tailored to the different challenges they face at different times in life.

Experience has shown that addressing gender equality and women’s empowerment requires strategic interventions at all levels of programming and policy-making.