My Article on Wid to Gad

8/2/2019 My Article on Wid to Gad

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HASAN TAREQ SM DU> Introduction: Development is an investment in

the future. The links between people and development efforts include food security and nutrition, energy, employment,

income, health, education, and sustainable agriculture and natural resources.

These links are especially vital to the rural and urban poor. It is increasingly recognized that the socio-economic needs of

these women and men must be a priority in any sustainable strategy to resolve development problems. Women and men

are affected differently by economic change and development and thus an active public policy is needed to intervene in

order to close gender gaps. In the mission statement of the Beijing Fourth World Conference on Women , held in 1995 ,

it was said that‟ transformed partnership based on equality between women and men is a condition for people centered

sustainable development‟. (United Nations 1996:652).

Throughout the Third world particularly in the past fifteen years , there has been a proliferation of policies ,

programmes and projects designed to assithst low income women.

, other than the informative work of Buvinic .This concern for low income women‟s needs has coincided historically

with a r Until recently , however there has been little systematic classification or categorization of these various policy

initiatives ecognition of their important role in development .Since the1950s many different interventions have been

formulated . These reflect changes in macro – level economic and social policy approaches to Third world as well as in

state policy towards women.

Wide-scale confusion still exists concerning both the definition and use of different policy approaches.

In case of this Women development policy approaches changing randomly in different times and periods .To identify the

extent to which policy interventions have been appropriate to the gender needs of women , it is necessary to examine

their underlying rationale from the gender planning perspectives. Prior to 1970, when Esther Boserup published her



landmark book on women sand development , it was thought that the development process affected men and women in

the same way. Productivity was equated with the cash economy and so most of women‟s work was ignored.

Reference: Gender Planning and development: Caroline Mosser: p,p: 55-56.

Development:

Accounts of development do not generally incorporate a clear conception of the term itself, but instead dwell on

theoretical perspectives or policies that changes in response to evolving conditions within countries and between

countries and the world order, whether they be characteristics as advanced capitalist , communist , developing banc

capitalist or socialist or backward and under developed cases.

Webester’s Third New International Dictionary simplistically defines development as a gradual unfolding and a

gradual advance or growth through changes. Mittleman refers to development as the increasing capacity to make

rational use of natural and human resources for social ends’ whereas underdevelopment is the blockage which

forestalls a rational transformation of the social structure.

Rodney correctly tells us that development is ‘a many-sided process’ implying for the individual increased skill and

capacity , self –discipline , responsibility , and material well-being’. He goes on to show that a society develops

economically as members increase jointly their capacity for dealing with the environment.

All these definitions suggest that development is a multi –faceted process, involving political, economic, social, and

cultural dimensions at the levels of individual and society as a whole. Reference: Encyclopedia of Government and

Politics P.p: 616.



Development Approaches of Women:

Original “development approaches” were generally designed by men who talked to men who worked with

men. The projects were implemented by men who assumed that the projectswould meet women‟s needs, too. These often

included “technological” packages, such as a new type of rice or another product, that had been developed at an

experimental farm somewhere. It was introduced to farmers; they not only had to learn to work with the new product, but

also to buy other required items, such as fertilizer, pesticides. The theory was basically to look at a single way

to increase income to poor (usually rural) people. A reaction to this approach was to look at women as a separate

group. This came about because women were often left out of development discussions, analysis, and resulting projects.

Projects often either did not benefit women or, in some cases, actually left them worse off. The Women inDevelopment movement ensured that women were recognized as important in the development process. This approach

developed excellent information on women‟s roles and needs but no relational data for how they compared to men. For

example, women were ound to work very long days, often 12-hour days. But how many hours did men work? And, just

as importantly, what tasks did men and women each do? How did their work loads relate to each other, depend upon each

other‟s, and each contribute to the family‟s well-being? In fact, on this side of the pendulum swing, we still had

traditional development approaches but we added women‟s projects; however, they were usually sepa rate projects.

Reference: Participatory Analysis for Community Action (PACA)



Pendulum model: Women development approaches.

Now I would like to mention different approaches below:

Women in development (WID):

The ordinary development theories failed to think about the development of women rather thoney aggravated the situation of

the women. Belonging to this the concept of women‟s development has been started in 50thcentury and in 60

thcentury and this

concept of WID.

The term Women in development was introduced in the early 1970s by the Women‟s committee of the Washington D.C chapter

of the society for international Development, a network of female development professional who was influenced by the work on

Third World development undertaken by Ester Boserup and other new anthropologies.

The term was very rapidly used by United States Agency for international development (USAID) in their so called WID

approach, the undergoing rationale of which was that women are an untapped resource who can provide an economic

contribution to development.



Reference: Gender planning and development: Caroline O.N Mosser

Under WID five approaches have been contain. These are as follow:

The Welfare Approach: Introduced in the 1950s and 1960s, welfare is the earliest policy approach concerned with women in

developing countries. Its purpose is to bring women in development as better mothers. Women are seen as passive beneficiaries

of development. The reproductive role of women is recognized and policy seeks to meet practical gender needs through that

role by top – down handouts of food aid, measures against malnutrition and family planning. It is non-challenging and therefore

still widely popular.

The welfare approach is the oldest and still the most popular social develop ment policy for the Third world in general , and for

women in particular . It can be identified as pre-WID. Its underlying rationale towards women reflects its origins , which are

linked to the residual model of social welfare , first introduced by colonial authorities many Third World countries prior to

independence.

Their concern with law and order and the maintenance of stable conditions for trade and agriculture and mineral expansion

meant that social welfare was a low priority . Echoing the nineteenth – century European poor laws with their inherent belief

that social needs should be satisfied through individual effort in market place , administration dealt largely with crime ,

Criticism:

1. This approach ignores the fact that women‟s suborditination is because of the men.

2. It did not emphasize on women‟s economic development.

3. It emphasizes on meeting only practical gender needs.

4. It made the women indirectly dependant instead of self – reliance.



The Equity Approach: Equity is the original WID approach introduced within the 1975 -86 UN women‟s decade. Its purpose

is to gain equity for women in the development process. Women are seen as active participants in development. It recognize

women‟s triple role and seeks to meet strategic gender needs through direct state intervention , giving political and economic

autonomy to women and reducing inequality with men.

This approach shows that women are often the predominant contributors to the basic productivity of their communities,

particularly in agriculture; economic condition is referred to neither in national statistics nor the planning and implementation of

development projects.

At the same time new modernization projects with innovative agriculture methods and sophisticated technologies were

negatively affecting women. It acknowledges that they must be brought into development process through access to

employment and the market place.

Criticism:

1. It has been criticized as western feminism is considered threatening and is Unpopular with government.

2. It meets potential strategic gender needs rather than actual needs.

The Anti-Poverty Approach:

Anti- poverty is the second WID approach the “top-down” version of equity introduced from the 1970 onwards. Its purpose is to

ensure that poor women increase their productivity. Women‟s poverty is as the problem of Underdevelopment the rest of

subordination. It recognizes the productive work of women and seeks to meet practical needs.



According to the Anti-poverty approach the economic inequality between women and men is link not subordination but to

poverty. It emphasizes the shift from inequality between men and women to reducing income inequality.

It acknowledges that the origins of women poverty and inequality with men are attributable to their lack of to access to private

ownership of capital and to sexual discrimination in the labor market. Consequently it aims to increase the employment and

income generating options of low income women through better access to productive resources.

Criticism:

1. Anti-poverty income generating project may provide empowerment for women and thereby meet practice gender needs ,

but unless empowerment leads to grew autonomy, it does not meet strategic gender needs .

2. The predominant focus and productive role often ignore their reproductive role.

3. Income generating projects extend women‟s world day and increase their triple burden by saying freetime.

The Efficiency Approach: Efficiency is the third and now predominant WID approach, particularly since the 1980‟s debt crisis. Its purpose is

to ensure that development is more efficient and effective through women‟s economic contribution .Women‟s participation is equated with

equity for women.

It seeks to meet practical gender needs while relying on all of women‟s three roles and an elastic concept of women‟s time. Women are seen

primarily in terms of their capacity to compensate for declining social services by extending their working day. It is very popular as an approach.

Although the shift from equity to anti-poverty has been well documented, the identification of WID as efficiency has passed almost unnoticed.

Yet , I would argue the efficiency approach is now the predominant approach for those working within a WID framework – indeed for many itmay always have been. In it the emphasizes has shifted away from women and towards development , on the emphasizes that increased

economic participation for development on the assumption that increased economic participation for Third world women is automatically linked

with increased equity.



This has allowed organizations such as USAID the WorldBank and OECD to propose that an increase in women‟s economic participation in

development links efficiency and equity together.

Criticism:

1. The efficiency approach meets practical gender needs at the cost of longer working hours and increased unpaid work. It most cases thisapproach fail to reach any strategic gender needs. Because of the reduction in resources.

The Empowerment approach: Empowerment is the most recent approach attached by Third World women. Its purpose is to empower women

through greater self-reliance. Women‟s subordination is seen not only as the problem of men but also of colonial and neo-colonial oppression. It

recognizes women‟s triple role , and seeks to meet strategic gender needs indirectly through bottom-up mobilization around practical gender

needs .

It is potentially challenging, although it avoids the criticism of being Western – inspired feminism. It is unpopular except with Third world

women‟s NGO‟s and their supporters.

The fifth policy approach to women is that of empowerment. It is still neither widely recognized as an approach nor documented as such

although its origins are by no means recent. Superficially it may appear synonymous with the equity approach, with references often made to a

combined equity or empowerment approach. In many respects empowerment developed out of dissatisfaction with the original WID as equity

approach, because of its perceived co-option into the anti-poverty and efficiency approaches.

However, the empowerment approach differs from the equity approach. This relates not only in its origin but also in the causes, dynamics and

structures of women oppression which it identifies.

The impact of WID

The impact of the early WID movement can be seen on two fronts. First, in terms of the discussions and research that it generated; and second,

in the impetus it gave to the growth of institutional machineries within development agencies and governments, their mandate being to

integrate women into development. As this paper focuses primarily on the conceptual and analytical approaches to women and





emergence of case studies like these also signalled a shift in thinking ó one that took WID well beyond women-only projects

and tried to integrate a concern for women into mainstream projects and programmes. It was deemed insufficient to rely on special

projects for women (e.g. income-generating projects), and important to ensure that women benefited from mainstream development

programmes and projects as well. These points are taken up in part II of the paper.

It is also worth reiterating some of the anomalies thrown up in the WID literature. WID has often relied on examples drawn from sub-

Saharan Africa to provide empirical evidence in support of its claims that resources directed to women will enhance

economic productivity. In general, women in this region have been responsible for the family ís food requirements, which has drawn them

into agricultural labor ó very often working in a combination of capacities. At times they work on independent plots of land to

carry out their obligations; at others, they are expected to work on compound land, to provide for the collective granary, or as

casual wage laborers ó a phenomenon of increasing importance. Because women ís familial responsibilities include food

provisioning, they are likely to have some control over how they use their own labor, albeit within a system of household rights and obligations.

By contrast, in much of the so-called belt of classic patriarchy (stretching from north Africa across the Middle East and the

northern plains of the Indian subcontinent to Bangladesh) it is men who have the main responsibility for household food provisioning. This does

not mean that women are absent from agricultural production, as the term impale farming seems to imply. In practice what it means is that

women ís labor contributions to household production are often subsumed under male controlled processes ó which makes it all

the more difficult to target resources to women. This general pattern, however, may be changing in many parts of the region in

response to shifting socio-economic and political circumstances.

It is also important to be aware of the extent to which policy discourse on the role of women in agricultural production in sub-Saharan Africa

has been based on exaggerated claims about women is roles ó what Whitehead calls myths and counter-myths (1990).

From an obstinate silence about it, when the term farmer was used to mean a man, there has more recently emerged a counter-myth ó that of

women ís pre-eminence in sub-Saharan African food production, to the extent that it is not uncommon to find claims that women

produce up to 80 per cent of the regions food. This has often served to mask the importance of male labor input into farming.female farming systems, however, like their impale counterparts, are based on a complex and changing interrelation of women and men work. If

this is the case, how easily/efficiently can resources be targeted to reach women? What impact will access to new resources have on women

productivity and women status in the household and in the community? These are the kinds of issues women and development researchers

have been addressing. A further anomaly has been WID is neglect of welfare concerns. As we have suggested above, a man or preoccupation of



WID advocates has been to establish women issues as a serious developmental concern. To do so it was deemed necessary for the welfare

approach to give way to the developmental approach (Buvinic, 1986). However, as Guyer and Peters (1987) note, although the

reasons for making this distinction are understandable, it is a sad reflection on the state of our methods in development practice

that a very real desire to recognize and serve individual women is needs should oppose women to the family (and development to

welfare, or production to reproduction). Moreover, while at the level of data collection, analysis and sect oral planning, an artificial dichotomy

can be posed between production and reproduction, in the reality of women is lives these aspects are necessarily integrated. While the

increased agricultural work burden of women can serve development (national food security, for example), it may have

unforeseen consequences for women is own health (Vaughan, 1986).

Women and Development (WAD):

The demarcation between the WID and the WAD approaches is not entirely clear. Historically, the WAD approach probably emerged in the

second half of the 1970s. It draws some of its theoretical base from dependency theory although dependency theory, for the most part, like

Marxist analysis, has given remarkably little specific attention to issues of gender subordination. The WAD approach grew out of a

concern with the explanatory limitations of modernization theory and its proselytization of the idea that he exclusion of women from earlier

development strategies had been an inadvertent oversight. In essence, the WAD approach begins from the position that women always

have been part of development processes and that they did not suddenly appear in the early 1970s as the result of the insights and

intervention strategies of a few scholars and agency personnel. Achola Okello Pala noted in the mid-1970s that the notion of "integrating

women into development" was inextricably linked to the maintenance of economic dependency of Third World and especially African

countries on the industrialized countries (1977). The WAD perspective focuses on the relationship between women and development

processes rather than purely on strategies for the integration of women into development. Its point of departure is that women always have

been "integrated" Into their societies and that this, work that tar} both Ingrid and outside the household is central to the. Maintenance of

those societies, but that this Integration serves primarily to sustain existing international structures of inequality. The WAD perspective

recognizes that Third World men who do not have elite status also have been adversely effected by the structure of the inequalities

within the international system but it has given little analytical attention to the social relations of gender within classes. The question of

gender and cross-gender alliances within classes has not been systematically address. Theoretically the WAD perspective recognizes the

impact of class, but in practical project design and implementation terms, it tends like WID, to group women together without taking

strong analytical note of Class, race or ethnicity, all of which may exercise powerful influenceon women‟s actual social status.



WAD offers a more critical view of women's position than does WID but it fails to undertake a full-scale analysis of the relationship

between patriarchy, differing modes of production and women's subordination and oppression. The WAD perspective implicitly assumes

that women's position will improve if and when international structures become more equitable. in the meantime, the under -representation of

women in economic, political and social structures still is identified primarily as a problem which can be solved by carefully designed

intervention strategies rather than by more fundamental shifts in the social relations of gender. Finally, it should be noted that there is a

tension within the WAD perspective which discourages a strict analytical focus on the problems of women independent of those of men

since both sexes are seen to be disadvantaged within oppressive global structures based on class and capital. since the WAD perspective does

not give detailed attention to the overriding influence of structures based on class and capital. since the WAD perspective does not give

detailed attention to the overriding influence of the ideology of patriarchy, women's condition primarily is seen within the structure of

international and class inequalities.

A second weakness shared by the WAD approach is a singular preoccupation with the productive sector at the expense of the

reproductive side of women's work and lives. WID/WAD intervention strategies therefore have tended to concentrate on the development

of income-generating activities without taking into account the time burdens that such strategies place on women inevitably will effect

some women as well as men. Not surprisingly, a fully articulated GAD perspective is less often found in the projects and activities of international development agencies although there are some examples of partial GAD approaches.

Gender and development (GAD): This approach originated in academic criticism starting in the mid 1970s in the UK .Based on the concept of

gender and gender relations they analyzed how development reshapes these power relations. Drawing on feminist political activism, gender

analysts explicitly see women as agents of changes.

They also criticize the WID approach for treating women as a homogenous category and they emphasis the important influence of difference of

class, age, marital status, religions and ethnicity or race on development outcomes. Proponents distinguished between “practical” gender needs

that are items that would improve women‟s lives within their existing roles and „strategic‟ gender needs that seek to increase women‟s ability to

empower them. Gender analysts demanded a commitment to change in the structures of power in national and international agencies.

Reference: Gender and development: Jenet Henshall Momsen:p.p :13-14.2004

Kate Young (1987 ) has identified some of the key aspects of the GAD approach. Perhaps most significantly, the GAD approach

starts from a holistic perspective, looking at "the totality of social organization, economic and political life in order to understand the



shaping of particular aspects of society" (Young 1987: 2). CAD is not concerned with women per se but with the social

construction of gender and the assignment of specific roles, responsibilities and expectations to women and to men. In contrast to the

emphasis on exclusively female solidarity which is highly prized by radical feminists, the GAD approach welcomes the potential

contributions of men who share a concern for issues of equity and social justice (Ben and crown 1987). The GAD approach dues not

focus singularly on productive or reproductive aspects of women's (and men's) lives to the exclusion of the other. It analyses the

nature of women's contribution within the context of work done both inside and outside the household, including non-commodity

production, and rejects the public/private dichotomy which commonly has been used as a mechanism to undervalue family and

household maintenance work performed by women. Both the socialist/feminist and GAD approaches give special attention to the

oppression of women in the family and enter the so-called "private sphere" to analyse the assumptions upon which conjugal relationships

are based. GAD also puts greater emphasis on the participation of the state in promoting women's emancipation, seeing it as the duty of

the state to provide some of the social services which women in many countries have provided on a private and individual . The

GOAL approach sees women as, agents of change rattier than as passive recipients of development and it stresses the heed for

women to organize themselves for more effective political voice. It recognizes the importance of both class solidarities and class distinctions

but it argues that the ideology of patriarchy operates within and across classes to oppress women. Consequently, socialist feminists and

researchers working within the GAD perspective are exploring both the connections among and the contradictions of gender, class, race

and development (Maguire 1984). A key focus of research being done front a GAD perspective is on the strengthening of women's

legal rights, including the reform of inheritance and land laws. Research also is examining the confusions created by the co-

existence of customary and statutory legal systems in many countries and the tendency for these to have been manipulated by men to

the disadvantage of women.

Reference: International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, 1989.

Gender and the Environment (GED): This approach was based on eco feminist views especially those of Vandana shiva (1989) which made

an essentialist link between women and the environment programmes to focus on women‟s roles.

FOURTH WORLD CONFERENCE ON WOMEN

At the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in December 1995, the mood was somber, reflecting the turmoil of the past decade -

- the global economic crises, the collapse of most communist regimes, unmitigated ethnic conflict and growing conservatism. This is reflected

in the disproportionate burden borne by women. Statistics showed that women today constitute 70% of the world‟s 1.3 billion poor,



2/3rd of the illiterates and (with their children) 80% of the 25 million refugees mostly victims of armed conflict. The single most critical

issue at the conference was women‟s experience of the economic crises: Southern women reeling under structural adjustment; East

European women faced with rising unemployment and collapse of state-provided welfare services, and Western women faced with sharp cuts in

public expenditure on health, education and welfare. The important outcome at Beijing was the new recognition by both NGOs

and governments that macro-economic policy is also an issue of critical importance for women and therefore a feminist concern. Furthermore, it

was important not just to be reactive after policies have done their damage, but to be creative in framing alternatives. The Beijing

Platform for Action recognizes the link between the economic and the political. Eradication of poverty cannot be accomplished through anti-

poverty programmes alone, but will require democratic participation and changes in economic structures to ensure access for all women to

resources, opportunities and public services.

Concluding Remarks: In conclusion, the significant issues that emerge are: In the 60s and 70s women voiced their dissent and

protest through the mass movements as well as autonomous feminist groups. The Western model of development as the role-model was not

only questioned but women activists in the Third World refused the label of “always and already victims” that the Western feminists had

accorded them. This translated into viewing women, not as passive recipients of development but as active agents in the process. The

issues of gender, nationality and ethnicity within the context of the global political economy came into focus; rightly questioningthereby the woman as subject of feminist debates. The increasing marginalization of women in the economy, their incr easing landlessness

and lack of access to resources had resulted in feminization of poverty. A significant relationship between the feminization of poverty

and female-headed households was brought into focus.

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My Article on Wid to Gad