sarah longwe

7/29/2019 Sarah Longwe

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...,..a GENDER AWARENESS:7 / THE MISSING ELEMENT IN THE THIRD WORLDDEVELOPMENT PROJECT , ===- ---LI+7g..)vS A R A HLUPEKILE LONGWE-:::::p 7 I Y C; - '5"'1Although development agencies and Third World governments areV lA/presently in the process of trying to formulate and implement newt'!l77 policies on women's development, success with these policiesdepends on increased gender awareness amongst developmentpersonneL This paper looks at what gender awareness means inlooking at women's development in the Third World, and definesthis awareness in terms of an ability to recognise women's issues atevery stage of the development project cycle.The need for gender awarenessThe general lack of attention to women's needs within the development process sterns from a general lack of gender awarenessamongst those who plan and implement development projects. Theproject target group is often treated as an undifferentiated group of'people' without recognising the special needs of women; morelikely, and worse, a male biased vocabulary is used to describe thetarget group which becomes 'men' rather than 'people': in this waythe women of the target group actually disappear from sight - andfrom thought. Typically a project document describes the ThirdWorld farmer as 'he'; but in actuality, the Third World farmer isusually a woman.Development in the Third World is not merely about increasedproductivity and welfare, although these things are important.Development is also about meeting the needs of those that are mostin need, and about increased participation and equality.Development is therefore also concerned with enabling people totake charge of their own lives, and escape from the poverty whicharises not from lack of productivity but rather from oppression andexploitation. The typical rural woman in the Third World is ahardworking producer of food who remains, with her children,short of food and malnourished: the food is consumed by the


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150 Gender aware project planning and evaluation

husband rather than the wife; by men rather than women andchildren; by landlords rather than tenants; by townspeople ratherthan rural people; by rich consumers rather than poor producers.In this situation, the problem in women's development is notprimarily concerned with enabling women to be more productive,more efficient, or to use their labour more effectively. These thingsmay be important, especially in special situations. But the centralissue of women's development is women's empowerment, to enablewomen to take an equal place with men, and to participate equallyin the development process in order to achieve control over thefactors of production on an equal basis with men.There are three essential elements in gender awareness: first therecognition that women have different and special needs; second thatthey are a disadvantaged group, relative to men, in terms of their levelof welfare and access to and control over the factors of production;third that women's development entails working towards increasedequality and empowerment for women, relative to men.Adherence to a policy on women's development may be assistedby referring to a standard checklist of questions to be asked at everystage of the project cycle. But a sympathetic and imaginativeinterpretation of policy for all situations will depend on a goodunderstanding of women's development, a commitment to it, andthe ability to raise questions of one's own.Criteria for recognising women's issuesGender awareness means being able to recognise women's issues.This section of the paper introduces five criteria which I have founduseful as a basis for identifying women's issues, and therefore as ananalytical framework for understanding women's development.

If the central issue in women's development is equality with men,then there is a need to spell out the different forms and levels ofequality that constitute development. Much of the developmentliterature on this subject is concerned with defining equalityaccording to the conventional sectors of the economy and society:equality in education, employment, under the law, and so on. Thedifficulty with this system of analytical division is that it provides afocus on areas of social life, rather than the role of increased equalityin the development process. I shall therefore introduce five differentlevels of equality as the basis for criteria to assess the level ofwomen's development in any area of social or economic life.


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Gender awareness: the missing element 151WOMEN'S DEVELOPMENT CRITERIA

Level ofEqualityControl t tParticipation Increased IncreasedConsdentisation Equality EmpowermentAccessWelfare I IIt is suggested that these levels of equality are in hierarchicalrelationship, so that equality of control is more important forwomen's development than equality of welfare. It is also suggestedthat the higher levels of equality are automatically higher levels ofdevelopment and empowerment.Any social situation becomes a women's issue when one of theabove five levels of equality is called into question; it becomes amore serious issue when it is concerned with the higher levels, anda more basic issue when it is concerned with the lower levels.Let us now look at each of these five levels in a little more detailto see what is entailed at each level:i. Welfare: The level of material welfare of women, relative to men, in such matters as food supply, income and medical care. This level of equality is not concerned with whether women are themselves the active creators and producers of their material needs: such involvement would suggest a higher degree of empowerment and development. ii . Access: Women's access to the factors of production on an equal basis with men: equal access to land, labour, credit, training, marketing facilities and all publicly available services and benefits. Here equality of access is obtained by ensuring the principle of equality of opportunity, which typically entails the reform of the law and administrative practice to remove all forms of disc:imination against women. iii. Conscientisation: The understanding of the difference between sex roles and gender roles, and that the latter ar e cultural and can be changed;


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conscientisation also involves a belief that the sexual division oflabour should be fair and agreeable to both sides, and not involvethe economic or political domination of one sex by the other. Beliefin sexual equality lies at the basis of gender awareness, andprovides the basis for collective participation in the process ofwomen's development.iv. Participation:Women's equal participation in the decision making process, policymaking, planning and administration. It is a particularly importantaspect of development projects, where participation meansinvolvement in needs assessment, project formulation,implementation and evaluation. Equality of participation meansinvolving the women of the community affected by the decisionstaken, and involving them in the same proportion in decisionmaking as their proportion in the community at large.v. Control:A utilisation of the participation of women in the decision-makingprocess through conscientisation and mobilisation, to achieveequality of control over the factors of production, and thedistribution of benefits. Equality of control means a balance ofcontrol between men and women, so that neither side is pu t into aposition of dominance.

A development project addresses women's development when itaddresses a women's issue. The term 'women's issue' is heredefined differently from a 'women's concern'. 'Women's concern' ishere used to describe matters relating to women's sex roles, or theirtraditional an d subordinate sex-stereotyped gender roles. Bycontrast, a 'women's issue' is one which relates to equality with menin any social or economic role, and involves any of the above fivelevels of equality. A main purpose, therefore, of the five criteria is toshow whether one is dealing with 'women's issues' or 'women'sconcerns'.In terms of the above criteria, poverty relates to basic welfare,where family income falls below the level necessary to meet basicneeds and subsistence. There is nothing in this definition of povertywhich necessarily means that poverty is a 'women's issue'. Povertyis, first and foremost, a 'general concern' which affects both men


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Gender awareness: the missing element 153

and women. It becomes more of a 'women's concern' where womenhave the main responsibility of producing the food crop, and wherewomen have the responsibility of ensuring the welfare of children.Poverty becomes a 'women's issue' where food and income is notfairly distributed between men and women, and where women donot receive a fair share of the fruits of their labour.

The failure of development projects in the Third World toaddress women's development may be understood in terms of theabove five criteria. From the 1970s there was the criticism thatwomen were treated as invisible, and women's needs were notaddressed at all. With the increasing attempt to address women'sdevelopment, the common criticism is that the so-called women'sdevelopment projects are addressing 'women's concerns', ratherthan the issues of inequality, and therefore the project interventionleaves the overall structure of inequality untouched. However, asmall number of current projects are now trying to address realwomen's development; but usually such projects work only at thelower levels of welfare and access to the factors of production, andare not facing up to women 's need for more control over their socialand economic lives.Assessing women's needsProject formulation ought to begin with an investigation into theneeds of the target group, both by considering the needs which areimplicit in their situation, and by asking them about their felt needsand priorities. The first and perhaps most important reason why'women's issues' are overlooked is that usually no needs assessmentis carried out.Typically a project is formulated by a consultant or programmeofficer who has no detailed or specific information on the situationor particular needs of the target group or affected community, butwho identifies project objectives on the basis of knowledge of theoverall national situation and development priorities and objectives.Typically, this background knowledge includes little or noinformation on the general situation of women in the country, or themain issues which need to be addressed in women's development.The stage therefore is set for the formulation of a project whichoverlooks the position of women entirely. In so doing, a project islikely to have a negative effect on women's development, especiallyby increasing the burden of labour upon women, whilst allOWing


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project benefits to be controlled by men. Such a project may well beset for failure, since many women will quietly opt out of projectactivities as they see the extra burdens pu t upon them, and the lackof benefit to themselves and their children.My argument is that the needs of women in a target group andaffected community must be assessed from the start of a project atall five levels: welfare, access, conscientisation, participation andcontrol, with a view to suggesting how the project can make ameaningful contribution to women's development at each of theselevels. I t is also necessary to identify priority target groups, such asfemale heads of household or landless widows, who are more inneed of development assistance, and who are more at risk if theproject intervention does not take account of their special positionand needs.Women's issues in project identificationThe usual situation is that women are completely overlooked whenidentifying the project objectives. I f the agency responsible forformulating the project is asked why there is nothing aboutwomen's development in the project document, a typical answer isthat 'This project is not concerned with women, it is a forestryproject', or simply 'This is not a women's project'.There is still a common perception amongst developmentpersonnel that women's development is confined to separate andspecial women's projects, and that these separate projects should beconcerned with income generating activities, especially in women'sclubs and in the sex-stereotyped activities of knitting, sewing andcooking. However, in terms of the five criteria introduced in thispaper these 'women's dub projects' cannot be seen as a contributionto women's development, but rather as a subtraction from it.Women's issues in project designSince the women's development component is typically missing atthe stages of needs assessment and project identification, it followsthat there is usually little to be found at the final stage of projectformulation - project design.Women's issues in project implementationFor the few projects whose design is seriously concerned withmaking a contribution to women's development, i t is sad to see this


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concern evaporate at the stage of implementation. One reason forthis is that the members of the implementing team are themselvesnot gender aware, and not committed to the process of women'sdevelopment, and fall easy prey to the various forms of bureaucraticresistance which I have described elsewhere (Longwe, 1989). It iscommon to hear the excuse that 'we are trying to do things whichare against the local custom, and nobody seems interested, so whyshould we bother?' At the stage of project implementation the mostimportant level of the criteria is consdentisation - amongst theimplementing team!

I t is important to note that the five criteria see women'sdevelopment as a process of women's increased access,participation and control, and no t merely as the outcome ofincreased welfare, income, production and skills. The developmentproject is part of this process, and must remain true to it. Thereforethe strategies and methods of implementation must exemplify theprocess of women's empowerment in such matters as theproportion of women in the team concerned with implementation,the level of gender awareness within the team, the proportion offemale members of the target group who are members of the projectmanagement committee, equal conditions of employment for menan d women, an d so on. Conversely, a male dominated andpatriarchal style of project administration contains implicit lessonsand messages which negate project objectives concerned withwomen's development.Women's issues in project evaluationIt follows from the newness of policy formulation on women'sdevelopment, as well as the general shortage of professionalexperience in this area, that there is a general lack of know-how onhow to evaluate a project's contribution towards women'sdevelopment. The lack of activity in this area is compounded by theconfusion of different methodolOgies in project evalua tion, as wellas the domination of the field by cost benefit analysis - a methodwhich has little relevance to the field of women's development. Costbenefit analysis is concerned with measuring project outputs,whereas the evaluation of a women's development project must beconcerned with assessing whether the social and political processesof empowerment are taking place. The evaluation of women'sdevelopment must take place at each stage of the project cycle.


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Women's issues in a development programmeIn some ways the individual development project provides toonarrow a focus on women's development. I will therefore lookbriefly at some of the programme level concerns which need to beconsidered.Typically the individual development project is part of an overallprogramme of projects being implemented by a government agency.Similarly a development agency has a programme of many projectswhich are supported in anyone country - the so-called CountryProgramme. Such a programme is guided by overall policies, andhas its own priorities an d themes. The question here, therefore, iswhether women's development is a strong element within theoverall theme, or is seen as a side issue.The Women's Development Criteria provide the potential basisfor evaluating a whole programme of projects in terms of theircontribution towards women's development. For instance, anappraisal of the women's development component within aprogramme may be done by using the five criteria to look at thelevel of equality addressed in the objectives of each individualproject within the programme. The Country Programme of anydevelopment agency in any Third World country is likely to be veryunderdeveloped in that there are many projects which reveal noattempt to deal with women's development, and those that domostly address the lower levels of welfare and access.

I t is important for the programme as a whole to take account ofthe overall situation of women in the Third World country, to takeaccount of the policies on women's development of the Third Worldcountry, and to work out feasible starting points for introducing intothe programme more projects which address women'sdevelopment.Such considerations might suggest quite different sorts ofprojects from anything which arises from attempting to bolster thewomen's development component in general development projects.For instance, i f the low level of gender awareness amongstdevelopment planners and implementers is an obstacle to progress,then a women's development project might take the form ofproviding training workshops for development personnel withinthe government implementing agencies. Similarly, a contributiontowards women's development may be made by assisting wi th theimprovement of the institutional capacity of the government


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bureaucracy to plan, implement and evaluate projects addressingwomen's development. Some governments have set up Women inDevelopment (WID) units within the government bureaucracy;whereas these units may remain ineffectual and sidelined if they arestarved of equipment and trained personnel, they do have thepotential to become effective and influential if they become thefocus for development aid and technical assistance.

However, i t may be difficult for the individual multilateral orbilateral agencies to tailor a Country Programme around particulardevelopment priorities, and a Country Programme is always indanger of being a mere collection of projects without much in theway of inter-connections or common theme. The building of abalanced and purposeful theme concerned with women'sdevelopment suggests close collaboration with other developmentpersonnel working in this area, no t only within differentgovernment ministries and implementing agencies, but also withinthe different development agencies which are operating in theparticular Third World country. It is this sort of close collaborationwhich will enable the local office of the development agency toachieve a better Third World perspective on women's development,and make a more appropriate and meaningful contribution to thisarea of great need, but small progress.ReferencesLongwe, Sara Hlupekile, 1989, 'Supporting Women's Development in the ThirdWorld: Distinguishing Between Intervention and Interference'. Paper presentedat a Training Programme in WID Issues for FINNIDA Staff, Helsinki, January30th to February 15th, 1989.Sara Hlupekile Lonpt: is a consultant in women's development and anactivist for women s rights, based in Lusaka. Her earlier struggles as asecondary school teacher and later as a university administrator, provideda sound training for a subsequent full-time career in resisting oppression.


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. 158 Gender aware project planning and evaluation

GENDER PLANNING IN THE THIRD WORLD:MEETING PRACTICAL AND STRATEGICGENDER NEEDSCAROLINE O. N. MOSER

While the important role that women play in Third World development processes is now widely recognised, awareness of the issue of'gender and development' has not necessarily resulted in itstranslation into planning practice. Indeed for many practitionersinvolved in different aspects of social and economic developmentplanning, the lack of adequate operational frameworks has beenparticularly problematic. The purpose of this article is to contributetoward the resolution of this problem. I t describes the developmentof a planning approach which, in taking account of the fact thatwomen and men play different roles in Third World societies andtherefore often have different needs, provides both the conceptualframework and the methodology for incorporating gender intoplanning.Gender planningGender planning is based on the understanding that because menand women play different roles in society, they often have differentneeds. Therefore when identifying and implementing planningneeds it is important to disaggregate households an d familieswithin communities on the basis of gender, identifying men andwomen, boys and girls.The triple role of womenIn most low-income households, 'women's work' includes not onlyreproductive work (the childbearing and rearing responsibilities)required to guarantee the maintenance and reproduction of thelabour force but also productive work, often as secondary incomeearners. In addition, women are involved in community managingwork undertaken at a local community level in both urban and ruralcontexts.Because the triple role of women is not recognised, the fact that


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r

CHANGING PERCEPTIONS Writings on Gender and Development

Edited by Tina Wallace with Candida March

OXFAM


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Oxfam, 1991

A catalogue record for this book is available fromthe British Library

ISBN 085598 136 9 ISBN 085598 137 7 pbk Published by Oxfam,274 Banbury Road, Oxford 0)(2 7DZ Designed by Jeffrey Meaton OX 673 JM 91 Printed by Oxfam Print Unit Typeset in 9.5pt Palatino

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