Gender analysis

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Gender analysis is a type of socio-economic analysis that uncovers how gender relations affect a development problem. The aim may just be to show that gender relations will probably affect the solution, or to show how they will affect the solution and what could be done. Gender analysis frameworks provide a step-by-step methodology for conducting gender analysis. [1]

Contents

Concepts

In many societies, although not in all, women have traditionally been disadvantaged compared to men. Until recently, studies of these societies for the purpose of planning development covered women narrowly in terms of population, health and family planning. Relatively little was known about other concerns such as domestic violence or involvement in economic activities. Gender analysis provides more information, bringing benefits to women and to society as a whole. [2] The Women in Development (WID) approach emerged in the 1970s, calling for treatment of "women's issues" in development projects. Later, the Gender and Development (GAD) approach proposed more emphasis on gender relations rather than seeing women's issues in isolation. [3]

An example of the effect of skipping gender analysis is provided by a project that introduced handcarts to a village for use in collecting firewood. It was thought that the men would use the carts to collect wood, freeing up the women for other activities. In fact, the men collected the wood for sale, keeping the money. As they depleted supplies near the village, the women had to travel further to collect wood. [4]

Gender analysis has commonly been used as a tool for development and emergency relief projects. The socially constructed roles of men and women must be understood in project or program design, as must roles related to class, caste, ethnicity, and age. The techniques are also important in understanding the management of natural resources. [5] Gender analysis is relevant to education, although the frameworks used for development projects must be adapted to meet the needs of educational projects. [6]

Frameworks

Harvard Analytical Framework

The Harvard Analytical Framework, also called the Gender Roles Framework, was developed by the Harvard Institute for International Development in collaboration with the Women In Development office of USAID, and was first described in 1984 by Catherine Overholt and others. It was one of the earliest examples of such frameworks. [7] The starting point for the framework was the assumption that it makes economic sense for development aid projects to allocate resources to women as well as men, which will make development more efficient – a position named the “efficiency approach". [8]

Moser Framework

Caroline Moser developed the Moser Framework for gender analysis in the 1980s while working at the Development Planning Unit of the University of London. Working with Caren Levy, she expanded it into a methodology for gender policy and planning. [9] The Moser framework follows the Gender and Development approach in emphasizing the importance of gender relations. As with the WID-based Harvard Framework, it includes a collection of quantitative empirical facts. Going further, it investigates the reasons and processes that lead to conventions of access and control. The Moser Framework includes gender roles identification, gender needs assessment, disaggregating control of resources and decision making within the household, planning for balancing the triple role, distinguishing between different aims in interventions and involving women and gender-aware organizations in planning. [10]

Gender Analysis Matrix

Rani Parker developed the Gender Analysis Matrix (GAM) in collaboration with other development practitioners to support their grassroots work for a Middle Eastern NGO. Participatory planning is a basic theme of the framework, which is flexible enough to handle situations where data collection is severely handicapped. [11]

Capacities and Vulnerabilities Analysis Framework

The Capacities and Vulnerabilities Analysis (CVA) was developed in a research project at Harvard University, with some of the authors having also worked on the Harvard Analystic Framework. The CVA is based on an analysis of 30 case studies of NGOs responding to disaster situations, and is designed to help in emergency aid planning to meet immediate needs while considering longer-term development needs. [12]

Longwe's Women's Empowerment Framework

The Women's Empowerment Framework, or Longwe Framework, was developed by Sara Hlupekile Longwe, a consultant based in Lusaka, Zambia specializing in gender and development issues. The framework helps planners understand the practical meaning of women's empowerment and equality, and then evaluate whether a development initiative supports this empowerment. [13] The basic premise is that women's development can be viewed in terms of five levels of equality: welfare, access, "conscientization", participation and control. Empowerment is essential at each of these levels. Welfare addresses basic needs, and access addresses the ability to use resources such as credit, land and education. "Conscientization" is a key element of the framework: recognition that discrimination creates gender-related problems and that women may themselves contribute to this discrimination. With participation, women are equal to men in making decisions, and with control the balance of powers between the genders is equal. [14]

Social Relations Approach

The Social Relations Approach applies a socialist feminist philosophy to gender analysis, and has been used by various government department and NGOs as a planning framework. It was developed by Naila Kabeer at Sussex University in the United Kingdom. [15] The approach centers on the interchange between patriarchy and social relations. Unlike the Harvard Framework and the Gender Analysis Matrix, it does not focus on roles, resources and activities, but instead looks at the relations between the State, market, community and family. [16] Relationships between women may be relevant, such as the relationship between a female servant and her mistress. [17] Discussing the players in the process, Naila Kabeer proposes that "planning for women's empowerment is most likely to succeed when the process is seen as the responsibility of those who are planned for; when social action groups and grassroots movements help to counter the top-down logic of the planning process..." [18]

Related Research Articles

Development communication refers to the use of communication to facilitate social development. Development communication engages stakeholders and policy makers, establishes conducive environments, assesses risks and opportunities and promotes information exchange to create positive social change via sustainable development. Development communication techniques include information dissemination and education, behavior change, social marketing, social mobilization, media advocacy, communication for social change, and community participation.

Millennium Development Goals Eight international development goals for the year 2015 by the United Nations

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were eight international development goals for the year 2015 that had been established following the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in 2000, following the adoption of the United Nations Millennium Declaration. These were based on the OECD DAC International Development Goals agreed by Development Ministers in the "Shaping the 21st Century Strategy". The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) succeeded the MDGs in 2016.

Development aid Financial aid given support the development of developing countries

Development aid is a type of foreign/international/overseas aid given by governments and other agencies to support the economic, environmental, social, and political development of developing countries. Closely-related concepts include: developmental aid, development assistance, official development assistance (ODA), development cooperation and technical assistance. It is distinguished from humanitarian aid by aiming at a sustained improvement in the conditions in a developing country, rather than short-term relief. Development aid is thus widely seen as a major way to meet Sustainable Development Goal 1 for the developing nations.

Self-help group (finance)

A self-help group is a financial intermediary committee usually composed of 12 to 25 local women between the ages of 18 and 50. Most self-help groups are in India, though they can be found in other countries, especially in South Asia and Southeast Asia. A SHG is generally a group of people who work on daily wages who form a loose grouping or union. Money is collected from those who are able to donate and given to members in need.

Population Action International (PAI) is an international, non-governmental organization that uses research and advocacy to improve global access to family planning and reproductive health care. Its mission is to "ensure that every person has the right and access to sexual and reproductive health, so that humanity and the natural environment can exist in balance with fewer people living in poverty". PAI's headquarters is in Washington, D.C.

Caroline Olivia Nonesi Moser is an academic specializing in social policy and urban social anthropology. She is primarily known for her field-based approach to research on the informal sector generally - but particularly aspects such as poverty, violence, asset vulnerability and strategies for accumulation in the urban setting. Gender analysis is central to her approach. She has looked at many countries, but the Americas have been her main interest. Countries studied closely include Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala and Jamaica.

Women's property rights are property and inheritance rights enjoyed by women as a category within a society.

The Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID) was a think-tank dedicated to helping nations join the global economy, operating between 1974 and 2000. It was a center within Harvard University, United States.

The Harvard Analytical Framework, also called the Gender Roles Framework, is one of the earliest frameworks for understanding differences between men and women in their participation in the economy. Framework-based gender analysis has great importance in helping policy makers understand the economic case for allocating development resources to women as well as men.

Catherine A. Overholt is a health economist who has assisted many development agencies with gender issues, health economics, case writing and case method training. She is part of the team that developed the Gender Analysis Framework (1984) in cooperation with the Harvard Institute for International Development and the USAID Office of Women in Development.

Women in development is an approach of development projects that emerged in the 1960s, calling for treatment of women's issues in development projects. It is the integration of women into the global economies by improving their status and assisting in total development. However, the priority of Women in Development later became concerned with how women could contribute to development, away from its initial goals of addressing equity. Later, the Gender and development (GAD) approach proposed more emphasis on gender relations rather than seeing women's issues in isolation.

Gender and development is an interdisciplinary field of research and applied study that implements a feminist approach to understanding and addressing the disparate impact that economic development and globalization have on people based upon their location, gender, class background, and other socio-political identities. A strictly economic approach to development views a country's development in quantitative terms such as job creation, inflation control, and high employment – all of which aim to improve the ‘economic wellbeing’ of a country and the subsequent quality of life for its people. In terms of economic development, quality of life is defined as access to necessary rights and resources including but not limited to quality education, medical facilities, affordable housing, clean environments, and low crime rate. Gender and development considers many of these same factors; however, gender and development emphasizes efforts towards understanding how multifaceted these issues are in the entangled context of culture, government, and globalization. Accounting for this need, gender and development implements ethnographic research, research that studies a specific culture or group of people by physically immersing the researcher into the environment and daily routine of those being studied, in order to comprehensively understand how development policy and practices affect the everyday life of targeted groups or areas.

Moser Gender Planning Framework

The Moser Gender Planning Framework is a tool for gender analysis in development planning. It was developed by Caroline Moser. The goal is to free women from subordination and allow them to achieve equality, equity, and empowerment.

The anthropology of development is a term applied to a body of anthropological work which views development from a critical perspective. The kind of issues addressed, and implications for the approach typically adopted can be gleaned from a list questions posed by Gow (1996). These questions involve anthropologists asking why, if a key development goal is to alleviate poverty, is poverty increasing? Why is there such a gap between plans and outcomes? Why are those working in development so willing to disregard history and the lessons it might offer? Why is development so externally driven rather than having an internal basis? In short why does so much planned development fail?

Sara Hlupekile Longwe is a consultant on gender and development based in Lusaka, Zambia. She was the chairperson of FEMNET between 1997 and 2003. She is the author of the Longwe Framework for Gender Analysis. Longwe describes herself as a radical feminist activist.

Gender inequality in El Salvador

Gender inequality can be found in various areas of Salvadoran life such as employment, health, education, political participation, and family life. Although women in El Salvador enjoy equal protection under the law, they are often at a disadvantage relative to their male counterparts. In the area of politics, women have the same rights as men, but the percentage of women in office compared to men is low. Though much progress has been made since the Salvadoran Civil War ended in 1992, women in El Salvador still face gender inequality.

MDG Achievement Fund

The Millennium Development Goals Achievement Fund (MDG-F) was an international cooperation mechanism committed to eradicating poverty and inequality and to accelerating progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) worldwide. Its aim was to improve livelihoods and to influence public policy, which made it responsive to the needs of the poorest populations.

Naila Kabeer is an Indian-born British Bangladeshi social economist, research fellow, writer and Professor at the London School of Economics. She was also president of the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) from 2018 to 2019. She is on the editorial committee of journals such as Feminist Economist, Development and Change, Gender and Development, Third World Quarterly and the Canadian Journal of Development Studies. She works primarily on poverty, gender and social policy issues. Her research interests include gender, poverty, social exclusion, labour markets and livelihoods, social protection, focused on South and South East Asia.

Gender budgeting means preparing budgets or analyzing them from a gender perspective. Also referred to as gender-sensitive budgeting, this practice does not entail dividing budgets for women. It aims at dealing with budgetary gender inequality issues, including gender hierarchies and the discrepancies between women's and men's salaries. At its core, gender budgeting is a feminist policy with a primary goal of re-orienting the allocation of public resources, advocating for an advanced decision-making role for women in important issues, and securing equity in the distribution of resources between men and women. Gender budgeting allows governments to promote equality through fiscal policies by taking analyses of a budget's differing impacts on the sexes as well as setting goals or targets for equality and allocating funds to support those goals. This practice does not always target intentional discrimination, but rather forces an awareness of the effects of financial schemes on all genders.

Womens empowerment Giving rights, freedom to take decisions and strengthening women to stand on their own feet

Women's empowerment may be defined in several ways, including accepting women's viewpoints or making an effort to seek them, raising the status of women through education, awareness, literacy, and training. Women's empowerment equips and allows women to make life-determining decisions through the different problems in society. They may have the opportunity to redefine gender roles or other such roles, which in turn may allow them more freedom to pursue desired goals.

References

  1. ↑ Ochola, Sanginga & Bekalo 2010, pp. 236.
  2. ↑ Brouwer, Harris & Tanaka 1998, pp. 1.
  3. ↑ Van Marle 2006, pp. 125.
  4. ↑ Van Marle 2006, pp. 133.
  5. ↑ Vernooy 2006, pp. 21.
  6. ↑ Leach 2003, pp. 1.
  7. ↑ Ochola, Sanginga & Bekalo 2010, pp. 238–239.
  8. ↑ USAID.
  9. ↑ March, Smyth & Mukhopadhyay 1999, pp. 55.
  10. ↑ Van Marle 2006, pp. 126.
  11. ↑ March, Smyth & Mukhopadhyay 1999, pp. 68.
  12. ↑ March, Smyth & Mukhopadhyay 1999, pp. 78.
  13. ↑ March, Smyth & Mukhopadhyay 1999, pp. 92.
  14. ↑ Sahay 1998, pp. 39–40.
  15. ↑ March, Smyth & Mukhopadhyay 1999, pp. 102.
  16. ↑ Leach 2003, pp. 86.
  17. ↑ Kabeer 1994, pp. 57.
  18. ↑ Kabeer 1994, pp. 302.

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