Development Roast Giving international development a proper roasting
By Daniela Romero*
Since the 1990s, the gender approach has been included in the debate of international conferences and in government policies and programs around the globe. In addition, this has led to the emergence of many women’s organizations that promote use of the concepts of the approach from both an activist and scientific perspective. Despite this, gender conditions and relations that vulnerate the lives of many women are still present in a diversity of contexts, particularly rural ones, where conditions of inequality and poverty persist. In this sphere, beyond rhetoric, social projects have not been able to deal with and/or go sufficiently deeper in the structural aspects that perpetuate such conditions. It is thus necessary for the new interventions to incorporate the gender approach in a more active way, fostering the transformation of gender relations from within the family, starting with the men and women themselves, identifying their individual and collective skills, interests and aspirations (Rodríguez, 2015).
The gender approach is related to the socioeconomic type of analysis, given that it helps programs and projects identify the variables that lead to differences in the relations between men and women, allowing to go beyond mere tentative gender integration. The aim of this is that such integration be sustainable through the application of participative methods through which both genders build their realities based on the particularities and in a continuous way (Wilde and Osorio, 2001). Thus, the application of gender-sensitive indicators may be used to reveal obstacles that hinder the success of policies, programs and projects, by highlighting key issues of the actors’ day-to-day lives.
Gender analysis encompasses a variety of methods employed for understanding relations between men and women, which go from analysis of access to resources, differentiation in the division of paid and unpaid labor, and the limitations faced by one and the other. In turn, gender analysis generates information not only on inequalities attributable to gender, but also related to race, ethnic origin, culture, class, age, disabilities, and/or other conditions. This is extremely important for understanding the different patterns of participation, behavior and activities that women and men have within the economic, social and legal structures (Jost et al., 2014). In this way, the gender approach puts people at the center of analysis, ensuring that the policies and interventions satisfy, in an equitable framework, the needs of those who are most affected. Hence, integrating the gender approach is not an end in itself, but rather a means for reaching a concrete aim.
Particularly in rural areas, the gender approach acquires even greater importance within a process of great changes called “new rurality”. This new rurality is characterized by deep transformations in the organization of political, economic, social, and cultural activities of the rural sphere and in the general shaping of rural territories. It is transformations that are generated in a particular way in each territory, in relation to the main economic activities realized in each of them and their links with other productive processes.
In turn, these transformations occur through the incorporation of activities that were previously foreign to the rural environment, such as dual residence and the generation of new residential endeavors that seek conditions of habitability different from the urban ones (Van der Ploeg, 2010). In this close relationship, the changes resulting from the shaping of the territory are generated through new uses of the land that lead to activities and forms of localization hitherto unknown in rural areas. In parallel, new forms of population distribution take place, with population flows in two directions and realignments in the functional and infrastructure systems, leading to connectivity between urban and rural areas (Pellegrino, 2013: 90).
In this context, rural women and men employ a variety of natural and material resources that are controlled mainly by local community organizations. Notwithstanding, although equality of access is fostered, the actual capacity of many women for accessing the resources and income derived from them is lower than that of men. Although women have “equal” access to certain resources, it may be that they do not have the capacity to decide as to the destination of these resources, which ends up limiting and calling into question this equality. Identifying who controls the resources is therefore important for understanding their management processes. In this perspective, gender relations acquire greater relevance when analyzing the social, economic, productive, and political dynamics of a region under a social intervention (Elías 2013).
Women and men tend to explore different spaces. Women are inclined to collect products in common and uncultivated land, such as the forest and the areas between crop fields, and they are those principally responsible for carrying water and firewood. These spaces, essential for sustenance, tend to be ignored in the analyses concentrating on “productive” land, as they are not included within the activities to be realized through interventions. Also, in some regions, animal husbandry is the main responsibility of women, though they generally raise larger animals less, despite the fact that they may be entirely responsible for them, as well as for obtaining forage. Also, we must not forget women’s contribution to the processing and sale of livestock products (Elías 2013).
Under these parameters, the interventions must consider not only landholding or productive income – often meagre for women – but also other important forms of access to resources and their contribution to food security and production sustainability, as well as the territorial shaping in which they occur. Elements such as rights to access to trees and to water, and the transformation and sale of products derived from animals, as well as caring for them, among others, may be key factors that differ from rights to land, as they also relate to management of territoriality. Rural development programs have been identifying women as a strategic population in the social and economic dynamics of the rural sphere, but for working under this approach it is indispensable to develop the awareness needed to perceive the subtle social workings present in gender relations that perpetuate inequalities between women and men in territories with particular realities, which are at the same time immersed in global transformations (Cruz, 2012).
Additionally, these interventions must adopt elements such as the use of non-sexist language; continuous training of the facilitator team and participants; recognition of the sex-based division of work in the production, reproduction, environment, and social-community spheres, and the double and triple work days; locations and times for meetings convenient for women, children, older persons, people with disabilities, and men, for interacting under conditions of equality; reflecting on differentiated impact, and on the situation and historical events pertaining to the condition of women; and incorporation of affirmative action dealing with discrimination between genders (Ibid.). The introduction of this approach in the conceptualization, organization and application of an intervention that seeks transformation is clearly essential, as it represents a step further in seeking the sustainability of its results.
The success of rural development initiatives depends on equality in the relations between women and men, given that in all development contexts there are persisting and emerging challenges that have different impacts on the two sexes and that hamper or have the potential to hamper achievements in gender equality. It must therefore be clear that the gender perspective does not seek to foster power disputes between women and men, but rather to build alliances between women and between men and women, based on the recognition of the concrete historical and present condition of subordination of women, seeking balance between the social positions of the sexes. Based on acknowledging this as a structural condition of gender relations, the specific conditions of men and women in the territories must be analyzed, including their practical needs and strategic interests, for achieving greater social equity, and through this greater robustness of national policies, more coherence in programs and better results in intervention projects.
Bibliography
- Cruz, F. (2012). Perspectiva de género en el desarrollo rural. Programas y experiencias. Asociación País Románico. Grupo de Acción Local Zona Media de Navarra, Consorcio de Desarrollo de la Zona Media de Navarra, AECID, FEOGA-O, Spain
- Elías, M. (2013). Consejos para preguntas desde una perspectiva de género
- Jost, C., Ferdous, N., Spicer, T.D. (2014). Gender and Inclusion Toolbox: Participatory Research in Climate Change and Agriculture.Copenhagen, Denmark: CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS); CARE International; and the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF)
- Pellegrino, A. (2013). Estrategias de intervención vinculadas a procesos de nueva ruralidad. CIUT – Centro de Investigaciones Urbanas y Territoriales, Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning, National University of La Plata. La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Rodríguez, L. (2015). El enfoque de género y el desarrollo rural: ¿necesidad o moda? Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Agrícolas, vol. 1, 2015, pgs. 401-408. National Institute of Forest, Agriculture and Livestock Research, State of Mexico, Mexico
- Van der Ploeg, J. (2010). Nuevos campesinos. Campesinos e imperios alimentarios.In SOCIOLOGÍA, 2012, vol. 343, pg. 351
- Wilde, V. and Osorio, M. (2001). Manual para el nivel de campo.Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
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* Associate Researcher at INESAD, daniela.romeromay.88@gmail.com
This blog is part of the project titled “Creating Indigenous Women’s Green Jobs under Low-carbon COVID-19 Response and Recovery in the Bolivian Quinoa Sector”, which is supported by the Sustainable Inclusive Economies Program of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada.
The viewpoints expressed in this blog are the responsibility of the author and may not reflect the viewpoints of all members of Fundación INESAD.
