Sunday, 1 June 2014

Importance of gender mainstreaming



Gender Refers to the socially determined ideas and practices of what it is to be female or male.
Gender Mainstreaming is the integration of the gender perspective into every stage of policy processes – design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation – with a view to promoting equality between women and men. It assess how policies impact on the life and position of both women and men – and taking responsibility to re-address imbalances
IMPORTANCE OF GENDER MAINSTREAMING
Recognition that development policies impact female and male differently hence the need to ensure that the needs of both are taken on board during policy development, implementation- M and E

The need of collective  process of articulating a shared vision of sustainable human development and translating it into reality (through policy, programmers and budgets) hence the need for the effective participation of both women and men.
Recognition of the need for a combined strategy to address women empowerment issues including selected focus of channeling assistance to women, as a target group, to a more mainstreaming approach of promoting gender equality as a development goal.
Women in development (WID), Women and Development (WAD) and Gender and Development GAD were among the theoretical approach of eradicating poverty and low social economic status in gender mainstreaming and integration.
WID
WID (Women in Development) is an approach calls for greater attention to women in development policy and practice, and emphasizes the need to integrate them into the development process

WID is an approach to development projects that emerged in the 1970s, calling for treatment of women’s issues in development projects. WID is associated with wide range of activities concerning women and development domain which donor agencies government and NGOs have become involved since the 1970s, the 1975 conference of the International women’s at Mexico City and the United Nations Decade for women (1976 to 1985) gave expression to the mayor pre occupation of women around the world.
Ester Boserup published Woman's Role in Economic Development in 1970, and with it provided much of the basis for modern WID scholarship.
The importance of her work derives from highlighting that development was far from a gender-neutral process: 'with modernization of agriculture and with migration to the towns, a new sex pattern of productive work must emerge, for better or for worse'. Boserup did not say that development was uniformly bad for women: whether this danger is more or less grave, depends upon the widely varying customs and other preconditions in different parts of the underdeveloped world'. Indeed better data than she had available to her in 1970 depicted just such a complex picture; but the need to look closely at the gendered impact of socio- economic change was a vital point well made.

ORIGINAL OF WID
According to Miller, C WID originated as a result of three feminist movement or waves concerning feminine conditions. The first two were due to feminist waves, the first waves was known as women suffrage movement originated in North America back in rate the 19th century when women fought for the equal right to vote and participate in politics. The second wave of feminism sought to deal with the remaining social and cultural inequalities women were faced with everyday affairs like social violence, reproductive rights, sexual discrimination and grass ceiling.
The women's economic agenda evolved from a WID (Women in Development) approach to GAD (Gender and Development) to mainstreaming gender in all policies and programs to an emphasis on empowerment and Human Rights. The focus of analysis expanded to include not only local and national issues but also global systemic issues.
The foundations for WID laid by Boserup and others were built upon by the UN during the 1970s. In 1975, the World Conference of the International Women's Year took place in Mexico, emphasizing three themes in its Declaration: Equality, Development and Peace.
One hundred and thirty-three governments were represented, as well as the major multinational agencies, intergovernmental organizations and organizations of national liberation.
GAD
GAD focus primarily on gender division of labor and gender as a relation of power embedded in institutions. Consequently, two major frameworks ‘Gender roles’ and ‘social relations analysis’ are used in this approach. Unlike WID, the GAD approach is not concerned specifically with women, but with the way in which a society assigns roles, responsibilities and expectations to both women and men. GAD applies gender analysis to uncover the ways in which men and women work together, presenting results in neutral terms of economics and efficiency. In an attempt to create gender equality, (denoting women having same opportunities as men, including ability to participate in the public sphere).



ORIGINS OF GAD
The origin of GAD can be traced back in the 1980 by socialist feminism it save as a transitioning in the way in which feminist have understood development. It served as a comprehensive over view of the social economic and political realities of development. Its origin relate back to development alternatives with women for a new era (DAWN) network when it was first initiated in India.
The GAD approach is not just focused on the biological inequalities among sex’s men and women however on how social role, reproductive role and economic role are linked to gender inequalities of masculinity and feminity.   
ORIGINS OF WAD
The origin of WAD approach can be traced back in 1975 in Mexico City as it sort to discuss women issues from a neo-Marxist and dependence theory perspective. It is focus was to explain their relationship between women and the process of capitalist development in terms of material condition that contributes to their exploitation. WAD is often mis interpreted as WID however what sets it apart in that WAD focuses specifically on the relation between patriarchy and capitalism. The WAD perspective status that women have always participated and contributed towards economic development, regardless of the public and private spheres




REFERENCES
Moser, C. (1995). Gender planning and development: theory, practice and training (Reprint. Ed.). London [u.a.]: Routledge
Carolyn Moser, (1989). Gender planning in the Third World: meeting practical and strategic gender needs', in World Development, Vol.17, No. 11, pp.1799-1825
 Sen, G. & Grown, C. (1987). Development, Crises, and Alternative Visions: Third World Women's Perspectives. New York, Monthly Review Press
Boserup, E. (1970). Woman's Role in Economic Development, New York, St Martin’s Press
World Plan of Action for the Implementation of the Objectives of the International Women's Year, in the Yearbook of the United Nations, New York, United Nations, 197S, Vol.29


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