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Women's Rights and Development

Vision and Strategy for the Twenty-first Century

A seminar organised by One World Action, Oxfem UK/I, the Gender Institute of the
London School of Economics, and Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford

Held at Wolfson College, Oxford, May 24 1995

Report compiled by Mandy Macdonald

Oxfam (UK and Ireland) and One World Action


Oxfam 1995

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Contents

Introduction 9
Helen O'Connell

Women in the New World order: voices of workers from the Third World 11
Swasti Milter

A development agency as a patriarchal cooking pot: the evaporation of policies


for women's advancement 18
Sara Hlupekile Longwe

Gender and development in European development cooperation 30


Daniela Colombo

Overview of discussion 33

The future agenda of the women's movement in relation to national and


international structures: Panel session 35

Overview of discussion 40

Strategies for achieving a women's rights policy agenda: Overview of working


groups 43

Closing remarks 47

Participants 49

Seminar programme 50
One World Action is a partnership between poor and exploited people in the South and those who share their
vision of a better, more equal world. One World Action works with organisations who have a firm belief in
democracy and equality linked with a respect for human rights and freedoms. Priority is given to trying to
influence and change policies and practices in the North that perpetuate or cause poverty and inequality in the
South. Promoting and strengthening more participatory democracy and especially greater active involvement of
women internationally, nationally, and locally, linked to lobbying for European policies and practices that sup-
port and facilitate this, is a central focus of the work of One World Action.
Preface

The seminar held on 24 May 1995, Women's


rights and development: vision and strategy
for the twenty-first century, provided a short
but stimulating apace to think and talk, to
reflect on what had been achieved on women's
rights in the last 20 years, and to discuss how
we should move forward. It was an opportuni-
ty for women's rights and gender and develop-
ment specialists from European and Southern
NGOs and academic institutions to shift atten-
tion from the process leading to the Beijing
Fourth World Conference on Women, and
think ahead about policy priorities for the next
decade. The presence in die UK of representa-
tives of women's networks, development and
women's rights organisations from Africa,
South America, and Asia (several of whom
were in Oxford for a meeting of the Advisory
Board of Oxfam's journal, Gender and
Developjneni) contributed greatly to the success
of this dialogue.
Over the last 20 years the policy agenda on
women's rights, women and development, and
gender and development has expanded. As
the commitment to applying a gender analysis
to our work has grown, so has the policy agen-
da; no area of policy can be neglected. The
challenge for activists and researchers is to
clarify the policy connections, identify the
strategic policy areas, and build local, national,
and international alliances across diverse inter-
ests.
One World Action and Oxfam UK and
Ireland would like to thank the Gender
Institute of the London School of Economics,
and Queen Elizabeth House, University of
Oxford, for their collaboration in organising
this seminar.

Helen O'Connell
One World Action
October 1995
Introduction
Helen O'Connell, One World Action

This seminar has an ambitious title; but at this only a few years ago is now having to be
time, when we are all very much involved in the defended. What was agreed at the UN
Beijing process, it is perhaps a good opportunity Conference on Human Rights at Vienna in 1993
to try to think beyond Beijing and consider what was questioned at the International Conference
the future might bring. Women and develop- on Population and Development in 1994. What
ment, as an issue and a discipline, has been on was agreed at the Population Conference in
the international agenda since the early 1970s. 1994 is now under serious threat in the process
Gender and development, gender analysis, and leading up to the Fourth World Conference on
gender planning have gained international Women at Beijing.
acceptance since the early 1980s. CEDAW, the The free-market model of economic
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of development has reached new levels of univers-
Discrimination against Women, was opened for ality and sophistication with the new liberalisa-
ratification in 1979. It is time to assess what tion policies of the 1980s and 1990s, linked to
progress we have made, how women have the debt crisis. This economic model, despite all
gained or retained their rights. its obvious shortcomings and its inherent con-
Much has been achieved. Very many women tradictions and inconsistencies, is still dominant
can now exercise more fully their civil, political, worldwide. We have a new World Trade
sodo-economic, and cultural rights. Many have Organisation, but it shows the same old lack of
improved access to education and training of representation and accountability. Integral to
reasonably good quality, and control over the market economy is a challenge to the very
income, property and other resources. In most concept of social solidarity which is the founda-
countries, women are taking decisions in local tion of our welfare systems in Europe and of
and national structures and in political, com- such welfare systems as exist in other countries.
mercial, civil, and social organisations. In almost We are told that we can no longer afford
all countries, there are strong women's organ- universal benefits.
isations and international networks linking There are other threats: religious funda-
them. There is a wealth of good research. We mentalism of all persuasions poses a serious
have improved government andmultilateral danger to women's rights, as do racism, nation-
policy statements, with at least some recognition alism, ethnic conflict, and regressive immigra-
that the conventional development approach, tion policies. Conflict has become yet another
integrating women into the development issue high on our agenda: not only military
model, is no longer valid, that gender relations conflict but also civil conflict and conflict over
are at the core of social, economic, political, and dwindling natural resources. This conflict has
cultural life, and that those complex relations produced many millions of refugees. The
are inequitable in almost all aspects. changes in Eastern and Central Europe add
Yet, in all countries, progress towards another new item to our agenda; they have not
genuine equality and equity is slight and only brought about dramatic differences within
precarious. There has been no significant redis- Europe but have also changed the whole
tribution of resources, nor any real sharing of balance of relations between what we used to call
power. Poverty among women, as among many the North and the South.
men and children, is at appalling levels. There However, there are a number of policy areas
are ever-widening disparities in wealth, employ- that offer some possibility for progress towards
ment, and productive resources. Disregard of equality in gender relations. First of all, there is
women's rights is commonplace. Moreover, the the whole policy area of human rights. CEDAW
ground gained by women at UN conferences has been very poorly implemented and
Women'srightsand development

monitored. Some very good statements came relations. The challenge for us is to make the
out of the Human Rights Conference in Vienna good governance debate meaningful at a time,,
in 1993, but, again, they have been very poorly when there is widespread disenchantment with-"
implemented and monitored. The whole political processes.
process of negotiations in the run-up to Beijing A fourth area of possibilities - and by far the
has revealed the weakness ofmany international most difficult area - is alternative development
institutions and has shown how little attention This is currently being much discussed arid
governments, even those who have ratified it, debated and is producing many new ideas.
actually give to CEDAW. Questions are being asked about the role of the.,
Aid policy is undoubtedly relevant to women, state and of the market; social clauses in trade
yet all types of aid - NGO aid, bilateral and agreements; how to regulate TNCs; how to
multilateral aid - are widely discredited. The reorganise the UN; how to get a better balance
inefficiency of most, though not all, UN agencies between social and economic affairs. Women's
is public knowledge. UN-led military and rights need to be at the centre of these
humanitarian interventionsin in, for example, discussions.
former Yugoslavia and Somalia, have fallen far A fifth, slightly different, area is the issue of
short of expectations. Bilateral aid budgets from coherence in international relations. We must
the UK and elsewhere are diminishing and as work for coherence between CEDAW and other
they diminish, the priorities underlying aid, relevant human rights conventions, together
such as trade and commercial interests, become with all other national and international
all the more obvious. NGO development legislation, including immigration law. We must
cooperation is also facing problems. We have work for coherence between aid and
spent 45 years giving assistance to community- development cooperation objectives and trade,
based organisations and support to local initia- agriculture, debt cancellation, structural adjust-
tives; yet, if we are honest, we have generated ment; and the operation of transnational
very little long-term change, particularly for corporations and international financial
women. We NGOs are in a difficult position: on institutions. And the basis for coherence must be
the one hand, we find ourselves forced to respect for human rights and respect for
defend aid and to argue for increases in aid women's rights.
budgets of all kinds, while on the other we also The sixth area is an area in which everyone
know there is a serious problem with the quality here is an expert: gender and development
of aid; yet somehow quantity considerations itself. Gender analysis has assisted enormously
usually seem to outweigh those of quality in the in advancing our thinking and our perspective.
debate. Research shows undeniably that nothing is
I feel that we need to move beyond the aid gender-free and that no initiative, no subject
debate and the aid mentality. Aid has become matter, can be adequately addressed unless the
less and less significant as an element in gender dimension is included. But how do we
international relations. Relations between the move the gender and development debate
so-called donor countries - Western Europe, forward? The objective of today's seminar is to
North America, and Japan - and the poor provide an opportunity for us to think about this
countries of Asia, the Pacific, Africa, the question, and to discuss the policies we should
Caribbean and Latin America are increasingly press for and, perhaps most importantly, the
determined by trade and investment consid- strategies for putting policies into practice.
erations. We need to find a way of broadening
our focus correspondingly.
The aspect of aid that is potentially most
positive, as I see it, is good governance. Good
governance conditionality, for all its short-
comings, and however cynical we may be about
the reasons for its introduction, offers some very
valuable concepts and room for negotiation. It
raises issues of respect for human rights,
accountability and transparency, competent
government, and the importance of a strong
civil society. These principles should guide not
only aid but all national and international

10
Women in the New World Order: Voices of Workers
from the Third World
Swasti Mitter, United Nations University Institute for New Technologies
(UNU/INTECH), Maastricht

I want to share with you today my own Services have increased from 15 per cent of world
evaluation of the effects of globalisation on the trade to over 22 per cent since 1980. One of seven
working lives of women in the developing equity trades worldwide involves a foreigner as a
world, and the demands that women themselves counterpart. And world sales of foreign affiliates of
are making to ensure dignity and security in the multinational corporations may now well exceed the
midst of a rapidly changing world order. The world's total exports.
material for this paper is primarily based on the What do these statistics have in common?
research I have co-ordinated at the Institute in Globalisation, a change that is transforming the world
the area of gender, technology, and develop- economy ... [by] widening and intensifying
ment. Our partners in research have been either international linkages in trade andfinance. It is being
women workers' organisations themselves (Ng, driven ,by a near-universal push toward ...
1994), or academics closely associated with such liberalisation,... and [by] technological change that is
organisations (Mitter and Rowbotham, 1995).' fast eroding barriers tothe international tradability of
goods and services and the mobility of the capital.
(World Bank, 1995:1)
What is the new world order?
If the liberalisation programmes were the
At this point, I should like to make an apology catalytic factor, the information revolution has
for the use of the term 'new world order'. like increased the speed of internationalisation.
most cliches, this has often been used in an Computers and computer-aided technologies
imprecise and subjective manner. But, like have made it easy for manufacturing companies
many other cliches, it also has an evocative to locate production externally, to geograph-
quality: it captures the current uncertainty in ically dispersed units within and across nations.
the economic and political spheres. The collapse Such externalisation of work has been made
of socialism and the end of the Cold War possible since digital technology has given rise to
sparked alternative visions of the emerging the miniaturisation of machines, as in personal
world order. While Fukuyama's The End of computers; the modularisation of products, as
History and the Last Man (1992) celebrated the in automobiles and television sets; the frag-
victory of the ideals of capitalism, Eric mentation of production processes, as in textiles
Hobsbawm's The Age of Extremes (1994: 584) and clothing.
warned us that the forces of the techno-scientific
economy are great enough to destroy the envir- The potential for out-sourcing production
onment, the material foundations of human life, activities has led, significantly, to profound
and the structures of human societies by the end changes in the philosophy and practices of
of the millennium. The way the world is ordered management in the corporate world. The pursuit
is influenced by ideals and visions, and yet their of 'lean management', Japanese style, has
assessment is beyond the scope of my talk. resulted in a 'down-sizing' of companies, keeping
the number of core workers in the main site to a
As I am an economist by training and a minimum, and relying as much as possible on a
professor of business management by occupa- network of subcontractors (Kaplinsky, 1994).
tion, it is understandable that I prefer to limit The result has been a substantial reduction in
myself to the materialistic explanations of the personnel in parent companies and a more than
new world order. I begin with the World Bank's commensurate increase in foreign affiliates and
definition of it as a globalisation phenomenon: the offshore and onshore subcontracting units of
corporate organisations.
World merchandise exports have risen from 11 to
The relationship between the parent
18 per cent of world GDP over the past two decades.
company and the foreign affiliates has also

11
Women's rights and development

become multidimensional, entailing a more The flow of foreign direct investment (FDI)
complex integration at the corporate level. significantly reflects the trend in world trade,
Foreign affiliates tend to specialise now in one of favouring service industries over others (Worlds-
the many key functions such as assembly, Bank, 1995:4).
procurement, finance, or research and develop- Transnational corporation (TNC) activities,
ment, with the common governance and a in the manufacturing and service sectors, thus
unified corporate strategy. With the growing dominate urban industrial employment of the
importance of intra-firm international division developed and developing world. At a very
of labour, the distinction between affiliate and conservative estimate, there are now 150 million
the parent firm becomes less pronounced. The people working, directly and indirectly, for the"
corporate organisation resembles more a TNCs, representing 20 per cent of employment
network than a hierarchy. Then again: in the non-agricultural sector (UNCTAD, 1994:
xxiii).Echoing Fukuyama, the World Bank
.. .Ihese networks are connected -with other corporate observes (1995:52) an 'end of geography' in our
networks through a variety of linkages, ranging from transnationalised information era.
subcontracting, to licensing agreements and strategic
alliances. (UNCTAD, 1994:139)
It becomes difficult to determine the Gainers and losers
boundary of a particular firm. In this global order, countries that attract a
An increase in the share of service activities in greater volume of FDI stand a better chance of
global trade is another feature of the new world achieving a high rate of growth and inter-
order (World Bank, 1995). Advances in national competitiveness. It has become less
telecommunication technology, including common in our profession to question the desir-
expansion in electronic networks, have ability of such goals, either in the developed or
propelled this growth. The growth has been in the developing world.
particularly pronounced in information- Overall, developing countries have done
intensive activities such as data entry, analysis of well. Between 1986 and 1993, investment flows
income statement or development of computer to developing countries increased fivefold,
software. These activities are particularly accounting for 33 per cent in 1992 and an
suitable for out-sourcing and thus for estimated 41 per cent in, 1993 of global FDI.
internationalisation. South, East and South-east Asia, as well as Latin

Table 1: Some of the largest recipients of foreign-direct-investment flows in the


developing world j 1986-1992: actual amounts and rates of growth
(Millions of dollars and percentage)

Host economy (selected) 1985 1988 1990 1992


China 1,659 3,194 3,4871 1,156
Singapore 1,047 3,655 5,263 5,635
Mexico 491 2,594 2,632 5,366
Malaysia 695 2,332 4,469
Brazil 1,348 2,969 901 1,454
Argentina 919 1,147 1,836 4,179
All developing countries 13,582 27,772 31,266 39,060
Percentage share of the 10 largest
host countries* in total inflows to
developing countries 68 73 74 76

* The other four countries are Hong Kong, Thailand, Taiwan and Indonesia.
Sources: UNCTAD, Division on Transnational Corporations and Investment, based on International Monetary Fund,
balance-of-paymems tape, retrieved in April 1994; estimates of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development

12
Women's rights and development

Table 2: The ascent and descent of the 'big three' economic blocs
Share of Gross World Product Rate of Growth
(annual percentages)
Estimated 1990 Projected 2010 1990-2010
l.OECD 54.0 44.1 2.7
2. CHINA 11.3 19.1 6.5
INDIA 4.1 5.1 4.9 - "
INDONESIA 1.7 2.2 5.2
3. Six emerging economies* 10.1 14.2 5.5

Hong Kong, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand.

America - but not Africa - participated in this It is against diis background that I wish to set
increase (UNCTAD, 1994: 13). In fact, 76 per die challenges and opportunities that die
cent of the total FDI to developing countries is workers and the workers' movement face in our
concentrated in only ten developing countries transnationalised world. Industrial workers, the
of Asia and Latin America. China has emerged focus of my analysis, account for only a small
as the largest recipient, accounting for nearly proportion of die workforce in the developing
one-diird of total FDI flows to developing world. In diat workforce, die proportion of
nations. In contrast, Africa's share declined women is even smaller. Yet die issues, I feel, are
from 12 per cent in 1985 to less than 7 per cent vital, as potential gains and losses in die non-
in 1993. agricultural jobs become die major arena of
Rates of growdi in per capita income in negotiation between die developed and die
favoured Asian countries reflect the efforts of developing world (Wood, 1994; Sachs and
FDI (Tables 1 and 2) and seriously question the Shatz, 1994).
validity of grouping disparate countries from
Asia, Africa and Latin America in an
undifferentiated category called 'die Third Women's gains in the services
World'. sector
The use of information technology - the It is in this context diat die question of women
spearhead of globalisation - likewise has been industrial workers becomes especially signifi-
for from uniform. If one takes the number of cant. In open economies, women have become
computers registered on the Internet, a major beneficiaries as well as prime losers in die
reasonable indicator of die spread of this restructuring process. A focus on women
technology, one can say that the information highlights die contradictory nature of impacts
revolution has, so far, eluded most of Africa and of globalisation (Mitter and Rowbodiam, 1995):
a large proportion of people in Asia (World a feature diat is omitted from aggregate figures
Bank, 1995: 46). In sub-Saharan Africa, 70 per related eidier to gross domestic products or to
cent of the labour force are employed in the FDI.
agricultural sector; in Asia, the comparable Some of die major areas of expansion in die
figure is 65 per cent. The majority of people in globalised economy are banking, finance and
die non-European world still rely on die local insurance. In numerical terms, women have
economy and traditional technologies: global- done well, often gaining jobs at the expense of
isation is by no means universal. men. It is not possible as yet to give an exact
Even the countries diat have had consid- estimate of women's gains in diese sectors in the
erable success in attracting capital do not developing world. Some of die micro-studies,
necessarily diereby ensure a certain future. The documented through research at UNU/
recent Mexican crisis illustrates the damage that INTECH, however, capture die current trend.
developing countries encounter from hosting In die last two decades, the Indian banking
speculative, portfolio investments from abroad. industry has experienced nearly 300 per cent
Globalisation is not always beneficial. growdi in employment; women have gained a

13
Women's rights and development

major share of the jobs. Women have fared hierarchical occupational ladder prevents the majority
particularly well in foreign banks. In Citibank, of men and women from climbing to the top ... but it^
Bombay, less that 5 per cent of the workers were remains easierfor Malays of either sex orfor Chines^'
women in the early 1970s. They currently men. Indians... remain at the bottom.
account for more than 70 per cent of the total
The opening up of the national economies
workforce. Women are represented, but only
and the rising share of the information-
marginally, in the programming and manage-
intensive services in the world export trade
ment areas; but they are markedly visible in the
herald fresh opportunities in some of the larger
clerical and data-entry work.
and economically more powerful developing"
The rationale for recruiting women is stereo-
nations. India and Brazil have made consider-
typical but works in favour of women.
able inroads, for example, into the software
According to a union official in Bombay:
programming sector, both as consumers and as
Management feels women are better on computers producers (World Bank, 1995: Mitter and
[than men] asthey have routine clerical skills ... Pearson, 1992). The software industry has
[besides,] management realises that women are created lucrative jobs, for men as well as for
submissive ... and have less time for union work. women.
(Gothoskar, 1995:165) Women account for nearly 48 per cent of all
information processing jobs in Brazil: the
As the share of newjobs, requiring computer
largest number are in simple data-processing
literacy, rises, the traditional jobs, such as those
work. Nonetheless, women have managed to
of sorters or messengers, become redundant.
get nearly 20 per cent or more of the software
The result has been a decline in the
programming and developmental work - a
'bargainable' posts - posts that carry with them
much better record than that in the traditional
the automatic rights of unionisation. Women
professional jobs, such as engineering (Gaio,
see the ambivalent effects of the emerging
1995). In India, on a conservative estimate,
situation on the quality of their working lives:
women occupy nearly 20 per cent of software
As a unionist I would oppose computerisation [and and related jobs. With the rising importance of
liberalisation]; as an employee, I would welcome it. the 'soft' side of technical knowledge, such as
This is my dilemma. (Gothoskar, 1995: 154) communications and user-producer interac-
tion, women in future are likely to achieve
The emergence of a new white-collar female
greater economic power in the managerial and
workforce in the information era makes
technical echelons. In the fields of software or
particularly clear the need to differentiate
information-intensive management, values
workers, on grounds other than gender
associated with femininity such as teamwork,
(Gannage, 1995; Ng and Yong, 1995). The new
service orientation, and communication skills,
low-skilled data-entry workers share with blue-
are becoming highly prized. The picture of a
collar women workers some concerns relating to
confident Asian woman executive alongside
their multiple roles as workers, mothers, wives,
Peter Drucker, on the cover of the March 1995
and homemakers. Nonetheless, the new white-
issue of the management magazine World
collar workers belong to a relatively more
Executive Digest, is a telling sign of our times.
privileged class and hence have demands that
are different from those of the blue-collar
workers. In a programme for initiating or Women lose out in blue-collar
strengthening workers' organisations, it jobs
becomes important to bear in mind the
divergent needs and backgrounds of specific The position of blue-collar workers in the
groups of women workers. Ethnicity, too, emerging economic order, by contrast, is less
moulds a worker's identity and status. The optimistic and more complex. Robotic tech-
experience of Malaysia, as recounted by Cecilia nology reduces the need for labour-intensive
Ng and Carol Yong (1995: 186), in the context assembly-line work and thus for cheap unskilled
of the telecommunications industry, is labour in the developing world. As we move, in
illuminating on this point: the area of world trade and competition, from
the notion of labour- or capital-intensive to
... ethnic and class differentials are as important as knowledge-intensive modes of production,
(and sometimes more important than) gender TNCs direct their investment to countries that
differentials. In the telecommunications sector, the offer the promise of cheap, skilled labour and

14
Women's rights and development

adequate infrastructures. In the process of contrast, the number of jobs for women in small-
restructuring, it is the workers with outmoded and medium-scale enterprises has gone up in
skills who face redundancy, while joint venture almost all regions. Women workers view the _
companies complain of unfilled vacancies due to situation withunderstandable alarm, as the
shortages of expertise and skilled labour. Such small- and medium-scale enterprises offer
trends are strikingly visible in transitional workers far less favourable terms and conditions
economies such as China or Vietnam (Meihe et of work. In Bangladesh, young women who
al., 1994: 64). The representatives of labour found jobs in the export-orientated garment
federations from these countries recall: factories are reluctant to give up their new-
found status. The employment situation is not,
In China, industries have been laying off surplus
perfect in these factories, but it is better than in
workers, many of whom are women... [some] adopted
the alternative opportunities that women find,
the policy of ladiesfirst' in deciding who should be laid
in the sex industry or agro-business, or in the
off.... In Vietnam, during the reorganisation of state
small-scale sector. Women workers wish to
enterprises and offices, many employees were laid off...
retain the gains that the globalisation of
more than 60 per cent of them were women.
production has brought to them in formal-
The age of the worker counts as well. In the sector employment
new economic regime, there is a strong
We will not go back to the villages, we will not
preference for young, qualified workers. Even
become dependent on others. (Mitter, 1994b: 100)
in the manufacturing sector, computer skills are
increasingly sought; older women, with the
responsibilities of childcare, find it difficult Challenges for the labour
either to afford or to obtain relevant training in movement
the requisite skills. The situation is comparable The phenomenon of globalisation, then, has
in most countries that are linked to the inter- had complex and often contradictory impacts
national economy, either in the labour-scarce on the industrial and urban workforce of the
countries such as South Korea or labour-surplus developing world. It has provided new oppor-
countries such as China and Vietnam. tunities as well asfreshchallenges.
Preferential retirement policies are aimed
It is at this point that I should like to question
specifically at 'senior' women workers, who are
the post-modernist pessimism of the view that
often not much over 35 years old.
says 'everything is in constant flux' in the
current global order. The new working class -
those who are on flexible contracts, employed in
Shifts in the location of work to the services sector and small enterprises - are
the small-scale sector reasonably precise in the articulation of their
The globalisation of national economies results demands. As women form a large proportion of
not only in the loss and gain of jobs, it also results this new workforce, it is important for the labour
in shifting the location of work. The drive movement to give attention to women's needs
towards subcontracting means reduction in the and demands (Mitter, 1994a). It would be
volume of work at large sites and transference of wrong to assume that all women share the same
jobs to subcontracting units in the Third World aspirations and similar concerns. Yet, because of
(Mitter, 1994a: 20-22). This explains why the their role as primary homemakers and carers
number of unionised workers declines even for children, most women tend to have different
when the employment in transnational prod- priorities in their workplace from men.
uction goes up (ling, 1994: 49). In order to ensure that women gain, on a par
Automation and subcontracting are two with men, from the benefits of the new economic
important facets of globalisation and technology order, women want the labour movement to
transfer. They both reduce women's prospects have a more holistic and woman-orientated
of assembly-line employment in the organised approach towards mobilising workers in the
sector. Export processing zones typify such transnational world. It is timely to stress this
prospects, where the share of women in the total point, as efforts in reorientating the labour
labour force shows a sign of decline (UNCTAD, movement focus mainly on its structure rather
1994: 202). In maquiladora industries, the than on the nature of its demands.
decline has been quite sharp (Hualde, 1995), as The structural problems, of course, are
the upgrading of required skills has meant crucial, especially in the context of the growing
greater opportunities for men than women. In importance ofTNCs in the developing world. As

15
Women'srightsand development

the World Investment Report (1994) so succinctly increasingly necessary to lobby for a different,
puts it, it is difficult for the trade union move- more proactive, role for the national govern^
ment to match the organisational scope of the merits. This will be necessary to ensure a better-"
TNCs by transnationalising their own working environment, with greater resources
structures, because of: for education, training, and social provisions.
The resulting benefits, of improved human
... differences in labour market legislation, the
resources and infrastructure, in turn, may
problem of defining mutual interests among
entice a larger flow of FDI.
differently organised national groups ... and the
difficulties of organising workers from the
The withering away of the state is by no_
increasingly fluid relations within TNC networks.
means compatible with the long-term welfare of
(UNCTAD, 1994: xxxi) the workers in the globalised economic order.
In the coming millennium, women workers of
Even in its exclusive focus on structure, the the Third World will thus demand a new role for
World Investment Report fails to take note of the the state, for themselves, and for men.
challenges of organising the unorganised
workers of dispersed small subcontractors of the
national and increasingly transnational corpor- Note
ations (Martens and Mitter, 1994). In order to 1 This paper, given at the CASID conference,
be relevant to the needs of women in the Montreal, Canada (4-6 June 1995) is a more fully
unorganised sector, the workers' organisations elaborated version of Swasti Mitter's presentation
- within or outside trade unions - need to have a at the 'Women's Rights and Development"
patient, long-term approach to organising, with seminar.
a focus on campaigns that may last for
years(Mitter, 1994b).
But it is not simply a question of structure. In
order to be credible to workers of both the References
organised and the unorganised sectors, the Fukuyama, F (1992) The End of History and the Last
labour movement needs to take up issues that Man, Hamish Hamilton, London.
are particularly important for working women. Gaio, F J (1995) 'Women in software programming:
Women, irrespective of their class and the experience of Brazil', in Mitter and Rowbotham
background, demand: (1995).
Gannage, C (1995) 'Restructuring and retraining: the
* provisions such as maternity leave and child Canadian garment industry in transition', in Mitter
and Rowbotham (1995).
care, which would allow them to combine
their productive and reproductive roles and Gothoskar, S (1995) 'Computerisation and women's
employment in India's banking sector', in Mitter and
thus improve the overall quality of their lives; Rowbotham (1995).
* training and education, which would make it
Hobsbawm, E (1994) Age of Extremes: The Short
possible for them to have a sustainable and Twentieth Century, 1914-1991, Michael Joseph,
lifelong career in the urban industrial sector; London.
flexible forms of employment, on terms that Hualde (1995): 'Changing gender structure of
would enable them to combine their working employment in maquiladoras: implications for
and family lives without jeopardising their training'. Mimeo, UNU-INTECH, Maastricht.
long-term health; Kaplinsky, R, with A Posthuma (1994) Easternisation:
knowledge regarding the health and safety The Spread of Japanese Management Techniques, Frank
aspects of computer-aided forms of Cass, London.
production (Ng, 1994b; Pearson and Mitter, ling, Wong Wai (1994) Technological changes and
1993). the employmentsituation ofwomen in East and South
EastAsiaI,inNg(1994).
In the privatised, deregulated national econ- Martens, M H, and S Mitter, (eds.) (1994) Women in
omies, it is neither feasible nor reasonable to Trade Unions: Organising the Unorganised, ILO,
Geneva.
expect the employers to meet all the demands.
The demand for maternity leave, for example, Meihe Z, Yan Gue Itai, and Le Thi (1994) 'Women
and new technology in China and Vietnam', in Ng
can lead to corporate employers' preference for (1994).
male workers. For unions, and for the women
Mitter, S (1994a) 'What women demand of
workers' movement outside the unions, it will be technology', New Left Review, May/June.

16
Women's rights and development

Mitter, S (1994b) 'An overview', in Martens and


Mitter(1994).
Mitter, S, and R Pearson (1992) Global information
processing: the emergence of software and data entryjobs in
selected developed countries, Sectoral Activities
Programme Working Papers, ILO, Geneva.
Mitter, S, and S Rowbotham (1995) Women Encounter
Technology: Perspectives of the Third World, Routledge,
London.
Ng, C, (ed.) (1994) 'New Technologies and the Future
of Women's Work in Asia: Conference Proceedings of
the Workshop held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia',
UNU/INTECH, Maastricht.
Ng, C, and C Yong (1995) 'Information technology,
gender and employment: a case study of the
telecommunications industry in Malaysia', in Mitter
and Rowbotham (1995).
Pearson, R, and S Mitter (1993). 'Employment and
working conditions of low-skilled information
processing workers in less developed countries',
International Labour Review 132 (1).
Sachs, J and Z Shatz (1994) Trade and jobs in US
manufacturing', Brooking Paper on Economic Activity 1,
The Brooking Institute, Washington DC.
UNCTAD (1994) World Investment Report, 1994:
Transnational Corporations, Employment and the
Workplace, United Nations, New York and Geneva.
Wood, A (1994) North-South Trade, Employment and
Inequality: Changing Fortunes in a Skill-driven World,
Clarendon Press, Oxford.
World Bank (1995) Global economic prospects and the
developing countries, 1995, World Bank, Washington
DC.

17
A development agency as a patriarchal cooking pot:
the evaporation of policies for women's advancement
Sara Hlupekile Longwe, Longwe Clarke and Associates, Lusaka

Introduction First, we shall look at this strange process of


policy evaporation. Then we shall attempt to
Ten years ago, in the UN Forward Looking analyse the structure of the 'patriarchal pot' in
Strategies for the Advancement of Women, the which the policy evaporated. We shall look at a
nations of the world set themselves brave goals development agency in terms of the male bias
for women's empowerment and equality. But implicit within its values, ideology, development
the plain fact is that these goals have not been theory, material interests, organisation, and
achieved; indeed, little or no progress has been procedures. We are, as it were, peering into a
made. In many developing countries, the complex cooking pot, the lid of which normally
position of women has worsened over the past remains dosed. This is the pot into which
ten years, and there has been a worldwide policies for women's advancement are thrown.
pattern of increased feminisation of poverty.1 It is the strange patriarchal pot of much input,
This is despite the fact that, after the 1985 but no output. Officially, the policy exits, and
World Conference on Women, all major devel- the pot does not. But this paper says that the
opment agencies altered their policies, to ensure policy has evaporated, and we are looking for
a better focus on various aspects of women's the pot
equality and empowerment. We are left with the
question of why such a large collective develop-
ment policy has produced virtually no results. Welcome to NORDIDA
The usual assumption is that the develop-
For a concrete example of a patriarchal cooking
ment agencies are trying hard, but are up
pot we really need to look at die real-life world of
against resistance from the patriarchal govern-
a particular development agency, and its
ments and traditional societies of the Third programmes in a particular country. But if we
World. But in my experience, the situation is not do that, we shall have to endure a dreadful
so simple. This paper argues that lack of chorus, entirely denying the existence of any
progress in the implementation of policies for patriarchal cooking pot. This chorus will come
women's advancement must be seen in terms of from those who wear different theoretical
the common interests of both the development spectacles to myself and who therefore cannot
agency and the Third World government. In see gender inequality or gender issues. For
other words, the reason for the lack of progress them, development is a non-political activity,
is better understood in terms of a patriarchal and feminism is a dirty word. For them, the
alliance between the two sides. patriarchal cooking pot is genuinely invisible.
This paper therefore looks at the various To save myself from being deafened by this
ways in which, in the hands of a typical chorus of denial, I shall take us away to the
development agency, the policy on women's country of Nordia, a very isolated country in the
advancement simply evaporates. It is argued North, which no foreigner except myself has
that this tendency towards policy evaporation ever visited. Nordia has its own government
originates in the patriarchal culture of the development agency called NORDIDA, which is
development agency, which naturally impedes an administrative extension of the Ministry of
its ability to implement policies concerned with Foreign Affairs in the Republic of Nordia. We
women's equality and advancement. The shall look at the development activities of
principles and values of feminism would not NORDIDA in the People's Republic of Sundia,
only contradict the agency's internal norms and one of the least developed countries in Southern
traditions, but would also stand in the way of Africa.2
cosy and comfortable alliances with the
patriarchal governments of the Third World.

18
Women's rights and development

The NORDIDA policy of the government has established a WID


women's empowerment Department in the Ministry of Finance and
Planning.
Ten years ago NORDIDA adopted a radical new
policy called Women's Empowerment for
Development. As in other development Policy evaporation
agencies, this policy development followed the
But, in Sundia, all these bilateral policy commit-
guidelines of the Forward Looking Strategies. The
ments have evaporated. Before we begin to look
new NORDIDA policy guideline was approved
for the underlying patriarchal culture which has
by the Parliamentary Committee on
caused such policy evaporation, we should'first-
Development, after consultation with NODA, a
examine some of the main external signs of this
network of NGOs in Nordia concerned with
evaporation.
women'sadvancement. Through NODA, the
women's movement in Nordia managed to shift If you walk into the NORDIDA office in
the policy in the direction of definite commit- Sundia, the evidence of policy evaporation soon
ments to work for women's advancement in becomes apparent. Let us suppose you are a
developing countries. gender consultant who has been called in to look
at attention to gender issues in a NORDIDA
Previously NORDIDA policy had adopted a programme - let us say the NORDIDA
welfare approach to women's development, Programme of Support to the Health Sector in
focusing on separate 'women's projects' Sundia. Thefirstthing you would do is to ask for
concerned with improving women's income and a copy of the programme plan and read it in the
access to resources. The difference between the light of policy requirements. You conduct your
new policy and the previous policy is easy to initial gender assessment by setting the
summarise: the previous policy was concerned provisions of this plan against the requirements
with improving the welfare of women, taking of the NORDIDA 1985 policy on Women's
the existing social system and traditions as Empowerment for Development. The table
given; by contrast, the new policy is concerned overleaf summarises your findings, and
with enabling women's advancement by provides an example of the process of gender
women's increased mobilisation and empower- policy evaporation.
ment, with overcoming discriminatory prac-
tices, and with giving women an equal place in
society.
The new policy involves gender main-
streaming: addressing issues of gender equality
in all projects supported by NORDIDA. By
comparison with the earlier, welfare approach,
the 1985 policy represents a radical policy shift.
However, it should not be thought that this
represents a policy challenge to the government
of Sundia. On the contrary, Sundia has, like all
other UN members, assented to the Forward
Looking Strategies, and in 1983 ratified the UN
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
Furthermore, the government of Sundia has
published its own fairly radical policy statements
on women's advancement. The Sixth National
Development Plan has a chapter on 'Women
and Development' which states that women
must be 'equally the participants and
beneficiaries' in the development process. In
addition, women's participation in decision-
making is an explicit objective of the govern-
ment's new policy on decentralisation, which
gives more political power and autonomy to
district government. At the administrative level,

19
Women's rights and development

Programme cycle and gender policy evaporation


Aspect of programme cycle Aspect of gender evaporation
(Critique of the programme plan)
Situation analysis: There is an overview of main Critique of situation analysis: Some credit has to be
health problems inSundia and the deteriorating given for the feet that gender issues have been
health status of the rural population. There is a mentioned. However, the separate section on
separate section on gender issues, which states that gender issues indicates that the policy of
there is a general problem of discrimination against mainstreaming gender issues is being avoided from -
women in Sundia, but a lack of gender- the outset. The gender aspect ofall problems should *
disaggregated data and information on how have been identified. The separate section on
customary and discriminatory practices affect gender issues does not identify the particular
women's health status. gender issues affecting the health sector. The claim
that gender-disaggregated data is not available is
untrue.
Policy environment- The Health Sector Support Critique of policy environment: There is no mention of
Programme is justified in terms of softening the the gender implications and inequalities arising
impact of structural adjustment and in terms of from structural adjustment policies (despite the
supporting government policy on decentralising large literature on this subject). The NORDIDA
control over the health sector. It is mentioned that policy on women's participation and empowerment
it is NORDIDA policy to focus benefits on the most is not mentioned or interpreted for the health
vulnerable, and to increase women's access to sector. Instead the NORDIDA policy is reduced to
resources for improved health. an interest in 'access to resources'.
Overallprogramme strategy: The strategy is to provide Critique of strategy: Now all sign of a gender
improved health services and packages to the most perspective, or even women's concerns, has
needy, to enable increased home care and disappeared ! despite the need for a strategy to
increased capacity in rural health clinics, and to pursue the previously mentioned policy interest in
promote community participation in planning and increasing women's access to resources, and also
implementing health reforms. despite the need to ensure women's participation as
a component in community participation.
Programme goals: These are mainly concerned with Critique of goals: The goal concerned with gender
outlining programme purpose in terms of deb'very issues has been separated from other goals. All of
of health packages, supporting the Ministry of the urgent and glaring gender issues in the health
Health planning unit, and supporting the sector have been ignored. The remaining goals is
formation of district health management boards. low-level in terms of NORDIDA and Sundian policy
There is one goal concerned with improving on gender.
women's access to health resources.
Project objectives: The Programme is divided into 12 Critique of objectives: The small interest in gender
projects, each with detailed objectives. No objective issues which remained in the Goals has not been
mentions women or gender, and no objective can translated into any project objectives aimed at
be construed as being concerned with addressing a improving women's access to health resources.
gender issue. Obviously, the process of gender policy evaporation
is now complete.
Project management and organisation: Here there isCritique of project management: Women's
some detail on the distribution of responsibility participation in project planning and management
between NORDIDA, Ministry, and District. There should be a necessary part of community
is a short section on community participation, participation. This would enable women's control
which does not mention women's participation. over the reform process, to ensure that there is a fair
gender distribution of labour in home care, and to
ensure that the health care needs of women and
children are met.

Programme implementation: The NORDIDA health Critique of implementation: Visits to several project
adviser claims that gender issues have been omitted sites reveal that the claims that projects are
from project documents to avoid unnecessary addressing gender issues are completely false. Such
argument at the planning stage. But the health claims may have been made in good faith, by a
adviser says staff have been trained to be 'gender- person with no understanding of gender issues. The
sensitive', and issues of women's participation and programme has no gender adviser. One project
gender equality are addressed at the managerflatlystates, This is a health project, not a
implementation stage. women's liberation project.'

20
Women's rights and development

Looking at the 'gender critique* of the established a WID Department in die Ministry
NORDIDA health programme shown in the of Planning, this department has made little^
table, the reader may get the uneasy feeling that progress in persuading the sectoral ministries to -'
she has already been to Sundia, or at least other produce gender-oriented policies and plans.
places very like it. Gender policy evaporation is a
common phenomenon. Sometimes the policy
evaporates bit by bit, between policy and Feminist analyses of bureaucracy
implementation. Sometimes you only have to Our interpretation begins with die general
turn over a page of the plan, and all the gender notion that NORDIDA is a patriarchal organisa-__
issues previously mentioned have suddenly tion which automatically repudiates " any-
disappeared - evaporation can be a very rapid feminist ideas and policies. In this, NORDIDA is
process- merely following die pattern of all odier instit-
Looking back at the original 1985 policy on utions widiin die Nordian government bureau-
Women's Empowerment for Development, we cracy. Let us first look at the adequacy of diis
can see that its main aspects of gender equality, type of explanation.
empowerment, and mainstreaming have effect- There is a growing feminist theory of organis-
ively been discarded. The gender critique shows ations which interprets bureaucracy as being
that the NORDIDA office in Sundia has not inherendy patriarchal.The general dieoretical
adopted the 1985 policy, but must instead be framework for diis literature is Weberian: die
operating the pre-1985 policy, confining starting point for analysis is that die Weberian
women's development to an interest in welfare ideal for bureaucratic organisation is male-
and increased access to resources. In other gendered and women are accommodated only
words, the above example is enough to reveal on male terms. In odier words, women are
that the 1985 policy is being ignored. accommodated either in subordinate female
We might have spent more time, and had gender roles, or else as honorary males.
more fun, identifying the further evidence of From diis perspective, die very structure and
policy evaporation in Sundia. But this is not our rationality of bureaucracy is interpreted as
main purpose here. The surface evidence of intrinsically patriarchal.5 The hierarchical chain
evaporation is presented here merely for die of bureaucratic audiority is seen as contradict-
purpose of provoking an interest in its ory and antagonistic to women's more partici-
underlying causes. Who is doing what, and why? patory way of making and implementing
decisions. Similarly, Weber's model of a legal-
rational system of bureaucratic thinking is
The larger pattern of policy interpreted as contradictory to die more open,
evaporation pragmatic and consensual modes of thought
The above example of policy evaporation is not which characterise female ways of dunking.4
peculiar to NORDIDA; it is common to most The bureaucratic division of labour into
development agencies operating in Sundia. specialised professions is seen as a division into
Gender policy evaporation is the norm in all male gender roles, contrasting with a female
bilateral and UN agencies. The only develop- division of labour which depends on each
ment agencies which are making a serious effort individual playing a multiplicity of female
are some international NGOs; their pro- gender roles. Perhaps most important, bureau-
grammes are concerned widi linking up with cracy is seen as patriarchal in diat it is male-
Sundian NGOs, particularly those which form dominated, and serves male interests. However,
part of the growing Sundian women's move- investigations into die patriarchal nature of
ment. bureaucracy have so for been confined to an
Policy evaporation among the major develop- analysis of die internal gender relations of
ment agencies isdosely mirrored by policy bureaucracy. In odier words, diere has been a
evaporation within the Sundian government. concern widi how domestic relationships of
The process of evaporation follows the same male gender dominance are reflected in die
pattern here as in the development agencies: pattern of gender relations in die office and
diere is some enthusiasm for a gender-oriented factory.5 Bureaucracy is seen as a 'male dub'
development policy at die political level of where women, if admitted, are domesticated
government, but evaporation rapidly occurs and subordinated.
when these policies reach the government However, in diis paper, our interest is very
bureaucracy. Although die government has different from the approach of die existing

21
Women's rights and development

literature, in two important ways. Firstly, we are (from die government). In this area, bureau-
not concerned here with the lesser matter of cratic rules and procedures are primarily^
how women employees are placed and treated concerned widi ensuring that policy guidelines-"
within the bureaucracy. In other words, we are from the top generate appropriate action
not primarily interested in the position of diroughout the organisation. The hierarchy of
female employees within NORDIDA (subordin- command and die organisational system are
ated though they may be). We are here looking primarily concerned widi policy imple-
at the more fundamental matter of how a mentation.
bureaucracy maintains and reproduces patriarchal It follows diat wilful policy evaporation.,
culture in the -wider society. More specifically, we widiin NORDIDA cannot be justified in die-
are interested in how NORDIDA contributes to terms of Weberian theory. Within a Weberian
the continued subordination of women in interpretation, policy evaporation is incompre-
Sundia, despite have been given the opposite hensible. When a NORDIDA official 'waters
mandate. down' or ignores the policy on women's
Secondly, we argue that the Weberian inter- advancement, die official is actually remaking
pretation of bureaucracy does not explain the policy. To negate policy is automatically a huge
evaporation of policies on women's advance- policy intervention. This entails his/her assum-
ment. On the contrary, die Weberian model of ing powers which are not given in die chain of
bureaucratic principles and rules should rather command, which contradicts a basic principle of
ensure that die policy is taken seriously. Instead bureaucracy.
of looking for the patriarchy inherent widiin the Whereas in odier policy areas an official's
bureaucracy, we should be looking instead for repudiation of policy would merit dismissal, in
the non-bureaucratic aspects of NORDIDA's die area of women's advancement the official
organisation which have diverted it from its may instead be praised for being honest and
formal obligation to implement the policy on pragmatic. Clearly, in diis policy area, a
women's advancement. Therefore we shall different value system is operating. Somediing
consider NORDIDA here as a combination of else is going on.
two different and antagonistic organisations:
overt bureaucracy but covert patriarchy. This Planning
line of analysis is pursued in die remainder of Similarly, policy evaporation during the
this paper. planning process is incomprehensible accord-
ing to Weberian principles. The bureaucracy
works according to given rules and procedures.
NORDIDA as a bureaucracy In planning, this means taking the policy as the
Let us first look at how NORDIDA functions in guideline for die recognition of problems. The
its overt form, as a Weberian-style bureaucracy. purpose of development plans is precisely to
Here our concern is to show that, from a overcomedie problems which are brought to
Weberian theoretical perspective of bureau- light by setting the development policy against
cracy, the evaporation of policy is incompre- die facts of die situation in Sundia. The
hensible at three levels: policy, planning, and problems so identified lead to development
organisation. Let us look at each of diese diree goals, since die goals are concerned with
levels in turn. overcoming the problems. Goals lead to project
objectives, and diese to activities which will
Policy address die problems. This is part of a logical
NORDIDA does not make policy. Policy is made planning process which is essential to a
at die political level of government, and Weberian bureaucracy.
NORDIDA's job is to implement it. To some The gradual evaporation of policy during the
extent it may have to interpret policy, and to planning process is inexplicable in Weberian
balance policy priorities, but such policy-related terms. It entails logical slippage from due
activities are then subject to scrutiny at die process, which is bureaucratic irrationality. It
political level of government, especially by die can only be understood as a mistake, which must
Nordian Parliamentary Committee on be corrected if procedures are to be properly
Development. followed. But if there is a pattern of evaporation
According to the Weberian legitimation of diroughout die area of policy on women's
bureaucracy, implementation of given policies is advancement, dien this cannot be a mistake. It
die central purpose of die chain of command reveals diat diere are odier norms operating,

22
Women's rights and development

quite outside bureaucratic norms. We must ask very different forms of organisation, the overt
ourselves whether there is some other set of and the covert, which both inhabit NORDIDA:
norms and rules operating, which are quite
The overt organisation is the government-"
different from bureaucratic norms.
bureaucracy, with itsexplicit policies and
procedures and its legal-rational system of
Organisation analysis, which is legitimated in terms of the
A third aspect of Weberian bureaucracy is that it Weberian ideal of what a bureaucracy ought
adapts to new policy and new demands by to be. In other words, the Weberian model is
developing specialised departments, staffed by the legitimating ideology of the bureaucracy. -
professionals with training in the area of the new The covert, patriarchal organisation, or the"
policy interest. But, when you ask the 'patriarchal pot' within the organisation,
NORDIDA office in Sundia why the health
which runs counter to the Weberian model
sector programme has overlooked gender
and which enables the subversion of all
issues, the answer is likely to be: 'We have
policies and directives which threaten covert
nobody with the training to understand these
patriarchal interests.
things.'
According to the policy, each NORDIDA In other words, NORDIDA is simultaneously
programme is supposed to have a gender two organisations under the same roof. The
adviser. However, when you look at the plan for overt organisation is a conventional bureau-
the Health Sector Support Programme, you cracy, which is obliged to implement policies
find that there are detailed terms of reference handed down by government. The covert
for three or four specialised advisers, but no organisation is what we have here called the
mention of a gender adviser. Such a situation, 'patriarchal pot', which ensures that patriarchal
ten years after the publication of a new policy, interests are preserved. When presented with
reveals a dear unwillingness to develop the feminist policies, the overt and the covert
necessary specialist expertise to interpret and organisations have opposing interests, values,
implement the policy. Again this behaviour is rules and objectives: bureaucratic principles
incomprehensible within a Weberian theory of demand implementation, while patriarchal
bureaucracy. It demands some other explan- principles demand evaporation.
ation.
From a Weberian perspective, bureaucrats'
official opinions are formed only in terms of The culture of the patriarchal pot
given policies, and given rules and procedures. If we are to put the label 'patriarchal pot' upon
Officially, they do not have their own personal the organisation which subverts female gender
opinions, or if they do, such opinions must not interests, we need to understand more about the
interfere with their work. From Weber's point of way the patriarchal pot can exist alongside
view, the whole point of a modern bureaucracy bureaucracy, given their apparently antagon-
was that it broke with earlier and medieval istic relationship. We need to know more about
systems of administration which were patri- the structure and behaviour of the pot and how
monial, patriarchal, autocratic, arbitrary, incon- it maintains its existence, which means analysing
sistent, and irrational. the interests served by the pot, the ideology
which legitimates it, and the procedures which
maintain it. Furthermore, if the pot is actually
Overt bureaucracy and covert antagonistic to bureaucracy, we need to know
patriarchy how the contradictory and cancerous pot can
continue to survive and thrive in partnership
The evidence drives us towards an under-
with bureaucracy.
standing of the patriarchal behaviour of
NORDIDA in terms of its departure from
Weberian norms of bureaucracy. It is not Internal NORDIDA interests
enough to say that NORDIDA is a bureaucracy The patriarchal interests within NORDIDA are
and that bureaucracies are inherently not hard to find. First, of course, like other
patriarchal. The above analysis reveals that if bureaucracies North and South, it is male-
NORDIDA sticks to the bureaucratic rules, it dominated. Gender inequalities in recruitment,
cannot ditch the policy on women's advance- conditions of service, and promotion are essen-
ment. We suggest that an organisation such as tial to maintaining the NORDIDA tradition of
NORDIDA has to be understood in terms of two male domination, male culture, and male club

23
Women's rights and development

atmosphere. NORDIDA is run as a wing of the common interest. Diplomatic relationships have
Nordian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which has to remain very cosy, so that the Ambassador can
always been a male preserve. have an easy life and spend most of his time at-
Implementing a development policy for the golf club.
women's advancement therefore threatens the
male domination of NORDIDA. It immediately The men's club alliance
suggests the need to recruit more women, and - The easy and cosy relationship between the
even more threatening - to recruit feminists. officials of NORDIDA and MOP needs also to be
Herein lies the internal threat to NORDIDA: understood in terms of the 'men's dub' culture
that feminist recruits would not confine their to which they both belong. Officials on both side
interests to the advancement of women within belong to the Sundian male culture of meetings,
Sundia, but would be equally interested in the cocktail parties and the golf club. They live in a
advancement of women within NORDIDA. world of male privilege which, in Sundia, is even
more premised on male domination than the
NORDIDA's external interests equivalent social world in Nordia.
Since we are looking at NORDIDA's operations This men's club culture infects both the office
in Sundia, we are here more interested in how and the social world of the high level bureaucrat
NORDIDA's external relations serve to sustain in Sundia. At the office, the privileged male
the patriarchal pot We need to look at the work ofhigh-level decision-making is supported
North-South patriarchal alliance which forges by the menial female work of office cleaning,
NORDIDA's character and sets the institutional secretarial work and document production.
norms on issues of gender relations in develop- Similarly, at the domestic level, the husband's
ment 6 full-time professional occupation is enabled by
Here we have to understand the common- the 'little woman' at home who looks after the
ality of patriarchal interest between NORDIDA home, children, schooling, and shopping. The
and its cooperating ministry, the Sundian leisure hours at cocktail party and golf club are
Ministry of Planning (MOP). Both are financed by the unpaid or exploited labour of
government bureaucracies and therefore have the 'lower orders', especially their female
common experience and procedures when it members.
comes to delaying,subverting or ignoring In the Sundian men's club, women are not
government policies which threaten the discussed as equals, or even as human beings.
privileges they have by virtue of class, tribe, Women are sexual objects or commodities, to be
religious group, gender, and so on. In fact, hunted as sexual prey or acquired for additional
when it comes to falling short of Weberian ideals wealth and prestige. NORDIDA officials who
of legal-rational behaviour, the Sundian attempt to introduce policies of gender equality
Ministry falls further short than NORDIDA. into the development discourse not only upset
As regards gender, the Sundian MOP has the workplace, they upset the whole patriarchal
exactly the same problem as NORDIDA. It too is culture. In particular, they upset the men's club,
part of a government which, at the political which is not only the centre of their social life,
level, has handed down policies on women's but also their essential meeting place for
equality and advancement. In fact MOP officials informal contacts and influence.
have a more serious interest in ensuring policy It is NORDIDA's membership of the Sundian
evaporation: the government gender policy men's dub which, to a large extent, explains
threatens not only male domination within NORDIDA's frequent daim that 'we cannot
MOP, but also threatens the continuance of the interfere with the local culture'. The culture of
patriarchal control of society as a whole. The male domination is the culture of the men's
Sundian government policy on gender equality dub; it is a dub to which they themselves belong,
would challenge the customary laws and and from which they profit.
traditions which have always maintained male
domination of Sundian society.
Therefore the patriarchal alliance between
NORDIDA and MOP has a simple basis in
common interest. The Nordian Ambassador,
who is in charge of the Sundia NORDIDA office,
always ensures that nothing disturbs such

24
Women's rights and development

The structure of the conditionality. But when it comes to gender


patriarchal pot equality, a different rationale comes into play. ^
Suddenly NORDIDA behaves like a diplomatic. -
We have looked at the common interests and mission rather than a development agency. Dev-
culture of patriarchal alliance which sustain the elopment policy principles strangely give way to
continued existence of the patriarchal pot. But diplomatic principles. About NORDIDA's
we still need to look at how the pot actually gender policy the Ambassador suddenly
works. How are we to understand the actual becomes very diplomatic, and states that 'we
process by which a particular policy can cannot interfere with the internal affairs of
evaporate while others do not? Here we have to Sundia'. On structural adjustment, "the.
look at the structure of the pot, in terms of its Ambassador's diplomatic gloss disappears, and
relationship to the overt bureaucracy and in he talks tough. But when he talks of gender
terms of its legitimating theory and ideology. issues, his diplomatic gloss becomes impen-
etrable.
Diplomacy in defence of patriarchy When the Ambassador talks of structural
The Ambassador's simple formula for adjustment, he is in charge of a bureaucracy.
implementing a NORDIDA development When he talks of gender issues, he is in charge of
support programme in Sundia is to drop any the patriarchal pot. We cannot describe his
aspect of NORDIDA policy which proves behaviour as bureaucratic in both cases, since
difficult in Sundia. In fact the Ambassador's the essence of the Weberian model of bureau-
general stance on offering development assist- cracy is that the same principles must apply to all
ance has no reference to NORDIDA policies: the cases.
explicit stance is merely to provide support for
selected aspects of MOP programmes. As far as Theory in support of pot preservation
possible, the Ambassador tries to reduce The most important aspect of preserving the
NORDIDA policy in Sundia to the selection of patriarchal pot is that it should remain invisible,
the particular MOP programmes for which since NORDIDA is legitimated as aWeberian-
NORDIDA will provide support. Such a style bureaucracy which follows established
selection process is usually conducted as if there Nordian government policy. One important
were complete Nordian-Sundian consensus on way of enabling the pot to evaporate gender
development policy. policy quietly and invisibly is to adopt a
However, this smooth diplomatic gloss vocabulary in which discussion of women's
conceals the need for policy-level negotiation in empowerment becomes impossible. This may be
areas where in fact there is not a policy achieved by adopting a technical rationalisation
consensus. All NORDIDA development prin- of the development process, which has no
ciples have implications for changing the theoretical power for the analysis - or even the
structure of Sundian society. Therefore all recognition - of the political and ideological
development cooperation between Nordia and aspects of the development process. Here the
Sundia needs to be based on initial negotiations essential technical rationalisation is to limit the
to ensure that the policy priorities of both sides discourse on women's advancement to the level
are being pursued. of providing for women's basic needs and
In practice there is currently considerable increasing women's access to resources. Within
explicit conditionality on the provision of this vocabulary, it is possible to discuss women's
NORDIDA aid to Sundia. This conditionality is advancement within the existing social system,
concerned with enforcing Sundian conformity and not in terms of the need to reform the social
to a policy of structural adjustment which has system.
been imposed by the IMF and which has the An equally important point concerns the
support of most development agencies in place of gender issues in the planning process.
Sundia, including NORDIDA. But the impos- This is perhaps the most important theoretical
ition of structural adjustment entails no con- principle of the patriarchal pot: the principle
ditionality on gender equality. On the contrary, that addressing gender issues is a secondary concern
structural adjustment policies are actually in any project, and relates only to improved project
detrimental to policies of gender equality and efficiency. In other words, it is not a primary
women's advancement. concern of any project to address a gender issue.
Where structural adjustment is concerned, The project's primary purpose relates to purely
development agency policy is enforced by technical objectives: increasing the water

25
Women'srightsand development

supply, improving institutional capacity, or Covert procedures of the


whatever. The purpose of gender analysis is to patriarchal pot ^
identify the different gender roles of men and
women, so that both genders can make an But the problem cannot be kept invisible
effective and efficient contribution to project entirely by controlling vocabulary. The problem
success. still has to be managed in areas outside
The final important aspect of technical NORDIDA's vocabulary control. For instance
rationalisation is that it automatically excludes there may be vocal members of the women's
all awkward normative and political words. This movement in both Nordia and Sundia who want
to know why there seems to be no action" on
is in contrast to the NORDIDA policy
NORDIDA's policies for women's advance-
document, which uses political phrases such as
ment. Within the Nordian government and
'women's participation in decision-making',
parliament, there may be feminists who begin to
'women's control over resources', and 'women's
realise that NORDIDA has no intention of
empowerment'. But in Sundia, the Nordian
putting the policy into practice and is instead
Ambassador has advised all NORDIDA staff actively thwarting the policy. Consultants and
that, as technical advisers, they should avoid all evaluators from Nordia and elsewhere may ask
politically loaded words in planning documents. to look at NORDIDA-supported programmes,
He has explained that this is particularly and they are very likely to compare policy with
important in the area of gender, which is a progress. All these situations have to be
'sensitive' area in Sundia. In fact, the managed.
Ambassador has advised all NORDIDA staff to
avoid the phrase 'gender inequality', and So, if a gender issue does actually get onto the
instead to talk more diplomatically about agenda, how is it to be dealt with? The answer is
'gender differences'. He has advised that the that it must apparently be dealt with by normal
phrase 'gender equality' was identified as bureaucratic procedure. But this must be done
particularly likely to upset the MOP, and that in such a way that the gender issue will slowly,
the word 'equality' should be replaced by slowly, evaporate away.
'equity' or other non-threatening vocabulary. Of course this is not bureaucratic procedure
in the Weberian sense. Weberian bureaucracy
is, by definition, an efficient method of public
The implicit ideology of the patriarchal pot administration. By contrast, the procedures of
Here we see that the purpose of theory is to the patriarchal pot ensure that the issue evap-
obscure ideology. The underlying ideological orates before it has been addressed. The
principle is that systems of male domination in procedures of the patriarchal pot mock bureau-
Sundia are not to be the subject of development cratic procedure, to make sure that what goes in,
interventions. Any intervention is this area is to never comes out; the patriarchal pot enacts a
be labelled as 'interference'.7 Whereas, in strange slow-motion parody of bureaucratic
general, socio-economic aspects of inequality procedure. What looks on the surface like
may be addressed in NORDIDA-supported bureaucracy is actually the slow destructive
projects, the of structural gender equality may boiling of the patriarchal pot.
not to be the subject of development interven- Let us take an example from the NORDIDA
tions, even in programmes concerned with Health Sector Support Programme in Sundia.
other aspects of structural adjustment. The Let us imagine that the visiting consultant, sent
principle is that NORDIDA will work within the by the Nordian Parliamentary Committee on
existing patriarchal structure. Development, has visited the project and has
This, of course, must remain covert ideology. pointed out that Sundian government family-
It must remain covert for the simple reason that planning clinics are discriminating against
the overt principles are the exact opposite. Both women. Specifically, the family-planning clinics
NORDIDA and Sundia have explicit develop- refuse to provide women with contraceptives
ment policies concerned with promoting unless they bring a letter of permission from
gender equality and ending practices of gender their husbands. In effect this makes contracep-
discrimination. This points to the absolute tives unavailable to most married women and to
importance of technical rationalisation as a all single women. And a major part of the
system of discourse. Within a technical and non- NORDIDA health sector budget is to provide
political vocabulary, the ideological contra- support for family-planning clinics.
diction between policy and practice never comes The consultant has dearly revealed a lack of
up for discussion. It remains invisible. attention to the NORDIDA gender policy on

26
Women's rights and development

ending discriminatory practices. The First Since verbal defence must entail misrep-
Secretary in the NORDIDA country office has to resentation or even plain lying, the First
respond to this criticism, and may even have to Secretary may choose alternative procedures --
be seen to take action and make changes in the which admit the problem and propose action to
office. address it. This brings us to the procedures of
Let us now look at some of the ways in which diversionary action. These procedures are of
the First Secretary may respond to such course represented as purposeful, but in
criticism. This will reveal some of the standard practice they are diversionary.
procedures of the patriarchal pot which may be
used to ensure that this gender issue soon
evaporates.8 We can divide the procedures into Procedures for diversionary
verbal defence, diversionary action and ineffect- action
ualorganisational change. Let us look at each of Lip service: The consultant has pointed to a problem
these categories in turn. which has been worrying usfor sometime.We are most
If possible, the First Secretary will want to grateful for her clear analysis of the problem and her
confine his reaction to verbal defence, which recommendations for action. We intend to establish a
involves defending the programme from the Consultative Committee to look at these
consultant's criticisms, which are portrayed as recommendations, which have implications for
mistaken. improving our attention to gender issues in all
NORDIDA programmes.
(This is a procedure for sounding good at the
Procedures for verbal defence time, but with absolutely no intention to take
Denial: The consultant, who was only herefor a week, any action. It is verbal action not matched by any
has misunderstood the problem. It is Sundian policy material action.)
that contraceptives are made available only to couples. Research study: The consultant has pointed to fust
Thus the clinic is only following government policy, to one aspect of a large problem area, which is very
which NORDIDA also must also conform. sensitive and touches on matters of Sundian custom
(Flat denial is a dangerous procedure, because it and tradition. We have decided to appoint a team from
usually involves obvious lies. In this case the the Sundian Research Institute to look at gender issues
claim about Sundian government policy is . in all sectors in the context of structural adjustment,
completely untrue!) and to make recommendations on the implications for
Inversion: There is a problem here, but it originates NORDIDA.
in the home and not in. the clinic. It is husbands who (By the time the report comes out, at the end of
insist that wives can only be given contraceptives with next year, the original problem should have
their permission, and Sundian wives accept this been forgotten. In any case, the report will be
situation. This is therefore a domestic problem, in writtenlike a PhD thesis and most readers will
which the Sundian government cannot interfere, let not be able to understand it.)
alone NORDIDA. Shelving: The Research Report on Gender Issues in
(This should be recognised as a yet another the Context of Structural Adjustment in Sundia has
version of the old strategy of blaming the now been completed. It has been sent to HQ in Nordia
victim.) for their consideration, since it is one ofseveral reports
Policy dilution: NORDIDA policy is concerned on this issue which were commissioned in different
with increasing access to resources, which we have parts of the world.
done by providing more clinics and stocking them with (The Report has been shelved. It will never be
a variety of contraceptives. We have done our part seen again.)
from a development point of view. The rules Even more diversionary is ineffectual organis-
determining who is eligible to receive contraceptives ational change, since this is a mere preparation
must remain in the hands of the government, and this for subsequent diversionary action, and
is a very sensitive cultural issue in which we could not suggests a much longer timescale on the road to
possibly interfere. doing nothing. Moreover, if the organisational
(It is not true that NORDIDA policy is limited to change is inappropriate, the effects will never be
providing resources to government. The policy seen.
also involves enabling women's empowerment,
and overcoming the obstacles of discriminatory
practices.)

27
Women's rights and development

Procedures for ineffectual Wander has been invited as a token woman. In


organisational change any meeting she will be allowed to speak for fiv^_
token minutes, to ensure that 'the woman>"
Compartmentalisation: We are now establishing point of view has been heard', before the men
the new post of WID Counsellor to head the new WID take their decision.)
section in the NORDIDA office in Sundia. The WID
counsellor will advise on gender issues in all projects,
will supervise the planning of support for women's Conclusion
projects, and will be in charge of gender training for
Returning from the mythical People's Republic
NORDIDA staff and counterparts.
of Sundia, let us ask ourselves how mythical k
(The NORDIDA country office is divided into
really is. Is NORDIDA not very like an agency
sections by conventional sector: health, educa-
we know very well? Is Sundia not a country
tion, and so on. Therefore the creation of a
which seems to be very familiar? If any of this
separate WID section effectively treats gender as
description of the patriarchal pot rings true in
a separate sector, when it is actually supposed to
our own experience, then we need to think
be an inter-sectoral concern. This compart-
again about how the women's movement, North
mentalisation contradicts the NORDIDA policy
and South, can contribute to the process of
of mainstreaming gender issues in all sectors of
women's advancement.
development assistance. The WID counsellor
will soon understand that hers is a very junior We may have previously, unthinkingly,
post and that promotion prospects depend very regarded government and UN development
much on confining her interest to the separate agencies as a means towards women's advance-
women's projects and otherwise keeping quiet ment. And perhaps they could be. But the above
about gender issues.) analysis suggests that patriarchal agencies are
very much part of the problem, and an obstacle
Subversion: / have appointed our Second Secretary, to progress.
Mrs Patrison, to take on the additional responsibility of
For the global women's movement, the
WID counsellor in our office here in Sundia. I know
unmasking of the patriarchal pot has endless
she is very young and has no previous experience in
implications. For instance, it shows that it is not
gender issues. But I am sure she will soon pick it up.
enough to ensure the establishment of gender-
(This appointment is an act of pure cynicism.
oriented development policy, on the assump-
Patrison is a junior official well known for her
tion that this policy will then be pursued.
incompetence and administrative confusion,
Instead it shows that the women's movement,
and famous for immediately losing any
North and South, must also mobilise to monitor
document which is given to her. As a junior
the activities and progress of development
official, she will not be in a position to influence
agencies, on the assumption that the gender-
the planning of sectoral programmes which are
oriented policy will not be pursued unless there
overseen by more senior officials. In this way,
is independent monitoring.
the NORDIDA policy of having a WID
This paper has peered briefly into a
counsellor in each country office is followed in
government bureaucracy and revealed some of
principle, but subverted in practice.)
the ways in which it can work to maintain and
Tokenism: / am pleased to announce that the wife of
reproduce patriarchy in the wider society. The
the vice-president, Mrs Charity Wander-Wander, has
analysis strongly suggests that feminists should
agreed to sit on our Sundia-NORDIDA Health
also take government bureaucracies as a prime
Programme Committee. Until now the Sundian
target of interest, to end their male majority and
members of this Committee have been all men, but now
male domination, and to introduce gender
we shall hear the women's voice on some of these
equality and feminist principles. The women's
difficult issues concerning tradition and custom.
movement is making a mistake if it does not take
(Mrs Wander-Wander is a well-known
such an interest in the workings of government
traditionalist. In fact she is known for telling
bureaucracy. If we want to change the world, we
women to obey their husbands! There are many
cannot dismiss bureaucracy as part of the 'male
women prominent in the Sundian women's
world', as if patriarchy could be defeated
movement who should have been invited to sit
anywhere else - in the NGO movement, in issue
on this Committee. In any case, half the
politics, and in alternative forms of organisation
members of this Committee ought to be women
and government. Bureaucracy is not just
if the NORDIDA policy on women's
another part of the 'men's dub' which will have
participation is to be followed. Mrs Wander-
to change in due course. Bureaucracy is the

28
Women's rights and development

means by which patriarchy is perpetuated. talk: sexuality, power and work, Verso, London,
Moreover, it is not merely the internal 1989.
patriarchal culture of bureaucracy which needs 6 My earlier paper, Towards better N o r t h s -
be reformed. A related, and more important, South communication ...', referred to in note
need is the need to reform bureaucracy so that it 3 above, represents my previous attempt to
will implement, rather than evaporate, the analyse the North-South patriarchal alliance.
policies on women's equality which are handed 7 For my earlier discussion of how the word
down from the political level of government. 'intervention' suddenly changes to
Bureaucracy must be converted to 'femocracy'. 'interference' see Sara Longwe, 'Institutional
This task may be necessary for all institutions of opposition to gender sensitive development:"
government bureaucracy in the North, not just learning to answer back', Gender and
development agencies. Development 3:1,1995.
But this paper was written merely to analyse 8 I first wrote about these 'procedures' under
the problem, not to explore the implications of the heading of 'strategies of bureaucratic
the analysis. Perhaps that should be the subject resistance' in Sara Longwe, 'From welfare to
of my next paper. empowerment: the situation of women in
development in Africa', Women in
International Development, Working Paper
Notes no. 204, Michigan State University,
1 The declaration being prepared for present- Michigan, 1990.
_ation to the Fourth World Conference on
Women, the UN Draft Platform of Action of
March 1995, flatly states that 'the goals set
forth in the ForwardLooking Strategies have
not been achieved' (para.35), and summar-
ises the pattern of women's increased
impoverishment (para. 39).
2 Some readers may already be familiar with
some aspects of Nordia and Sundia from my
discussion of an earlier visit in Towards
better North-South communication on
women's development: avoiding the
roadblocks of patriarchal resistance', paper
presented at a WIDE Workshop on Gender
Planning (Dublin, 28 February 1992). I am
grateful to my partner Roy Clarke for the
endless discussions which led to the invention
of NORDIDA and Sundia. It should also be
noted that the invention puts me in the
privileged position where my evidence
cannot be challenged. My analysis of
patriarchal resistance within development
agencies was carried further in a subsequent
paper, 'Breaking the patriarchal alliance:
governments, bilaterals and NGOs', Focus on
Gender 2:3,1994.
3 For a recent overview of the literature in this
area, and some of the latest contributions, see
Mike Savage and Anne Witz (eds), Gender and
bureaucracy, Blackwell, Oxford, 1992.
4 The claim that women have a different way of
thinking was notably argued in Carol
Gilligan, In a different voice, Harvard
University Press, 1982.
5 Perhaps the most famous example of such an
investigation is Rosemary Pringle, Secretaries

29
Gender and Development in European Development cooperation
Daniela Colombo, AIDoS

In the last few years, I have been assisting the coordination and communication regarding a
European Commission to elaborate a policy series of development themes: poverty, food
statement on gender and development. Two security, AIDS/HIV, health in general, and
years ago, I was asked to carry out an assessment education. The communication from the
of what the European Commission and the Commission to the Council on gender and
member states of the European Union have development will be the sixth in the series; but,
been doing as regards policy and instruments as I have said, it is a communication specifically
on issues concerning women and development concentrating on coordination and collabor-
and gender. That paper is available,' but, when ation and is already creating a lot of problems,
you read it, you must understand that because some of the member states do not want
considerable delays are normal in the European to enlarge the Commission.
Commission: you may do a piece of work in I also prepared background material for a
1993, but have to wait a year for it to be meeting of experts which took place two weeks
discussed, by which time the issues you were ago in Brussels, and already the material I
studying have altered. I made many recom- prepared has been reshuffled. This is a
mendations in my assessment: I wanted to make Commission paper, on which I am not working
some practical recommendations, not just for as an independent consultant, and Commission
things that could be done in the short term or on staff continually work on what I give them.
an immediate level. These recommendations When I received a copy ofwhat is supposed to be
were endorsed by a meeting of a group of the final document, I did not recognise what I
experts which took place in October 1994. wrote.
My first recommendation was that the I think the challenge facing us is that, from
Community should have a dear, written policy the perspective of the women's movement and
statement. The issuing of policy statements falls the gender and development movement, in
within the competence only of the Council of trying to address macro-economic policy issues
Ministers, in this case the Council of we are looking at something with which we are
Development Ministers; and the only way to not familiar The aid budget is the only area of
arrive at a new policy statement is by means of a the European Union budget which is steadily
Communication from the Commission to the increasing. In 1992, the EU spent 2.7 billion
Council on matters of coordination and collab- ECU on development assistance, via the
oration between the Community of the member European Development Fund, which covers
states, leading to a Council Resolution on the cooperation with the countries of Africa, the
subject in question. It is intended that a draft Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP) and
policy paper, the basis for a Council Resolution, cooperation with the countries of Asia, Latin
will be produced before the end of 1995. America and the Mediterranean (ALAMED).
This process forms part of the overall But although the EU's aid budget is increasing,
development cooperation policy review process these increased funds are - to use an expression
known as 'Horizon 2000'. Following the we have in Italy - a 'fig leaf, designed to conceal
conclusion of the Maastricht Treaty of something the EU institutions do not want to
European Union in December 1991, the show. In this case, what is being concealed is
Commission produced a policy review entitled mainly trade policy, which of course involves
Development cooperation policy in the run-up to funds far larger than those devoted to
2000, of which a series of drafts have appeared development cooperation.
since 1992. As part of this policy review process We should not forget that most of this aid has
there have been Council Resolutions on not been applied in a way which takes into

30
Women's rights and development

account issues of gender, although there is relations, which deals with the ALAMED
ample scope for doing so if we strategise countries. The Commission did not understand,
correctly, because there are signs of change in it did not care. Until a few years ago, there was
the EU on this issue. There is evidence of a not even a full Women in Development (WID)
political will to change: Article 130u of title XVII desk in DG VIII or DG I. Also, of course, there
of the Maastricht Treaty indicates that the EU's has been a shortage of resources - until three
development cooperation policy will be guided years ago there was not a Women in
by the following principles and objectives: Development budget line - and I must say that
this was partly our fault. The women's
sustainable economic and social development movement in Europe has shown insufficient _
of the developing countries and especially of interest in gender and development issues. We
the least advanced; have always been very much concerned with our
smooth and gradual integration of these own agenda as European women and, apart
countries into the world economy; from women in the development NGOs, there
eradication of poverty; has not been much attention on the part of the
consolidation of democracy and the rule of women's movement to international solidarity
law, and respect for human rights and outside Europe. I think political commitment is
fundamental freedoms. closely related to the kind of movement and the
There is scope here for improvement as civil society that stands behind it. Lately, this
regards gender, because the objectives set by the tendency to make a division between domestic
Maastricht Treaty show that the Union's and international women's agendas has been
perceptions of the meaning of development and changed, and I think we must really strive to
the causes and conditions of underdevelopment keep up the political momentum.
have been modified. The theoretical agenda has The political momentum is there now. The
shifted. Development strategy must now European Parliament will soon hold, not a
emphasise not only economic growth but also hearing, but a brainstorming session, which
equity, sustainability, and the importance of shows great interest on the part of the women
involving people in programmes and policies. parliamentarians. The parliament now has
As we all very well know, no sustainable larger powers so that it can intervene in a
results can be attained in any of these domains different way in the actions of the Commission.
without the full participation of women. One Women in development, and gender issues, are
would think it would be easy: we know the now firmly enshrined in the Lome Convention.
concept, we know what we want; the question is They are mentioned in the protocols of the
to obtain implementation. In the past, large Cooperation Treaty with the Asian and Latin
difficulties arose from the feet that the American countries, although not yet in the
Community was dealing first with ten countries, protocol with the Mediterranean countries; so
then twelve. Political will and political commit- this is the right time to work for the inclusion of
ment on these issues varied very much gender issues in agreements with
according to the member state that had the Mediterranean countries as well.
Presidency of the Community (which rotates We should also decide what we want from the
every six months). Over the years there have Community and how we want aid money to be
been high points of attention, with constant used. The main focus of the WID and gender
resolutions asking for the Commission to movement in the last 15 years has been main-
implement policies quickly, alternating with streaming, but, in the light of the assessment
dips in interest. Over the 13 years since 1982, that has been done in preparation for Beijing, I
when the first Council Conclusion on women in think we should reflect also the need for positive
development was issued, interest in gender and action. As European women, we have had many
development has proceeded in waves.2 positive action programmes. I use the phrase
One thing has been constant, however, and 'positive action' in the way the European women
that is the lack of management interest. Even if have used it and the way European programmes
the political will was there, the response of the have been implemented through DG V, the
Commission has been very poor, both in DG directorate for social affairs, which has an equal
VIII, the directorate-general for development, opportunities unit. There has been a kind of
which administers the European Development bridging strategy: programmes on training, on
Fund for the ACP countries, and in DG I, the education. I think we should go back and reflect
directorate-general for external economic further on what mainstreaming has achieved

31
Women's rights and development

and whether we need this kind of positive action intended to mitigate the adverse effects of
policy. I hope on this occasion that the commun- structural adjustment policy, and ways of
ication from the Commission to the Council will introducing considerations of gender into this
not be lost, and we must be alert to ensure that must be found.
the gender policy paper being prepared by the This is the right moment to intervene, but we
Commission is sufficiently clear. must strategise and work hard on our national
For the next six months, from July to governments. The European Union is now
December 1995, the presidency will be in the made up of 15 member states, and I think the
hands of Spain. Spain, of course, has very little newcomers (Austria, Sweden and Finland) will
policy either on development cooperation or on probably help us to raise the general level o
women's and gender issues, but the Spanish awareness and commitment to gender equality.
Minister for Social Affairs and the national Some member states have been very progressive
Institute for Women are pushing it very keenly. in this respect, while others do not care about it.
We must make the most of this opportunity, But the Resolution emerging from the
because Spain will be followed in the presidency European Council will also affect those member
by France and then Italy, and gender and states who have been lagging behind.
development certainly is not one of the
priorities of the Italian government; so if we do
not get this issue on the agenda of the Notes
Development Council in November 1995,1 do 1 Daniela Colombo, consultant," Assessment of
not know when we will do so. the WID/gender policies of the European
This is my main message. Certainly, there is a Community and die member states and of
need to intervene at the level of policy their implementation by the various
formulation. The fact that the Council's resolu- administrations.' Brussels, June 1994.
tions are generally stronger than the 2 There have been seven Council Conclusions
communications to it from the Commission is in on women in development, dated 8 January
itself an improvement. The political will is only 1982, 4 November 1985, 17 April 1986, 9
as strong as the bureaucratic will, but the whole November 1987, 16 May 1989, 25 May 1990
complex of development and foreign cooper- and 25 May 1993. If a Resolution is passed in
ation policies needs to be re-examined from a 1995, this will be a significant advance, since
gender perspective; concern for gender Council Resolutions are more binding as
disparities must permeate the process of policy than Conclusions.
defining development goals. Of course, there is
a lot of work to do on a methodological level to
make not only programme assistance but also
non-project aid gender-aware. Analysis needs to
be carried out of the ways gender relations
interrelate with the operations of the economy
and economic institutions. Country strategy
papers are being prepared - some have already
appeared - and ways must be found of
introducing gender issues into them.
The two Women in Development desks at the
Commission - one in DG VIII and one in DGI -
have been very active in commenting onthese
policy moves and documents. They will be
looking again into the methodological and
practical instruments for increasing gender-
awareness in cooperation. Gender manuals
have been produced by the two desks in recent
years, but they have not been widely used, so the
WID desks are looking at more proactive
interventions. They have also started looking at
gender in the EU's structural adjustment policy:
in the Lome Convention there is a separate
chapter dealing with special aid actions

32
Overview of discussion

Discussion following these three very varied economic and labour battles are currendy being
presentations centred on two main topics: fought out. Thus die building of international
institutions, and the nature of the globalised solidarity around women's labour rights is
economy. crucial.
It is important, however, to distinguish
between different groups of women in different
Women and the globalised countries, when demands are being formulated.
economy What is die common ground, and what are die
differences diat must be recognised, between
There was debate around the extent to which
rural women producing cashew nuts in Guinea
the globalised economy touches ordinary
Bissau, women working in export processing
people in the world. Swasti Mitter had
zones in die Dominican Republic, and home-
suggested in her paper that the global
workers in Britain?
economy's outreach was in feet quite limited in
the developing world, since 76 per cent of total It was noted diat some demands for women's
foreign direct investment to developing coun- rights should be directed towards the corporate
tries is concentrated in ten developing countries sector; but we must also remember diat die
of Asia and Latin America, while Africa was corporate sector will never meet some demands,
losing out in the globalisation process. This puts even if it can; and at this point responses must be
half or more of the world's population beyond sought in die new role of die state.
the periphery of the globalised economy, and
gives the lie to the arguments of international
financial institutions that the global capitalist
Institutions and the
model is a fait accompli to which there is no 'patriarchal pot'
alternative. If most people are left outside the Many participants identified strongly widi die
global economic model, then there is room for situation described so graphically in Sara
the development of alternatives. Longwe's paper, which resonated widi dieir
An opposite view was put forward by Devaki experiences in dieir own institutions. The
Jain, who considered that, on the contrary, 'patriarchal pot' is clearly a common feature of
globalisation reaches every household in the development agencies, academic institutions,
world, especially in Africa and Asia, and is and government bodies.
especially affecting women. Its presence is felt Daniela Colombo's experience of losing
not only in employment and production, but in control and ownership of her work for die
consumption, in die social impact of structural European Commission was a case in point. Her
adjustment, and in the conflict and violence inputs into die EU draft policy paper on gender
resulting from the inequalities and injustices and development had simply evaporated, and it
implicit in the neoliberal model. was important to find out why, at what point in
Despite this universal outreach, however, die process, and who was responsible. Sara
economic globalisation is not a unifying force. reminded participants of die importance of
Indeed, there is evidence that the industrialised uncovering die patriarchal pot in each of dieir
workforce is a new site of confrontation between own institutions. Institutions need to be called to
North and South, as production is shifted account for not matching dieir practice to dieir
around the world in search of ever cheaper and tiieory or dieir rhetoric.
more compliant labour. More specifically, one One of die ingredients of the patriarchal pot
participant identified the female industrial is language. Devaki Jain was troubled by die
workforce as the terrain on which international differentiation between academic and activist
Women'srightsand development

discourses. Academic language can be In fact, it was suggested, these differences


mystifying and excluding, and is often designed reveal that there is scope for a different kind of
to be so, and feminists are not exempt from this alliance, an alliance between development--
fault. A seminar held by UNRISD (United NGOs, academics, and women's organisations.
Nations Research Institute on Social People working in NGOs and concentrating on
Development) on mainstreaming gender in day-to-day practical work often have no time to
development policy was cited as an example of do research or to think about the theoretical
alienating language. issues that underpin their work. On the other
On the other hand, it was pointed out that hand, academics have the facilities to do the
gender and development activists and experts research but are often far removed from the.
have to use the language understood by the realities of everyday life. Each activity is valuable
people with whom we are negotiating. If and necessary, and a meeting ground should be
European bureaucrats do not take us seriously sought where research and activism can
unless we speak their language, then we have to complement each other. This requires greater
learn and use that language in order to maintain cooperation . between academic and activist
a dialogue with them. institutions.

34
Panel session: The future agenda of the women's
movement in relation to national and international
structures

A panel of fire speakers gave short, five-minute such a discipline see the developing world only
presentations to stimulate discussion on the through that very narrow frame.
future agenda of the international women's and Examples of this narrow and compart-
GAD movement mentalised vision were provided by Naila's
second and third stories, in which, in different
Naila Kabeer, of the Institute of Development contexts, she had encountered women develop-
Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex, ment professionals who were unable to make
narrated three short anecdotes illustrating the the connection between life as it is lived and
way institutions see development and gender. 'gender and economic issues' as a theoretical or
The first story was inspired by students at professional terrain. To mainstream econ-
IDS, who had pointed out that recommended omists, 'the economic agent has no body', so
reading in Development Studies is overwhelm- issues of incest, abuse, violence, and the like are
ingly written by Northern academics and considered irrelevant to economic concerns and
published by academic publishers or journals, are never included, for instance, in the training
primarily in the North. This defines the nature, that is meant to equipyoung women economists
style, language, and address of articles and for work in the World Bank. Similarly, the ways
books considered suitable for publication: in large development agencies work do not
particular, personal and experiential accounts encourage holistic thought or analysis of the
are not seen as appropriate. different issues - such as caste, class and gender,
For similar reasons, the institution's staff in the case of India - that come together to
recruitment criteria operate against women and define and determine inequality and poverty.
people from the South, because they are less Development agencies want cut-and-dried
likely than Northern male academics to have procedures and measurable interventions: their
published this kind ofwork. This bias in the kind accounting procedures require them to be able
of knowledge that is regarded as legitimate is to tick off 'tools for women' rather than make a
one of the ways in which the institution deeper analysis of what a particular national
reproduces itself in its present form. At IDS, this context might require or of the broader set of
is particularly discouraging, because IDS is not a social relations of which gender inequalities are
purely academic institution; it is policy- a part Change is therefore needed in the ways
orientated and activist, and should therefore people are trained to think about development
offer scope for encompassing a variety of and gender.
different experiences.
Naila felt this exclusivity in language could be Devalri Jain of DAWN (Development
countered by changing the language considered Alternatives with Women for a New Era) put
appropriate for development studies at the forward some proposals for a political agenda
training stage. However, this can only be done if for the international women's movement,
institutions are opened up to different kinds of starting from the conviction expressed by
experience and language. Academic language DAWN in their recent strategy meeting that 'the
in many ways denies the reality and validity of women's movement is the most significant social
ordinary people's experience. What a movement in the world today and has the
Development Studies institution calls 'develop- greatest potential to become a significant
ment', people living in a Third World country political actor in global governments'. Devaki
call life. But, because life comes packaged in a emphasised the need for the women's
particular way in the academic discipline of movement to develop a programme and goals,
Development Studies, people who are trained in and offered three points for consideration.

35
Women's rights and development

First, she proposed a very narrow, minimalist locally'. We should, rather, be thinking locally
agenda for the worldwide women's movement. and acting globally. Local experience has much^
The experience of many working-class move- to teach die macro level, and here die worldwide --
ments has taught that solidarity is best built women's movement can provide solidarity to
around a one- or two-point programme. She the learning done from below. This is an
proposed three points arising out of the Indian intellectual and conceptual exercise, in which
and South Asian experience: grassroots activism needs to be backed up by
support from the other world of reasoning and
Deepening women's exercise of political
writing.
rights This is fundamental: first, because it
Lastly, Devaki looked at die question of die.
enables adoption of the advocacy and die
women's movement in relation to national and
belief of women that women's rights are
international structures. At die national level,
human rights, and second, because it enables
she felt that the focus should be on local politics
women to command and redirect die global
and how women's access to local politics can
political economy towards justice. The
reach right up to international politics. At die
underlying assumption is that the choices
international level, DAWN is involved in an
made by women, especially poor women,
alliance, coalition, or network of networks,
about development can determine that
incorporating an elected core group. Within it, a
alternative development to which we all
multitude ofmeetings would be held around the
aspire. One way of deepening women's
proposed minimalist agenda, across and within
exercise of political rights is to use the
nations and regions and in many intellectual
electoral process, that is, to develop in women
fora, dius building up an understanding which
voters the negotiating power to argue for
can ultimately provide the basis for women to
their agenda, lobbying for women by women.
become a political force nationally and inter-
Next year, die Indian Association of
nationally. This cannot be achieved on the basis
Women's Studies will be carrying out diis
of a very broad wish-list like die Forward-
process of empowering the woman's vote -
Looking Strategies. But such a network of
making the woman's vote a vote for women -
networks, working on a minimalist political
nationwide.
agenda, would have the potential for generating
Local self-government with affirmative energies and reverberations in die international
action. Again, experiences from India and women's movement diat would last beyond UN
Bangladesh can be drawn on. Devaki milestones.
proposed, in answer to Sara Longwe's
analysis, district-level implementation of Ines Smyth (Development Studies Institute,
social development, deconstructing bureau- London School of Economics) suggested die
cracy and replacing it with feminist political following areas - some of diem raised by die
leadership. morning's presentations - for further
questioning and reflection:
Trade policies and women UNIFEM has
recendy held a seminar in South Asia on The need to develop new forms of
women and trade and plans to hold others in understanding and intervention in relation
all die regions of die world. Looking at to women in situations of war and conflict:
economic blocks all over the world - OPEC, In the post-cold-war period, conflict has
NAFTA, ASEAN - we can ask whedier diere taken on new connotations which have a
is anodier form of economic cooperation different and more serious impact on women
between regions which brings justice and and girls. We need to go beyond emotionally
more for the poor. Can women network to charged reactions to this and to diink clearly,
make this happen? in effective, analytical, and practical ways,
about how to prevent and limit these impacts
The second item in Devaki's proposal was the and how to lessen their consequences for the
reversal of South-North hierarchies. Women's physical, mental and social well-being of
alliances could reverse die hierarchies observ- women and girls. This is an urgent issue, but
able both in the state and in die male-dominated it also has a long-term perspective.
alliances described by Sara Longwe as die * Moving beyond international conferences:
'patriarchal pot'. Another positive reversal As academics and activists, we need to take a
would be diat of die slogan Think globally, act clear and honest look at the real benefits of

36
Women's rights and development

participation in successive international both individuals and institutions to make those


conferences. Cairo, Copenhagen, Beijing, connections?
and their various preparatory meetings, offer
unprecedented opportunities for women's Georgina Ashworth, director of CHANGE,
advocacy and for feminists toflexour muscles strongly welcomed the reappearance on the
in the sites of power. However, they have also agenda of women's human rights in relation to
been the cause of much work, of wasted time, poverty, violence, self-determination, and
money, and energy, and have produced a reproductive rights. She referred to a number
new set of personal, organisational, and of related issues which have been high on the
strategic dilemmas. 'UN conference fatigue' agenda at various moments over the past 20"
is a real constraint to our general effective- years and which have resurfaced recently:
ness. It is important to reflect carefully and religion as a major activator of international
calmly on how we will want to take part in forces; different forms of unpaid work and their
these glamorous but all-consuming events in challenge to the formal economy and
the future. Such participation raises mainstream interpretations of economics;
questions about the use of resources, the violence; women's human rights in relation to
danger of cooption, political instrumentality, conflict resolution and war; questions of
new forms of networking, new forms of democracy and good governance, and whether
participation and leadership. Above all, we any governance can be described as 'good'
need to take a more proactive stance and unless it is actively promoting gender equality
seize more control over these activities and and the abolition of patriarchy. Today, all these
the extent and kind of participation in them issues are major issues for the Beijing
we want, so as to avoid being swept along by conference.
the annual tide of the UN conference. Reviewing the concerns of the international
North-South relations in the women's women's movement in this way reminds us that,
movement: These relations, and the over time, the agenda has changed, and it is
discussion around them, reach beyond issues encouraging and inspiriting to recognise that it
like trade and economic relations, important is women's movements who have changed it.
as these are. What do feminist movements However, while there are grounds for
mean to each other? What is the relevance for satisfaction, there is no room for complacency.
the South of analysis developed in the North, Among current challenges and difficulties are
and vice versa? What do the experiences and the following:
analysis of women in the South mean for
Including more people in the movement and
women who live and work in Northern
making them feel more welcome, but without
regions? What do the answers to these
obscuring the complexities that may deter
questions imply for the development of
them but which must be addressed.
future strategies?
Demystifying the big issues, such as
Ines drew attention to the inaccuracy entailed macroeconomic issues, and making them
in the terms 'North' and 'South'. She alerted relevant to daily life.
participants to the difficulty, for many of us who Addressing the potential conflict of interest
live in the 'North' and work on gender and between consumers and producers.
development, in linking that work with the Consumption needs to be politicised, by
realities of our Northern countries of adoption raising awareness about the labour, social
or origin. What is the relation of GAD experts and environmental conditions in which the
living in Britain, for instance, to the British things we consume are produced. We also
feminist movement, in which we may have very need make links with ethical investors to get
solid roots? Ines cited the example of last year's those aspects included in the criteria that they
International Conference on Population and apply.
Development in Cairo, where Dutch feminists Culture versus rights: the argument that
working on Dutch issues were very strongly gender justice is incompatible with certain
connected to events in the development field. aspects of culture is a major dilemma for us,
She questioned whether it was really possible to and is one of the principal struggles with
think of visions or strategies for women's rights regard to the Beijing Platform for Action.
worldwide if we were disconnected from our This question includes issues like that of
immediate reality. What are the best ways for servile marriages: we need to name the

37
Women's rights and development

conditions of slavery in which women in However, diis apparent policy shift is more a
many relationships are living, and to recog- shift in discourse than in real understanding of
nise diis as an issue of self-determinadon. how to achieve long-term development. The-~
The contradiction between real and token model contains inherent contradictions which
progress, and coherence between policy are very problematic. The market continues to
commitment and practice. Here the be die driving model for development, despite
challenge is to use the language of die huge inconsistencies between promoting
governments and mainstream policy competitive markets and achieving prosperity
processes - the only language currendy for individuals insocieties. The importance, of
possible in dialogue with policy-makers - policy to improve die quality of life, raise
while changing their discourse (i.e. standards of education and health, and protect
strengdiening the content of conventions political rights is recognised, but all diese
suchasCEDAW). policies are extremely vulnerable to die state's
The need to get die question of rights and ability to pay for diem, and tend to be jettisoned
responsibilities across to economists. if not consistent widi relatively short-term
Economists need to realise diat economic economic growdi and efficiency.
policies violate rights. The arguments of The good governance debate so far has not
good governance and state responsibilities fully understood what women's human rights
are useful here, to show how die state must involve or how women can exercise diem. The
exercise its power on our behalf (akhough policy agenda is largely focused on formal
this demand is fraught with paradoxes) to political processes such as elections. Yet we
regulate powerful violators (such as - but not know diat it is not principally in diis forum diat
exclusively - transnational corporations), in women are denied and excluded from dieir
order to create an environment in which rights of citizenship. Indeed, die most import-
gender equality is a reality. ant way in which women can actually exercise
dieir citizens' rights is as workers. Yet how many
women in the Third World have a formal
For Eugenia Piza-Lopez (Oxfam UK/I), die relation widi die labour market? The concepts
future agenda for die women's movement is of good governance put forward so far, and
women's human rights. She examined how diis
increasingly taken up by international agencies
agenda relates to institutions like international
of all kinds, have not really addressed women's
funding agencies. The new development
rights dioroughly enough to enable policies to
model, sometimes known as die "Washington
be challenged and rethought.
consensus', defines good development accord-
ing to diree main criteria: good governance, These new discourses, aldiough diey provide
competitive markets, and government us widi opportunities, are fraught widi prob-
responsibility for managing the state while lems from a feminist and gender perspective.
recognising private rights and individual What are die alternatives? How can NGOs work
initiative. These are die cridcal components of towards promoting women's human rights and
die current policies and ideology ofbUateral and make die most of die new ideologies and
multilateral development institutions, die discourses? Linda Mayoux, in her paper
international financial institutions, and die 'Gender policy and black holes: some quesstions
international NGOs. about efficiency, participation, and scaling-up in
NGOs' (September 1994) summarises it very
It must be acknowledged diat diere has been
clearly. She oudines changes of diree types:
some shift in neoliberal language since 1985.
The supremacy of die market has been growdi and internationalisation;
questioned. There is a recognition of die impor- strengdiening advocacy capacity;
tance of rehabilitating die state and giving it achieving greater efficiency in aid delivery
renewed social and economic responsibilities; and problem solving.
and a recognition diat die promotion of human
rights and die rule of law are essential for die All diree processes, which affect in different
maintenance of law and order, die development ways different NGOs, bodi North and Soudi,
of an effective and efficient labour force, and die have characteristics diat exclude women's
development of environments where economic experiences and perspectives. The processes
growdi and efficiency are possible and being promoted actually marginalise women
sustainable. rather dian bringing diem into die picture; die
organisations trying to promote die change are

38
Women's rights and development

themselves incapable of delivering programmes extensive research over the last three or four
which bring about significant changes in the years, in corporations, international agen-
attainment of women's human rights, because cies, and NGOs, has proved that main-^
their own patriarchal structures prevent them streaming is a mechanism that ignores
from developing a coherent practice and women and leaves gender issues marginal,
ideology. letting them fall into the 'black holes'.
The women's movement faces very many Mainstreaming needs to be redefined.
challenges in promoting an agenda for full
How international agencies develop
participation in political processes. We need to
women's organisations: Assuming that,
be clearer about good governance; we need to
women's human rights are the real issue, the
find out how to bring the private sphere into the
international agencies have difficulties in
public arena; we need to identify how exclusion
supporting these processes. We need to
in society continually marginalises women
identify the barriers and blockages to more
across all social classes and ethnic groups, using
consistent support by international agencies
all the factors that promote social differen-
of capacity-building in the international
tiation.
women's movement. Why is it that double
Eugenia highlighted four possible strategies
standards are consistently applied, by all
that the women's movement and some inter-
agencies, to the funding and support of
national funding agencies could develop in
women's organisations? Why is it so difficult
order to achieve change. None of them is
to support the capacity of women's organis-
without problems:
ations for networking, leadership develop-
* Conditionality: making development aid ment, and advocacy? Donor organisations
conditional upon attention to gender issues. tend to see gender and development as an
What are the advantages and disadvantages exclusively grassroots issue and to have
of this strategy? What is the perspective of the problems 'scaling up'.
international women's human rights
movement? Conditionality is not consistently Research and strategic alliance-building:
applied and is not transparent. And who sets Strategies for dealing with both these areas
the conditions? need to be elaborated. Alliance-building is
particularly problematic because NGOs and
* Mainstreaming gender: the currently women's movements have different agendas,
fashionable idea that if agencies can only and tensions may arise over resources,
mainstream gender, they will deliver policies profile, and control of agendas. Mechanisms
that will ultimately benefit women and enable must be found to allow strategic alliances to
women to enjoy the human rights. However, operate.

39
Overview of discussion

Discussion following the presentations put a and dominated by men. An African participant
strong emphasis on the accountability of pointed out that NGOs and women's
institutions and the changes that need to be movements have also made promises without
made to them to ensure greater coherence following them up. This comment prompted
between policy and practice. Sara Longwe's reflection on the fact that there is more than one
image of the patriarchal pot continued to be level of accountability: while we, as women in
evocative: do we simply add different development NGOs, and members of the
ingredients to the pot to make the existing international women's movement, demand
contents taste better, or must it be smashed and accountability on the part of our governments,
replaced by a new, gender-fair pot? Some the UN, and IFIs, we must remember that
alternatives to existing institutional structures others see us as accountable. The majority of
were floated; and the session ended with a wide- women in the South (and in the North) do not
ranging exchange of views on the question of belong to any movement, but these are the
rights. women to whom we must be accountable; they
are our ultimate target group.

Calling institutions to account


A common theme running through the What is the alternative?
presentations was that of accountability. Taking The other dimension - a vitally important one -
the lid off the patriarchal pot means which must accompany the calling of
demythologising the rhetoric of policy state- institutions to account is alternative proposals.
ments, demanding from policy-making and 'Opposition without proposition' is a sterile
policy-implementing institutions of all kinds exercise and unlikely to be taken seriously. We
accountability, consistency, and a closing of the can analyse and exploit the contradictions and
gap between promise and performance. inconsistencies between existing policy and
Many participants agreed that it is time to practice and use them to call the institutions to
'out' institutions, to allocate blame where it is account, but we must also come up with
due, by setting the continuing harshness of most proposals which will bring policy and practice
people's lives in the South against the expressed closer together. However, in doing this we are
policy commitments of governments, IFIs, and negotiating with bureaucrats and politicians on
aid donors to changing those lives for the better. their own terrain, using their own language.
But to do this effectively, we need a deeper Many participants felt that we also need to
analysis of institutions. Calling institutions to redefine the concepts and rewrite the language.
account for the failure of their practice to match At a deeper level, however, the gap between
up with their policies is important, but it is a policy and implementation is not just a question
weak strategy if it is not based on a thorough of institutional poor practice; it is inherent in a
analysis of how institutions work. How do they self-contradictory development model which
get away with allowing policies to evaporate in attempts to marry good governance and respect
the patriarchal pot? The elements of Sara's for human rights to the unfettered operation of
analysis of'NORDIDA' couldusefully be applied the free-market economy. An approach based
to the real-life institutions with which we have to on reforming the system on its own terms does
deal in our gender and development inter- not change existing structures. It is as if we were
ventions. adding new ingredients, topping up the water
that has evaporated, but continuing to cook in
However, the answer does not entirely lie in
the same old pot.
the fact that most institutions are hierarchical

40
Women's rights and development

An alternative and more radical view put Some other strategies for relocating power
forward by Devaki Jain, among others, was that were mentioned in passing. Pam Sparr referred^
the patriarchal or bureaucratic pot itself must be to new thinking about institutional restruc--"
smashed, the structures changed. For years we turing in NGOs which involves a thematic
have been developing our gender analysis (and rather than a geographical redistribution of
institutions everywhere pay it lip service) and work areas. It is a problematic feature of many
carrying out our policy advocacy (and we have Northern agencies that they tend to divide work
achieved apparent changes on paper), but we along North/South lines, so that whole
see very little change in practice. We must departments (or even whole agencies) deal only
conclude that the problem lies with bureaucracy with overseas issues while others deal only^vithl
itself. domestic issues, thus failing to explore either
Development agencies replicate and the common ground between women or poor
perpetuate governmental structures and thus people all over the world, or the true inequality
throw up die same obstacles to change as between North and South. In Pam's organis-
governments and IFIs. It should be clear by now ation, work has been redistributed so that
that male-dominated institutions will never let everyone works on thematic areas which have
women in on an equal basis, so we have to create both domestic and international dimensions.
a new institutionality. This can only be done by This could be a way of resolving the tension
breaking the pot and reassembling it with new arising from Southern perceptions of good
institutions, institutions which are so structured as governance, for instance, as a Northern concept
to guarantee women's participation, power- developed largely for the purposes of imposing
sharing and leadership. Representation of conditions on aid. Another strategy for the
women is needed at every level, from the village relocation of power could be to shift centres of
to the UN, and any restructuring of institutions research much more extensively to the South.
must allow such representation.
For Devaki, the model which allows for the
creation of substructures is predominantly Rights and empowerment
local. Her vision was one not of reforming or Important ingredients in the new pot are the
remaking central structures but of shifting the genuine recognition of rights and empower-
locus of power and leadership to local ment of people in civil society. We must not lose
government level, where bureaucracy can be sight of the fact that gender is a political issue -
overcome by local self-determination, making there is often a danger that gender issues will
more space for women's participation on an become over-technified and their political
equal basis. In contradistinction to an emphasis dimension will evaporate.
on good governance, which is seen by many Several participants stressed that when we
Southern organisations as a way of shifting talk about rights and gender we are also talking
responsibility from the state on to NGOs, a focus about rights to resources and to political power.
on local self-government represents a shift of There was a feeling that although women are
responsibility back to the state, but at a less very ready to make political demands and
centralised and thus more accountable level. demands for human rights, we are too reticent
Another alternative was offered by Pam about claiming rights to economic resources.
Sparr, drawing on new experiences in the Wanjiru Kihoro pointed out that although
United States which suggest that the best people women are the backbone of the economy, we are
to make policy are not policy-makers. Policy- shy about insisting on our right to more than
makers are bureaucrats and seldom belong to, handouts. Yet if we do not do so, we risk remain-
or have a real stake in, the community or ing trapped in the discourse of aid and margin-
population on whose behalf the policy is being alised from debates about trade and macro-
made. In some communities in the United economic issues that affect us more deeply. Pam
States, stakeholders from different sectors have Sparr urged the inclusion of collective rights into
come together to hammer out solutions accept- our strategies, citing the efforts of assembly-line
able to everyone in the community. This can workers in Mexico to force companies to be
generate more satisfactory results than relying responsible not just for workers' rights,
on bureaucrats or elected officials to make narrowly defined, but for communal rights such
policy on the community's behalf. Again, as clean water and acceptable housing.
structures or processes of this kind are poten- This idea of collective rights prompted
tially more women-friendly. concern as to whether, by conceptualising

41
Women's rights and development

women's rights as human rights, we risk being However, rights exist in a vacuum unless they
misled by the neoliberal discourse, possibly can be enforced; and perhaps the greatest
limiting ourselves to questions of individual difficulty arises at this point. Naila Kabeer gave-*
access, participation, and equal opportunities, an example from India, where the government
and skirting issues of real, collective empower- has given land rights to women, but they cannot
ment. Further, is the discourse of rights a exercise them because the people they have to
discourse appropriate only to Northern deal with are the men in their own communities,
women? What are the areas in which Southern and whether they are prepared to give up the
women are framing their concerns in terms of land to women is entirely at the men's
rights? Are there different discourses of rights discretion. Again, the patriarchal pot is on the
for South and North? Eugenia Piza-Lopez felt boil, and women's land rights evaporate-
that, on the contrary, it has only been possible to Enforcement of women's rights means changing
insert the language of rights into the UN agenda men's behaviour, at both die institutional and
because it is the language which best reflects and the personal level, which shifts the terrain of
gives common expression to the experience and struggle to a different plane.
demands of women in both the North and the Devaki offered the model of local self-
South. Women's insistence on expressing their government as an answer to this dilemma, using
demands in terms of rights has extended the die story of a woman who, denied her right,
discourse of rights to embrace literacy, econ- went on to claim it through local self-
omic survival, reproductive rights, and sexual government, where women have some power in
pleasure. A great achievement of the women's die structures. She elaborated on some
movement has been to express in technical mechanisms for empowering women to claim
language what millions of women- have rights, such as mechanisms for redressal against
experienced. violence, and legal literacy for women.

42
Strategies for acheiving a women's rights policy
agenda: overview of working groups

All four working groups looked at the same grounds of universality, in putting forward their
topic, but produced a variety of responses. demands. However, the women's movement
Reflecting the breadth of the topic, discussion has not always, or everywhere, used the idea of
was very wide-ranging in all groups. All groups rights as a justification for its demands.
spent some time recapitulating and developing Women's movements in India and the United
further issues raised in the morning. In States, for instance, have used rights as a basis
particular, consensus was not reached on for demands more effectively than women in
whether the concept of rights is in feet the most Britain.
useful foundation on which to build strategies Possible contradictions between women's
for women. Many questions remained open, individual rights and collective gender rights
including that of the different ways rights are were explored, as were contradictions which
perceived in different cultural contexts and arose when respecting some rights could
between South and North. There were also infringe others. Women's rights can be seen as
differences of opinion on how (or whether) it is conflicting with the rights of other groups, even
possible to develop strategies for women in the separate groups of women. Perhaps it is clearer
current context of economic liberalisation. to start with obligations, since rights do not exist
in any real sense unless they are matched by
Rights obligations, which make them operational. For
There was continued discussion about the example, the existence of the right to freedom
discourse of rights in the context of economic from hunger, in the abstract, is irrelevant if
liberalisation. This proved to be a thorny there is no food available.
question. While some participants argued that On the other hand, an agenda based on
the focus on human rights as a legitimising women's human rights was seen by some
discourse for many of the activities of participants as having value as a unifying
development practitioners has shifted attention agenda for all women in an economic and
away from issues of poverty and development, cultural context - including the growing trend
another view was that, in Latin America for towards fundamentalisms of various kinds - that
instance, the discourse of development is fully tends to divide women. The evolution of the
embedded in the discourse of rights, and this gender and development agenda from one of
perspective underpins the activities of most basic needs to one of rights is positive. All groups
development activities on the part of NGOs and stressed the importance of the enforcement of
women's organisations. According to this view, rights and the need for mechanisms of
the dichotomy between development needs and enforcement and implementation.
rights is a false one. It was agreed, however, that
this conceptualisation of development needs in Globalisation
terms of rights might not occur in all regions of Two groups considered the concept of
the world. Land, for instance, is seen in terms of globalisation and what it means in terms of
rights in South Africa but in terms of labour or understanding and putting into practice univer-
kinship in other parts of Africa. sal notions of rights. One discussed whether
A third view was that even in the abstract, the globalisation is a unifying or a fragmenting
notion of rights is itself empowering, providing process, or whether it promotes both tenden-
people with dignity, a sense of themselves as cies. Are people in different countries living
universal subjects, and goals. One group noted increasingly different or increasingly similar
that the idea of rights could be useful in allowing lives? Are the commonalties greater than the
national organisations to feel justified, on differences, and what do these factors imply for

43
Women's rights and development

the building of international alliances around a contributing to the feminisation of poverty in


gender agenda? the North - there is also growing potential for
The other group focused on whether gender- the development of international movements to-_-
fair developmentshould take place inside our defend livelihoods everywhere. There is a
outside the dominant model. Is there any growing awareness of 'the North in the South
possibility today of operating outside the and the South in the North' and a sense that the
dominant model? To what extent, for instance, only way to hold out against the uncontrolled
do small enterprises within the dominant trend global movement of capital is through some
of privatisation embody strategies for creating form of internationalism, perhaps built around
an economic model that benefits women? Are international labour standards. - ~
there different economic alternatives to suit Many gains made by the women's movement,
different national or regional experiences? for instance at Vienna, have been devalued or
undermined by the South/North divide. On the
Power other hand, participants did not agree that the
Analysing power, and getting rights discourse of rights has been imposed by the
implemented by those who have the power to North on the South. The success with which a
implement them, requires a very clear picture of group of Asian NGOs had argued their support
where the locus of power is situated and where for universal human rights at Vienna was dted
institutions or agencies are located in national or as an example of Southern commitment to the
international power structures. Globalisation concept of human rights. However, the applic-
has moved the centre of economic and political ation of human rights conditionality to aid by
power away from nation states and into the Northern' aid donors has made it seem as
hands of international capital or finance, which though the North owns the concept of human
states cannot control, undermining the auton- rights. This cooption of the discourse of rights
omy of both states and individuals. However, should alert us to the need to question
powerful organisations like the World Bank conditionality in the aid 'partnership'.
pretend to be powerless. This is part of the myth Within the women's/GAD movement, the
that the free market is apolitical and that its South/North divide must be bridged; not to
institutions therefore do not have to be bridge it plays into the hands of male power.
accountable to people. The importance of alliance-building, solidarity,
At the same time, many gender policy targets and networking cannot be too highly stressed.
have been about getting more women into One partidpant gave as an example of practical
national bureaucracies; but, once they are there, North/South solidarity the idea that Northern
they find that national bureaucracies are no and Southern women could lobby in collabor-
longer the centres of power. Where has the ation for the release of unspent European
power gone and how is it exercised? How should Union development cooperation funds.
policy be reorientated to get women into
positions of real power? Or is the main question The role of NGOs
one of reconstructing the system of power itself? In a discussion of NGOs' work in seeking to
Despite the new language, power still rests influence and shape UK development coop-
overwhelmingly with men. The gender and eration policy, it was noted that NGOs trying to
development agenda is in danger of being influence the policy process are curiously coy
coopted by male-dominated 'powers that be' about markets, which inhibits their political
such as multilateral agencies, and becoming a effectiveness. The myth that the market is an
safe, technical issue. Can the discourse of rights apolitical force must be exploded. NGOs should
repoliticise gender and development and be able to provide links in a process of
return it to the feminist agenda? globalisation which is also very localising.
The value of alliances between NGOs and
North and South development academics and researchers was
There was discussion of the changing reconfirmed. Research findings can help to
South/North dynamic, which is in part impelled provide the evidence needed to call institutions
by globalisation processes. While these to account. But NGOs also need to be made
processes frequently set South and North in representative and accountable.
dear competition - for example, in the trans-
nationalised labour market, where the
relocation of industrial jobs to the South is

44
Women's rights and development

Strategies example, by increasing the time they have


There was a general sense that before available for political work). We need to
formulating strategies (especially at the create conditions for a political, economics-
international level) we need first to define a cultural base for women. This idea was not
shared women's vision, and common policies on accepted as useful by everyone. The problem
development and women's rights. However, that of cooption was acknowledged. Some
vision should leave room for a healthy variety of participants thought quotas for women were
strategies appropriate to different circumstances. meaningless, especially in government instit-
utions whose legitimacy is currently being
Indeed, the need is for multiple and combined
severely eroded. The suggestion of creating^
strategies and a readiness not to confine ourselves
women's political parties and caucuses as an
to working for one goal at a time.
alternative was floated.
Some strategies which have been tried before
can be reapplied to different situation, and new Decentralisation of political power, encour-
ones can be developed. There was recognition aging and organising women to use their
that a strategy applicable in one context (for voting rights to gain power and resources at a
example, affirmative action) may not work in local level. This was seen by many as a key
another. However, it should be possible to strategy, and one which might avoid some of
define broad principles within which the the pitfalls of increasing women's partici-
strategic approach can be varied according to pation in centralised government structures.
context Our commonalties and differences can However, political participation, even at the
level of exercising voting rights, means very
be used creatively to build a coalition on broad
different things and can have a very different
issues such as political participation.
force in different countries. Whereas 75 per
Participants also recognised the need for a
cent of women voted in the most recent
holistic approach and for a certain
elections in India, only 30 per cent of women
systematisation of strategies, sharing successes did so in the United States, indicating the
and failures and learning from our own and different value women in the two countries
each others' experience. The following strat- set on the effectiveness of their vote. One
egies were suggested by the working groups: participant warned that it is dangerous to
Making people aware of rights and bringing assume that there is a homogeneous
rights onto the agenda. To give one example 'women's vote'; unity can only be built
ofhow this is being done, where governments through information and public education.
have ratified agreements, such as CEDAW, Affirmative action. Opinions were divided on
women's organisations are helping women to the effectiveness of affirmative action as a
invoke CEDAW in taking certain issues of strategy; but it can play a catalytic role.
discrimination to court. Information and Identifying where the power is in any structure
public education are also crucial. and challenging it. This can involve confron-
Organisation of women in all contexts, as tation, even direct action. Ultimately, em-
workers, right down to household level. powerment means self-empowerment. But
People are not given rights by states; rights there is the risk of backlash and even
are only won by struggle in organised groups. repression.
Therefore any strategy has to begin with Building gender parity into any new
mobilising women in organisations. Formal- institution. Patriarchy is self-perpetuating,
sector workers who are women are in a better so care must be taken not to allow replication
position to be organised; but how do we reach of old structures or models. Institutions need
the mass of women who are not activists, such to be studied systematically in order to
as domestic, unpaid, informal-sector propose a model of the gender-fair
workers? institution.
Broadening the base of the women's and Exposing and confronting poor practice by
gender movements, bringing in new sectors development institutions, especially failure to
of women. meet policy commitments, lip-service, coop-
Gaining entry for more women into political tion and avoidance strategies. This also
systems, while being aware of the constraints. applies to ourselves as NGOs and academic
To get more women into formal politics, a institutions. We should be transparent and
great deal of previous work must be done to open about the ethical values we believe in as
empower women to stand for office (for individuals and as a movement. We should

45
Women's rights and development

discuss our hidden assumptions and so help and recipients. Since these relationships are
ourselves to realise our potential. unequal, and there are varying degrees of
Holding a rights audit, which measures a readiness to part with power, constructing--
government's actual practice against what an such partnerships is problematic. Many
international convention theoretically women's projects in the South are hijacked by
enjoins upon it. This has been done in the UK men who have had more training in GAD
to gauge the government's compliance with than women themselves- Tactical partner-
the provisions of the UN Convention on the ships with men in order to get access to power
Rights of the Child. A rights audit on CEDAW structures for women are risky: women, in
would provide an invaluable lobbying tool. many revolutionary or liberation movement?
Lobbying for enforcement of our demands and have fought beside men on the basis of
maintenance of gains already won. There promises of equality, only to lose that equality
needs to be constant, upward pressure by under the new order. Northern NGOs
women's and gender-sensitive groups on should be honest and self-critical about the
male-dominated institutions. inequalities inherent in development
Monitoring and evaluation of the development partnerships.
process and development institutions. This Alliances, solidarity and networking: to give
activity, while valuable, does not on its own mutual support, share experiences and
necessarily lead to change. The system can strategies; to advance institutional learning,
absorb criticism and make cosmetic or to bridge the North/South divide. One group
meaningless changes. Monitoring and felt more creative, innovative methods were
evaluation should be considered more as a necessary to bridge some of our differences.
process than an outcome. If interpreted After Beijing: the momentum must not be lost.
simply in terms of meeting numerical targets, One group particularly highlighted the
it is easily subverted, putting an emphasis on danger that the donor community might lose
quantity rather than quality. New, qualitative interest in women after Beijing, so that there
evaluation tools and models are needed. will be no resources to implement what
Partnership, between women and men, donors international agreements have proposed.

46
Closing remarks

Helen O'Connell, One World Action For me the most important aspect of taking
The question of political power has been raised our work forward is our alliance-building and
frequently today. That is important, because we the international connections which have grown
have a habit, in development circles, of not very dramatically over the last 15 years. I
discussing political power. What has also sincerely hope these will continue to grow.
become dear is that political power no longer
lies only in conventional, political structures, but
also in other areas, for example, in the hands of
Maitrayee Mukhopadhyay, Oxfam UK/1
We have talked today about the new develop-
public corporations and international financial
ments in the world, the new challenges and the
institutions. This raises the question of to whom
new strategies we should be using to meet those.
we are addressing our demands.
I want to end in a slightly celebratory manner by
The debate about human rights was very recalling to you what has been tried, what has
interesting and has produced some clarity. It been achieved, and what were the constraints
highlights the feet that we need to work even (and they are still with us).
harder to bring together the agenda of develop- I do not think there is anything that the
ment and the agenda of human rights. As a women's movement has not tried, in the last one
development practitioner I tend to use the term and a half decades, to reverse the imbalance of
human rights very broadly, to mean something power between men and women, between social
that affects every aspect of people's lives, rather groups: whether it has been a question of land
than as an instrument that people can use. rights, whether it has been feminist researchers
It is clear that development should be our trying to tell the designers of male-dominated
issue, and that is why we are at this meeting; but paradigms that they were wrong, whether it has
we need to redefine development both from the been the efforts to bring about a feminist agenda
bottom up and from the top down. It has also within institutions like Oxfam and the World
been remarked today that poverty should be Bank, the women's movement has tried it all.
our issue, and that is also a reason why we are
There have been lots of successes. The fact
here; but we must remember that poverty is not
that we are sitting here today talking about it
the only issue or the only form of inequality.
shows that there have been many successes.
An area of strategy which is dose to my heart Some things that I consider successes are: the
is that of exposing contradictions: contradic- possibility we now have to talk about things that
tions between policy statementsand action and were never talked about openly before, such as
between rhetoric and reality, and also contra- the private aspect of women's subordination;
dictions that are inherent in the dominant the fact that our institutions have political
economic model. I think this is an urgent task. agendas; the fact that we are able to network to
This brings us to the question of resources, try and strategise to meet the imbalances of
which is something that also deserves our closer power. Some of those things have been achieved
attention. If we are serious about continuing the to some extent.
work we are doing on gender issues, and about Then I must mention the constraints. These
being part of an ongoing international women's are very dear. The winning of hearts and minds
movement after Beijing and after the excite- within institutions, for instance, has not only
ment of all the UN conferences, then we dearly been difficult, it has not really been achieved.
need resources. And by resources I do not mean
As for where we should go from here, I have a
merely money. We also need time to think and
sense of dejd-vu. We need to take stock, we need
room to act. Money is not our only problem -
to think of where the politics has gone out of our
although dearly it is a huge one-

47
Women'srightsand development

agenda, whether gender and development has today because we have behind us the last ten to
become appropriated in an institutional fifteen years of many women's experiences at
manner which has made it 'safe'. We are still many levels, be it women fighting for their--
thinking how to mobilise, how to raise rights or someone demanding changes at the
consciousness, how to win back rights. But this is World Bank. We have those experiences with us
not just a revisiting of what we did in the 1980s. and we should now apply ourselves in different
It is a question of organising in a new context, fora, in different alliances, to looking at how we
because the context has changed. organise in the new context.
We have cause to celebrate the feet that it is
possible for us to meet and talk as we have done

48
Women's rights and development

Participants

Una Abu Habib, Oxfem UK/I, UK Nicky May, UK


Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi, Akina Mama wa Afrika, UIK Dianna Melrose, Oxfam UK/I, UK
Georgina Ashworth, Change, UK Swasti Mitter, UNU/INTECH, Netherlands
Sally Baden, BRIDGE, Institute of Development Maitrayee Mukhopadhyay, Oxfem UK/I, UK
Studies, UK Henrietta Moore, LSE Gender Institute, UK
Roma Battercharjea, Oxfem UK/I, UK Iheoma Obibi, Inter-African Network for Human
Steve Billdiffe, One World Action, UK Rights and Development, UK
Audrey Bronstein, Oxfem UK/I, UK Helen O'Connell, One World Action, UK
Angelica Brown, Foundation for Autonomy and Ruth Pearson, School of Development Studies,
Development of the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua University of East Anglia, UK
Florence Butegwa, WILDAF, Zimbabwe Eugenia Piza-Lopez, Oxfem UK/I, UK
Daniela Colombo, AIDoS, Italy Doreen Plantenga, Women and Autonomy Centre
Pauline Ecdes, Irish Commission for Justice and (VENA) Leiden University, Netherlands
Peace, Ireland Hazel Plunkett, One World Action, UK
Judy El-Bushra, ACORD, UK Martin Porter, Magdalen College, University of
Oxford, UK
Alda Facio, ILANUD, Costa Rica
Sukey Field, Gender and Planning Associates, Nanneke Reddift, University College, University of
Women Development Consultants, UK London, UK
Anne Marie Goetz, Institute of Development Andy Rutherford, One World Action, UK
Studies, University of Sussex, UK Joanne Sandier, UNIFEM, US
Barbara Harriss-White, Wolfson College and Queen Jane Scobie, Intermediate Tehnology (ITDG), UK
Elizabeth House, University of Oxford, UK Yvonne Shanahan, Oxfem UK/I, UK
Edward Horesh, One World Action, UK Sue Smith, Oxfem UK/I, UK
Devaki Jain, Development Alternatives with Women Ines Smyth, Development Studies, Insitute, LSE,
for a New Era, India UK
Hazel Johnstone, LSE Gender Institute, UK Pam Sparr, Alt-WID (alternative Women in
Naila Kabeer, Institute of Development Studies, Development), USA
University of Sussex, UK Ellen Sprenger, NOVIB, Netherlands
Marilee Karl, Isis International, Italy Caroloiine Sweetman, Oxfem UK/I, UK
Deborah Kasente, Makerere University, Uganda Noor Tabbers, Women and Autonomy Centre
Tanya Khara, One World Action, UK (VENA) Leiden University, Netherlands
Wanjiru Kihoro, Abantu for Development, UK Fiona Thomas, Gender Orientation on
Caroline Knowles, Development in Practice, UK Development Group, UK
Diana Leonard, Institute of Education, University of Sarah TotterdeU, Oxfem UK/I, UK
London, UK Megan Vaughan, Nuffield College and Queen
Caren Levy, Development Planning Unit, University Elizabeth House, University of Oxford, UK
College, University of London, UK Michael Vincent, Oxfem UK/I, UK
Matthew Lockwood, School ofAfrican and Asian Bridget Walker, Oxfem UK/I, UK
Studies, University of Sussex, UK Ann Whitehead, University of Sussex, UK
Sara Hlupekile Longwe, Longwe Clarke and Hesti Wijaya
Associates, Zambia
Jane Winder, One World Action, UK
Mandy Macdonald, UK
Jane Williams, UNU/INTECH, Netherlands
Rosie McGee, British Council, UK
Helen Yuill, Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign, UK
Candida March, Oxfem UK/I, UK
Charlotte Martin, LSE Gender Institute, UK

49
Women's rights and development

Seminar programme

Morning
Session 1: Presentations
Introduction and chair: Helen O'Connell, One World Aciton
Women in the new world order: voices of workers from the Third World
Swasti Milter, UNU/INTECH
A development agency as a patriarchal cooking pot: the evaporation of policies for
women's advancement
Sara Hlupikele Longwe, Longwe Clarke and Associates
Gender and development in European development cooperation
Daniela Colombo, AIDoS
Discussion
Session 2: The future agenda of the women's movement in relation to national and international
structures
Chair: Wanjiru Kihoro, Abantu for Development
Panel: Naila Kabeer, Institute of Development Studies
Devaki Jain, DAWN
Ines Smyth, Development Studies Institute LSRE
Georgina Ashworth, Change
Eugenia Piza-Lopez, Oxfam UK/I
Discussion

Afternoon
Session 3: Working groups: What are the key strategies for achieving a women's rights policy

Facilitators: Megan Vaughan, Nuffield College and QEH, Universtiy of Oxford


Wanjiru Kihoro, Abantu for Development
Deborah Kasente, Makerere University
Doreen Plantenga, Women and Autonomy Centre (VENA)
Session 4: Rport back and synthesis: Helen O'Connell, One World Action
Closing presentation: Maitrayee Mukhopadhyay, Oxfam UK/I

50

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