Social and Political Development Population Gender Education Health Empowerment

Millennium Development Goals Promote gender equality and empower women (#3) – Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015 Health: – Reduce child mortality (#4) Reduce by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five – Improve maternal health (#5) Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio – Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases (#6) Achieve universal primary education (#2) – Ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling

Population Clock tml tml

World Vital Events Births-Deaths=Natural Increase bin/ipc/pcwe

Demographic Transition Model

Population Pyramids

Theories of population growth Malthusian: Agriculture grows arithmetically/Population grows exponentially Malthus assumptions – Highly judgmental of poor – Assumptive of western cultural norms and standards Modern Malthusian ideas: “population bombs”, ”limits to growth”, “carrying capacity” – IPAT: Impact=Population x Affluence x Environmental Disruption of technology

Migration: Push/Pull Factors Push Factors: – Conditions that cause people to leave their area Pull Factors: – Conditions that attract people to another location

Theories of population growth Boserup – Pop density creates ag intensification – Cornucopians—technology and free enterprise better than state control: CONTRACEPTION and POPULATION CONTROL: Coercion for both women and men Political Economic approach – Land and resources unequal distribution  pop – Structural Adjustment and concentration on cash crops Ignores subsistence economy emphasizes need for other utilities to provide access to survival

Theories of population growth Social Relations of Gender approach – Labor utility – Security utility – High infant and child mortality – Others: cultural son preference – Subordination of women

Gender and Development Attention to gender analysis, empowering women and reducing gender equalities will: Reduce population growth Avoid development mistakes Support productivity and economic growth  poverty reduction Improve governance Support health goals for women and children

History of gender and development Decline in women’s status, economic and political situation Colonial shifts – Decline of rights to land and status Development shifts – 1950’s: Welfare approach women as “homemakers” 1970: Ester Boserup  WID (Women in Development)

Judith Carney : Irrigation and Women Farmers in the Gambia

Irrigation and Women Farmers in the Gambia

Colonial Development Corporation (CDC) – irrigation and development scheme – Started alienation of women’s land rights – Assumptions about ownership of land by men – IGNORED: Women had strong access to land resources and their benefits from rice farming Also responsibilities for food and support of children Post colonial development schemes made similar mistakes

Irrigation and Women Farmers in the Gambia

World Bank, China, IFAD irrigated rice projects – Small Scale and Large Scale Double cropping schemes Ignored the elaborate system of land rights and cropping responsibilities – Women’s land taken – Women expected to labor for men’s fields year round – No way to generate same income and maintain independent decision making over their labor and livelihoods

Irrigation and Women Farmers in the Gambia

Women rebel – Refuse to work at certain times of year when they want to work on their own fields – Form work groups to drive up wage labor Projects are very expensive/unsuccessful Some people are switching to non- traditional export crops, but food security is still a problem

Irrigation and Women Farmers in the Gambia Conclusions: – Need to address social and gendered organization of production – Especially in Africa, no joint-utility households – Need to link gender equity to productivity Alternatives: – Focus on food production – link ownership/management to women’s cooking units – Consider small scale irrigation technology that responds to refined traditional environmental knowledge of women and their work schedules – Consider more appropriate tech: tidal irrigation

History of Gender and Development 1975: First World Conference on Women- Mexico City: – Equity? Heavily debated Basic needs/anti-poverty approach Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1979

History of Gender and Development Early 1980’s – “New household economics” replaced household as “black box” – feminist critique of SAPs: both rural and urban WID Efficiency Approach – Neoliberal approach: utilitarian GAD Empowerment approach – 1985: 2 nd World Conference on Women (Nairobi) – 1987: Third world feminists: DAWN and Chipko, etc.

Mainstreaming Gender Fourth World Conference on Women Platform for Action, 1995 (Beijing) – Gender is a development issue

Women in the World

Gender disparities have tended to decline over time, but remain largest in low-income countries --except in political participation

Gender mainstreaming in Development “Social relations of Gender”  gender analysis

Gender analysis

Gender Analysis

Where women and men have more equal rights, governments are less corrupt

Benefits for future generations  Women invest their incomes in their children, men in themselves  Ex: In Brazil, income in the hands of mothers has four times the positive impact on children’s nutrition (height-for-age) as income in the hands of fathers.  Better educated mothers invest more heavily in their children’s learning  Ex: In India, children of literate mothers spend two more hours a day studying than children of illiterate mothers.

Benefits of Women’s Education: Economic Growth

Health benefits of women’s education: Lower malnutrition

Health benefits: child immunization

MDG Gender equality indicator-- adequate?