1. WID, WAD, GAD: Theoretical Debates and Issues

2. Theoretical Framework
WID liberal Feminists (a school of thought )
WAD Marxist feminists
GAD Socialist Feminists
WED - Ecofeminists

3. Theoretical basis of Women in Development (WID)

4. Different approaches of WID:
Welfare approach
Equity approach
Anti-poverty approach
Efficiency approach
Empowerment approach

5. Policy and Analytic Approaches
Welfare: Focus on poor women, mainly in the roles of wife and mother. This was the only approach during colonial periods, and was favoured by many missionaries.
Equity: Focus on equality between women and men and fair distribution of benefits of development
Anti-poverty: Women targeted as the poorest of the poor, with emphasis on income-generating activities and access to productive resources such as training and micro-finance.
Efficiency: Emphasis on need for women’s participation for success, effectiveness of development; assumes increased economic participation will result in increased equity. They are most likely to be useful when advocacy for the advancement of women is based on the more effective use of all factors of production, and/or desire for stronger and more sustainable project results. This is the approach currently most favoured by development agencies
Empowerment: Focus on increasing women’s capacity to analyze their own situation and determine their own life choices and societal directions. likely to be most useful where a human development and rights-based approach to development predominates, or is desired.

6. Theoretical basis of Women and Development (WAD):

7. Women And Development Approach (WAD)
Origin:
Emerged from a critique of the modernization theory and the WID approach in the second half of the 1970s
Theoretical base :
Draws from the dependency theory
Focus:
Women have always been part of development process-therefore integrating women in development is a myth
Focuses on relationship between women and development process

8. WAD Approach Contribution :
Accepts women as important economic actors in their societies
Women’s work in the public and private domain is central to the maintenance of their societal structures
Looks at the nature of integration of women in development which sustains existing international structures of inequality.

9. Wome And Development (WAD) Approach
Features :
Fails to analyze the relationship between patriarchy, differing modes of production and women’s subordination and oppression.
Discourages a strict analytical focus on the problems of women independent of those of men since both sexes are seen to be disadvantaged with oppressive global structure based on class and capital.
Singular preoccupation with women’s productive role at the expense of the reproductive side of women’s work and lives.
Assumes that once international structures become more equitable, women’s position would improve.
WAD doesn't question the relations between gender roles.

10. Gender and Development (GAD) approach
Origin
As an alternative to the WID focus this approach developed in the 1980s.
Theoretical base:
Influenced by socialist feminist thinking.
Focus:
Offers a holistic perspective looking at all aspects of women’s lives.
It questions the basis of assigning specific gender roles to different sexes
Contribution
Does not exclusively emphasize female solidarity- welcomes contributions of sensitive men.
Recognizes women’s contribution inside and outside the household, including non-commodity production.

11. Gender and Development Approach
Features:
GAD rejects the public/private dichotomy .
It gives special attention to oppression of women in the family by entering the so called `private sphere’
It emphasizes the state’s duty to provide social services in promoting women’s emancipation.
Women seen as agents of change rather than as passive recipients of development assistance.
Stresses the need for women to organize themselves for a more effective political voice.
Recognizes that patriarchy operates within and across classes to oppress women
Focuses on strengthening women’s legal rights, including the reform of inheritance and land laws.
It talks in terms of upsetting the existing power relations in society between men and women.

12. Women ,Environment and Development (WED)
Origin in 1970s (Northern Feminist )
Male control over nature and women
Ecofeminism
Ecofeminist (Rosi Braidotti, Harcourt, Maria Mies, Vandana Shiva etc.)
Theoretical stream within feminist movement
Environment decline – patriarchal authority in Development planning
Destroying relationship between community, women and nature

13. Practical Gender Needs and Strategic Gender Interests
The following is a summary of some of the principal differences between practical gender needs and strategic gender interests.
Practical needs:
Short-term, immediate (e.g. clean water, food, housing, income)
Unique to particular women (i.e. site specific)
When asked, women can identify their basic needs.
Involves women as beneficiaries/participants
Problems can be met by concrete and specific inputs, usually economic inputs (e.g. water pumps, seeds, credit, employment)
Benefits the condition of some women
Is potentially successful in ameliorating the circumstances of some women

14. Strategic Gender Interests
Strategic interests :
Long-term
Common to all women (e.g. vulnerability to physical violence, legal limitations on rights to hold or inherit property, difficulty of gaining access to higher education)
Women are not always in a position to recognize the sources or basis of their strategic disadvantages or limitations
Solutions must involve women as active agents
Must be addressed through consciousness raising, education and political mobilization at all levels of society
Improves the position of all women in a society
Has the potential to transform or fundamentally change one or more aspects of women's lives. This is called 'transformatory potential' of the project/policy