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Gender and social inclusion
Gender inequality is one of the key factors hampering wealth creation, poverty reduction and the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals in many developing countries. While international policy has made some progress towards addressing gender inequality, it needs to be converted into concrete changes on the ground, especially at the local level.
The resources available on this page all address the capacities required at the local level to address gender inequalities effectively. Sub topics include:
Decentralization: Decentralization increases the power of local governments and, by extension, their capacity to boost gender equality. What can local actors do to ensure that local governments actually mobile their powers to promote gender equality?
Leadership and power: Addressing gender inequalities starts with leadership and political will. One way to mobilize political will for gender equality is to get as many women as possible in leadership positions. Another way is to enhance gender sensitivity among male leaders.
Generating and analysing evidence on gender inequality: Evidence of gender inequality is a powerful resource for generating gender sensitivity and essential for developing effective gender policies. Monitoring mechanisms and gender analytical tools are therefore core capacities that local governments need to acquire.
Featured Article
World Development Report 2012: Gender equality and development
Policymakers and practitioners still face gaps in knowledge both in how gender equality
matters for development and how best to incorporate these links in policy design. The World
Development Report 2012 aims to bridge these gaps by building upon the growing body of
multidisciplinary theory, evidence, and data on these links while highlighting the knowledge gaps
that remain across the world in the context of the development process. The Report argues that
closing gender gaps is not only a core development objective in its own right, it is also smart
economics.
Recent Articles
Women Leading Change: Experiences promoting women's empowerment, leadership, and gender justice
13 April 2012
Published in March 2012, this publication features, four case studies describing experiences
from Cambodia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Indonesia in promoting women's political and economic
empowerment and leadership. The case studies describe the context in which women live, what
leadership means and how to achieve it. Attention is given to working within existing institutions
and cultural norms, and also to creating new institutions. The final section summarizes common
lessons and considerations for future policy and practice aiming to promote women's empowerment and
leadership.
Evaluation for equitable development results
01 April 2012
This wide-ranging publication aims to contribute to the international debate on how to achieve
equitable development results by conceptualizing, designing, implementing and using evaluations
focused on human rights and equity. It does so by offering a number of strong contributions from 27
world-level experts and senior officers in institutions and governments dealing with development
and evaluation. The authors also presented their contribution in a series of webinars that are
available for download on the
My
M&E web portal. The book complements an earlier manual “
How to
design and implement equity-focused evaluations,” published in 2011.
Guest Column: Contract farming can work
26 March 2012
Improving the bargaining power of small farmers
Recent years have seen an upsurge in large-scale land purchases by foreign investors, which can lead to peasant evictions and social upheaval. But less attention has been paid to the parallel rise in contract farming arrangements, which can also endanger the rights of smallholders and contribute to the disempowerment of farmers within the food system. However, contract farming is a market-based approach that can work – provided that it is underpinned by respect for human rights, a focus on the right to food and strong institutional supervision.
MoreEmpowering women pays
26 March 2012
The importance of women in Ghanaian cocoa
As support for agriculture climbs up the policy agenda,
the spotlight is increasingly focused on smallholder farmers. But one dimension of this is still
being regularly overlooked – the role of women on smallholder farms. Markets for agricultural
commodities are increasingly linked to the value chains of large food manufacturers and
retailers.
Policy: The price of empowerment
24 March 2012
Fair trade competes with other certification brands
Over
the last couple of years, certification brands of coffee have steadily increased their volume of
sales in Northern consumer markets, with an ever broader portfolio of products. On the face of it,
this appears to be good news for groups of small producers who sell their coffee through these
certification schemes. However, the growth figures are significantly lower for the brand that is
most committed to working with farmers organisations, the Fair Trade Labelling Organizations (FLO),
also known as Fairtrade International, which brings together 25 fair trade initiatives from around
the world.
Policy: The woes of rural wage labour
24 March 2012
The limitations of inclusiveness
Smallholder agriculture is back on the global
policy agenda. This is because of the growing demand for food and because the livelihoods of
billions of people depend on small farms. However, farm wage labour remains largely ignored.
Other Topics
Essential Readings
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Rajesh Tandon (2010) "Voice, Values and Exclusion in CapacityDevelopment Processes: Experiences from India" in: Ubels, J., N. Acquaye-Baddoo and A. Fowler (eds) Capacity Development in Practice, Earthscan, pp. 93-100
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Gender equality for smarter cities: Challenges and progress (UN-HABITAT 2010)
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Assessing gender responsive local capacity development in Indonesia
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Helen O'Connell (2010) Preserve status quo or promote gender equality? Capacity.org Issue 40 (August 2010)
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Gender mainstreaming in local governments: Best practices (UN Habitat 2008)
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