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

WDR-cover-@122 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.

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Recent Articles

Strengthening pastoralist voices in Tanzania

14 February 2012

Screen shot 2012-02-14 at 5.26.28 PM This booklet, and its accompanying DVD, reports on the ‘Strengthening Voices’ project, underway in two districts in northern Tanzania. The project aims to strengthen the capacity of pastoralist communities and local governments to shape strategies for adaptive environmental management and poverty reduction in Tanzania’s drylands. At the core of the project is a training course that explains the economic and ecological processes at the heart of pastoral systems - clarifying the rationale that underpins pastoral livelihood strategies.The course is based on a similar initiative that has been field-tested and run in the Sahel region of West Africa since 2000.

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Supporting improved livelihoods for pastoralists

27 January 2012

Cover-SNV Practice Brief 2 Pastoralism is often depicted as an anachronistic system that cannot cope with the demands of modern development. However, practical experience reveals that pastoralism is not only capable of changing with the times, it is often the only viable livelihood option, particularly for communities living in remote, dryland environments. This collection of case studies from SNV Netherlands Development Organisation demonstrates that external support can help to strengthen pastoralists' voice in policymaking, enhance their engagement with markets and improve service provision and natural resource management in some of the most challenging environments in Africa today. 

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Empowerment: A journey not a destination

19 January 2012

DfiD-Empowerment The DFID-funded Pathways of Women’s Empowerment Programme launched a synthesis report based on the findings and recommendations from five years of research in London on 13th January. The report, entitled 'Empowerment: A Journey not a Destination' draws on the collective works of 60 academic-activists in 12 countries on four continents. With six companion policy papers and case studies, the publication shares the latest learning and analysis on what works to enhance women’s empowerment in different parts of the world.

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World Development Report 2012: Gender equality and development

03 October 2011

WDR-cover-@122 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.

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Interview: Riding the green wave

13 September 2011

CAP43_ElizabethDipuoPetersElizabeth Dipuo Peters, Minister of Energy, Republic of South Africa

South Africa’s path to universal energy access

South Africa is on track to achieve near-universal access to energy by 2015, a remarkable achievement given that 15 years ago, only 30% of the population had access to electricity. Minister Elizabeth Dipuo Peters, explains how they did it.

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Case study: Mainstreaming gender in local governance processes in Afghanistan

09 September 2011

DDATo minimize gap between the Community Development Councils and Provincial Government Organizations, Afghanistan’s National Area-Based Development Programme (NABDA) started to establish District Development Assemblies (DDAs)  in 2006. This case study describes the process used to mainstream gender in these local governance processes and some of the concrete results achieved so far.
 

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Essential Readings

  • 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

  • Gender equality for smarter cities: Challenges and progress (UN-HABITAT 2010)

  • Assessing gender responsive local capacity development in Indonesia

  • Helen O'Connell (2010) Preserve status quo or promote gender equality? Capacity.org Issue 40 (August 2010)

  • Gender mainstreaming in local governments: Best practices (UN Habitat 2008)

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