Download Notes Week 3 - DCU Moodle 2011

LG598 – MDev (p/t)
The Politics of Development
Participation, gender
and sustainable development
February 27th, 2011
Proposed outline for day
10.00-10.30
10.30-11.00
11.00-11.15
11.15-11.30
11.30-12.00
12.00-12.45
Discussion on key points from discussion forum reading
Presentation on participatory approaches
Discussion / Q&A
COFFEE
Participation in practice… Group exercises
Feedback from groups and discussion
12.45-1.45
LUNCH
1.45-2.45
Presentation on gender and sustainable development/climate
change approaches
Group work on challenges in mainstreaming these approaches
Feedback from groups
Overview of material for upcoming discussion forum
General overview and evaluation of how things going to date
2.45-3.10
3.10-3.30
3.30-3.45
3.45-4.00
Participatory development
What comes to be labelled
‘participation’ – and by
whom – is a deeply political
issue
(Cornwall, Romano and Shankland, 2008:
32)
Origins – Basic Needs approach
• 1970-80s - Project-based development
• Failure of top-down large scale infrastructural
project – ‘trickle down’ theories discredited
• Targeting of social aspects – ‘basic needs’
Shifts in the 1980s
• ‘Putting the Last First’ (Chambers, 1983)
– Critical of failure of mainstream development
approaches
– Critical of narrowly technical and discipline-specific
approaches
– Challenging development professionals to ‘unlearn’
their training
• Local knowledge (bottom up works best)
• Empowerment
– Increasingly the approach of NGOs from 70s on…
• Financial crisis and rise neo-liberalism made selfsufficiency a necessity – participation as cost-sharing
From projects to policies…
Participation gained momentum as an approach as it
was seen to make projects more effective, efficient and
sustainable.
1990 – WB established cross-organisational
Participation Learning Group
- Report (1994) – ‘low intensity’ participation routine in
Bank’s work; ‘high intensity’ (joint decision-making,
control by beneficiaries over initiatives) less so
- Report noted the need for governments to enhance
participation in policy as well as projects
And onto field research…
• Toolkits developed for ‘market research’
- Stakeholder analysis, social analysis, needs
assessments…
• PRA – sharing of knowledge, joint analysis, learning
and planning
• Led to ‘participatory development’ school (McGee’s
analogy to GAD – transformative approach –
development process to be more equitable,
democratic and inclusive)
PRAs
All occurring within a changing context…
1990s
• Refocusing of aid on poverty reduction goals
• Governance
• Human rights
• Partnership and the rise of civil society
Shift from project to policy-based development
From
Beneficiary
Project
Consultation
Appraisal
Micro
To
Citizen
Policy
Decision-making
Implementation
Macro
Gaventa and Valderrama, 1999
Policy and participation
Decentralisation
PRSPs
‘Voices of the Poor’
But what exactly does participation mean?
Arnstein’s ladder
Citizen participation defined as “…the redistribution of power that enables
the have-not citizens, presently excluded from the political and economic
processes, to be deliberately included in the future…” (1969: 216)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Manipulation : Objective is not to enable people to participate in
planning or conducting programmes, but to enable powerholders to
"“educate” or “cure” the participants
Therapy : idem
Informing : Allows the “have-nots” to hear and have a voice
Consultation : idem
Placation : a higher level tokenism because the ground rules allow havenots to advise, but retain for the power-holders the continued right to
decide
Partnership : enables citizens to negotiate and engage in trade-offs with
traditional powerholders
Delegated power : “Have-not” citizens obtain the majority of decisionmaking seats, or full managerial control
Citizen control : idem
Participation and power (White, 1996)
Form of
participation
What ‘partn’
means to
implementing
agency
What ‘partn’
means for those
on receiving end
What ‘partn’ is for
Nominal
Legitimisation – to Inclusion – to
show are doing
retain some
something
access to
potential benefits
Instrumental
Efficiency
Cost – of time
spent
Costeffectiveness
Representative
Sustainability
Leverage – in
influence project
To give people a
voice
Transformative
Empowerment
Empowerment –
to decide for
oneself
Both a means and
en end
Display
Dimensions of power
Power over – the ability to dominate
Power to – The ability to see possibilities for change
Power with – Power that comes from individuals working
together to achieve common goals
Power within – Feelings of self-worth, self-esteem within
individuals
Willis (2005: 102) after Rowlands (1997, 1998)
Theories of power
Lukes (1974)
Decision-making (contests in visible, open spaces)
Non Decision-making (‘mobilisation of bias’ / manipulation of rules of
the game)
Ideological power (conflicts hidden through internationalisation of
dominating discourses, ideologies, values, behaviours….)
Participation: the advocates…
•
•
•
•
Efficiency and effectiveness
Sustainability
Enhancing democracy
Building legitimacy and social cohesion
• Need to situate debate in broader arena of governance –
concerning questions over development, democracy,
citizenship and evolving nature and roles of state and
civil society
The critics…
• On PRAs – simplistic and naïve conception of
‘community’ - Who participates? Who does not?
• Depoliticised/technical approach reinforcing existing
power inequalities – insufficient understanding of how
power operates and how empowerment may occur
• Focus on ‘problem solving’ / solutions (‘makeability’ of
society) detracts from underlying forces of social and
economic change – obsession with local rather than
wider structures of injustice and oppression
• An inadequate understanding of the role of structure and
agency in social change
The Actors - NGOs
While people inside the NGO world still think of
themselves as occupying the high moral ground, the
reality is now that few people in the South outside the
NGO world think of NGOs like this. The word in the
street in the South is that NGOs are charlatans racking
up large salaries… and many air-conditioned offices.
(Holloway, 1999)
The key question…
• Has participation (as an alternative
development approach) influenced the
mainstream development agenda, transforming
development thinking and practice
OR
• Has participation’s absorption into the
mainstream development approach undermined
its potential and impact ?
Gender and development (GAD)
Origins
Feminism of ’60s on
+
Boserup’s pioneering work: WID – WAD - GAD
Feminism(s)
Feminism is not a unified perspective or set of ideas.
Three phases of feminist activism and theorising may be identified
The first phase
19th and early 20th century
equality in legal and political spheres
The second phase
1970s
built on the distinction between sex and constructed gender
Betty Frieden The Feminine Mystique 1965); Kate Millet Sexual Politics (1970);
Germain Greer The Female Eunuch (1970)
Raising consciousness about a diverse range of issues in relation to identity and
gender hierarchy; oppressive patriarchy; women = a social class?
Both first and second waves of feminism attempted to establish rigid divisions
between male and female, and saw female oppression as being inevitable
and biologically determined.
Feminism(s)
Socialist feminism – combines Marxist conception of
power with feminist conception of patriarchy – examines
problem of woman as mother and worker; producer and
reproducer
Radical feminism – takes a ‘political’ stance to the notion
of gender as ‘social construction’ – examines the social
relations of power – interests of men have come to be
seen as universal human interests – differences between
women not of such interest as deflects the focus away
from the workings of male supremacy
Feminism(s)
The third phase / postmodern feminism
1980s and 1990s
Traditional feminist analysis - middle-class, white, North
American/Western European women
Emphasis on difference and plurality
No universal perspective
C. Gilligan In a Different Voice, 1982; B. Hooks Feminist Theory, 1984
Women in Development (WID)
Ester Boserup (1970)
Empirical studies of work done by women in the global
South - Documented the contribution of women to
economic development
First data produced to render visible women’s work – up
to then men alone viewed as actors and agents of
development
Stressed the need to incorporate women into
development policies and practices – equity, anti-poverty
and efficiency
Paved the way for the WID approach – dev not
obtainable if women not integrated into dev process –
separate WID projects developed (time!)
UN Decade for Women – themes of development, peace
and equality
Criticisms of WID approach
• Emphasis was on economic development rather than on
particular barriers and problems faced by women
– Increase in women’s participation in market economy seen to
lead to both equity and efficiency
– WID sometimes resulted in worse conditions for women as their
workload was increased
– Women just a cheap delivery system for increased economic
development
– “Add women and stir” approach/programmes
• Women treated the same as men – gender-based
barriers to their participation not explored
• No-one willing to redistribute power to women (equity
programmes typically top-down)
Women and Development (WAD)
(Southern perspective strong - DAWN)
-
-
Women already integrated into development in an exploitative way –
women’s real needs not being met
Women not neglected, just overburdened and undervalued
A re-evaluation of women’s contribution to the development process
required, and a redistribution of benefits (S/N; men/women)
accordingly
Women will never get equality if patriarchal structures and global
inequalities not addressed
Criticisms
- Static conceptualisation of women as a homogenous,
undifferentiated group whose condition determined by their sex
Women’s triple role in development
(Moser, 1989)
Production
Reproduction
Community
management
Increased
emphasis with
SAPs
‘80s-’90s – GAD – Empowerment
Key differences to previous approaches
-
Critiqued the development process itself by highlighting how capitalist
development (industrialisation and commercialising of agriculture) had had
adverse impacts on 3 spheres of work (triple role) of women
-
Conceptualised gender as a dynamic social construct (Anne Oakley)
-
An explicit focus on gender power relations (radical feminism)
Influenced the shift in development towards empowerment and participation
approaches
Southern contributions to the GAD approach
- Assumptions that ‘women’ were a homogenous category
challenged – a reaction to the dominance of monolithic white,
middle-class Northern feminism (third wave)
DAWN (Development Alternatives for Women for a New Era)
AWID (Association for Women’s Rights in Development)
- Stereotypes of Southern women as uniformly victimised, poor and
uneducated challenged (Mohanty, 1988)
Another shift in the GAD approach…
• Transformation from ‘needs’ based approach to ‘rights’ based
approach (reflecting shifts within broader development theory)
• Women now seen as citizens rather than mothers, wives, and carers
• Linked to UN commitments (see on further) – recognition of
women’s rights as human rights v. important
– Violence against women only recognised as human right violation for
the first time in 1993 (UN Vienna Conference on Human Rights)
• But – some reservations with Western rights-based approach…
Implications for research, policy and practice
At micro-level:
• Inter-household analyses emerge as images of
harmonious unitary households dissolve
• Programmes / projects put in place to increase women’s
access to, and control over money (era of micro-credit
schemes)
• Era of ‘women’s projects’ – targeting ‘women’s issues’
Implications for research, policy and practice
At macro level:
Gender mainstreaming – incorporation of gender into
mainstream development targets and policies – e.g. UN
•
•
•
•
•
1975:
1976-85:
1980:
1985:
1995:
•
•
2005:
2006:
1st UN Conference for Women (Mexico City)
UN Decade for Women
UN Copenhagen Conference for Women (VAW)
UN Nairobi Conference for Women
UN Beijing Conference for Women –
Beijing Platform for Action – National Plans for Women
Beijing+5
UN Reform process to include new gender mainstreaming
unit…
Gender mainstreaming
What exactly is it?
“…a long-term strategy or systematic institutional approach for
promoting/producing gender equality as a policy outcome”
(SIDA definition)
All bilateral and multilateral agencies now have policies (many
staffed units), NGOs also, Goal no. 2 of MDG.
Gender mainstreaming – Does it work?
The pluses…
• Politically significant: the spirit and politics of its intent – to imbue all
systems, structures and institutionalised cultures with awareness of
gender-based biases and injustices, and remove them.
• Makes gender issues everyone’s concern, not just the ‘gender types’
and units
• Practical contributions: measures to ensure mainstreaming of
gender perspectives (e.g. BPfA – national plans; gender
budgeting…)
Gender mainstreaming – Does it work?
The negatives…
•
•
•
Nebulous and elusive with unclear goals
Does not demand enough in terms of skills and resources from those
mandated to implement it
Not working for / reaching women most marginalised
Most importantly (and perhaps damning!) – a neutralisation of political intent
- A focus on the difference in outcomes between women and men and not
the power relationships and their origins which shape these outcomes
“In recent years, less emphasis appears to have been put on effecting the
‘mainstream’ of societal structures, processes, organisational cultures and
politics through gender mainstreaming as socially transformative, while
more is being put on the ‘mainstream’ of development administration’s
policies, planning routes and processes, programmes and projects…”
(Woodford-Berger, 2003: 67)
Sustainable development
A ‘new paradigm’ or a ‘green-wash over business as usual’?
Sustainable development is an integrated, systematic approach to
development that takes a long-term approach and balances its
different dimensions – economic growth, social equity and long-term
environmental sustainability.
Irish Aid Environmental Policy for Sustainable Development, Irish Aid, n.d.
It is development that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own
needs.
World Commission on Environment and Development, The Brundtland
Commission,1987
Origins
• The term ‘sustainable development’ generally attributed to the World
Conservation Strategy (1980) (IIED)
• ‘Brundtland Report’ – Our Common Future
– 1970s – studies predicted depletion of finite reserves (neo-Malthusians)
– Others countered with claims that technology would compensate
– - 1985 – hole in ozone layer detected over Antarctica
• CFCs
• Global scale problem
• Existing climatic models failed to predict this – how much really understood?
• Popularity due to vagueness?
• Like apple pie… but what does this mean in practice –
commitments, costs?
Mainstream approaches
• World Conservation Strategy (1980)
• Brandt Reports (1980s)
• ‘Brundtland Report’ (1987)
• Caring for the Earth (1991)
Critiques of mainstream approaches
• Reformist rather than transformist
• Rational management focus (modernisation again!) with nothing to say
about the structures of wealth and power that constrain implementation
• No analysis of the world economy or causes of poverty
• Draw only on neo-populist ideas – e.g. failure of large-scale, centrallyplanned interventions, and celebration of indigenous knowledge and
‘people-centred’ development
• Rural focus – little to say about strategies of urbanisation or
industrialisation
• More readily applicable to SSA than to countries more industrialised or
urbanised such as Brazil, Argentina, NICs in Asia…
Contrasting approaches
The ‘green’ alternative to ‘blue’ (market, liberal, capitalist) and
‘red’ (state-centred, socialist) development
-
Development as social transformation
-
A strategy of ‘demodernisation’ involving a gradual withdrawal from
the modern capitalist world economy and the launch of a new, nonmodern, non-capitalist development project
-
The social unit of development to be a culturally defined community
– each community to be self-reliant
-
Development to be characterised by social justice and ecological
balance
Contrasting approaches
Ecosocialism
•
•
An extension of radical development thinking/radical socialism
Redefinition of needs, the redistribution of resources and a reassessment of
the industrial mode of production required
Ecofeminism (Shiva…)
-
Both women and nature are subjugated and oppressed by patriarchal
industrialism and capitalism – shared history of oppression
Modern science a masculine and patriarchal project which requires the
subjugation of both nature and women – imposed on ‘indigenous’ societies
A gender-based ideology of patriarchy underlies ecological destruction
The ‘feminist principle in nature’ = women, as producers, closer to nature in
spiritual sense – WED
‘earth mother myths’ / ‘feminist fables’??
Climate change
‘the defining human development issue of our generation’
“The effect that increased droughts, extreme weather events,
tropical storms and sea level rises will have on large parts of Africa,
on many small island states and coastal zones will be inflicted in our
lifetimes. In terms of aggregate world GDP, these short term effects
may not be large. But for some of the world’s poorest people, the
consequences could be apocalyptic. In the long run climate change
is a massive threat to human development and in some places it is
already undermining the international community’s efforts to reduce
extreme poverty.”
(UNDP HDR, 2008: 3)
Trends over time
• Of the 12 warmest years since records began, 11 of
them were between 1995 and 2006
• Ice coverage on glaciers and icecaps has been
dramatically reduced
• Arctic sea ice is shrinking by at least 2.7% per decade
• Sea levels are rising
• Drought-prone regions are suffering more intense and
longer rainless periods
• Heavy precipitation is increasing, and weather systems
are becoming increasingly variable
(IPCC, 2008)
Models
IPCC data (almost) universally
accepted
Climate change vulnerability indices
(http://www.maplecroft.com/news/climate_change_risk_list_highlights_vulnerable_nation
s_and_safe_havens_05.php#)
Consequences?
Consequences?
Consequences?
Impact on the poor
• Climate shocks (droughts, floods, storms)
– 262mn people affected by climate disasters each year from
2000-2004
– 98% in DCs (1 in 19 people) (UNDP, 2008: 16)
– Limited insurance, meagre assets, low incomes
• UNDP research – positive correlations of
malnourishment, stunting and illiteracy over time with
drought in Kenya, Ethiopia, Niger and India
Policy responses
• Caught up in contentious high-level political debates
since the 1970s
• The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC)
– Signed 1992, adopted 1994 (after much debate in 80s)
• Adoption of Kyoto Protocol in 1997; entered into force in
2005 (disquiet at movement towards protocol as legal instrument)
– developed countries to attain a reduction in greenhouse gas
emissions of at least five percent of combined emissions levels
during 1990 in the period between 2008 and 2012.
Policy responses
• Climate change mitigation responses
– IPCC recommends cuts on greenhouse gas emissions in region
of 80-60% 1990 levels
– Negotiations on emission limits – ‘Kyoto Protocol’ targets –
national targets – ‘Kyoto Plus’ – onto Kyoto post-2012
– Transforming how we produce and use energy
– But Australia (voluntary system); USA efficiency, not reduction
• Carbon pricing
– Carbon taxes
– ‘Cap and Trade’ (EU’s ETS ~ Emissions Trading System)
• Regulation of transport – personal, trade
Proposals on the way forward…
• UNDP proposal of Climate Change Mitigation Facility
(CCMF)
– To mobilise $25-50 billion p.a. to finance low carbon energy
investments in DCs
• In the meantime… adapting to the inevitable
– Climate Change Adaptation – now a central strand of national
and international climate policy
– Activities range from reducing vulnerability to shocks to those
improving response capacity.
‘Adaptation apartheid’ (Desmond Tutu)
• Small footprints, big impacts
BUT
• Poor resources to assess climate risks (meteorology)
• Few resources for preventative infrastructure ($1
prevention prevents $7 loss)
• Poor levels of climate shock related social protection
mechanisms
• A challenge to mainstream modernisation?
• Sustainable growth = what exactly?
Discussion forum
Group 3: Aid and Governance
• Crawford, G. (1997) “Foreign aid and political conditionality:
Issues of effectiveness and consistency”, Democratization, 4(3),
pp. 69-108.
• Mercer, C. (2002) “NGOs, civil society and democratisation in
the developing world: A critical review of the literature”, Progress
in Development Studies, 2(1), pp. 5-22.
• Easterly, W. (2007) “Was Development Assistance a
Mistake?”, American Economic Review, 97(2), pp. 328-332.