Numerous constraints operate against women’s participation in and benefiting from demand-driven development fund activities.

In late 2002, IFAD conducted an evaluation of the first of three phases of the Sahelian Areas Development Fund Programme in Mali. The goal of the programme is to reduce poverty and to improve the living conditions of the rural population living in this part of Mali. The main objective of the first programme phase was to set up institutions, mechanisms and procedures, ensure their workability and develop a limited number of investment activities. This phase focused primarily on the establishment of a demand-driven village infrastructure development fund to finance and implement microprojects proposed by community-based organizations such as village associations, women’s groups and so on. Associated training, information distribution and participatory evaluation were also included, together with the fund. One of the two main goals of the evaluation was to analyse the community-level strategies, including participation and gender issues.

The programme design had stressed that the strategy and the approach “would make sure that women fully participate in the decision-making process”. In villages where there was no women’s group through which women could channel their priorities, the plan was to use participatory analysis to take women’s constraints, priorities and desired solutions into account. The design also stated that a major portion of the microprojects financed were to target women directly.

However, the implementation practice proved to be challenging. The evaluation found weak involvement of women at the decision-making level, few microprojects specifically allocated to them (although the women probably did also benefit from other village projects) and the limited participation of women in participatory evaluation. Even the representatives of established women’s associations only played a marginal role in the decision-making on village priorities. Village youth were in the same situation. Where women and youth were active was in the supply of labour for the required village contribution to cost. For example, women were often involved in bringing water and food to workers. But there were also cases where women provided manual labour. In the village of Togo, for instance, the evaluation found that heavy rains had badly damaged the repaired road. Of the 105 villagers who turned up to repair the road, 25 were women.

The evaluation found many roadblocks to meaningful participation by women and to women benefiting from the programme.

• Women had less access to programme information. One of the specific constraints mentioned by the field agents was the difficulty encountered in the establishment of contacts with women and in informing them directly about the programme. The first supervision mission had already noticed this problem. Often women obtained their information through men. More women field agents needed to be involved. More appropriate packaging of the information was also called for. But there were additional constraints on the women’s side: often, they did not have time to attend the community meetings because of their workloads or could not understand the language in which the meetings were held because they only spoke Bambara.

• Women were marginalized from decision-making. Even though about half the microprojects implemented were social-sector projects and benefited the whole population, men and the dominant village groups tended to decide on the village’s priorities. Only about 7% of the microprojects that were implemented had been directly proposed by women. In spite of the use of participatory diagnostic processes in some villages, which differentiated village priorities according to whether they had been identified by men, women, or youth, the programme did not have the capacity to ensure that the priorities of women and youth carried sufficient weight in the final decisions. In the final analysis, equity concerns were overridden by operational considerations.

• There was only a symbolic involvement of women in training. The project required that a given quota of women be involved in all training. But training activities, including literacy training, which was assumed to be of particular interest to women, did not benefit the women as much as expected. It was difficult for adult women to dedicate 45 days to attendance at an intensive literacy course because of their family and farming responsibilities.

• There was a standardization in solutions. The evaluation also noticed that the programme response to village requests tended to be standardized in terms of technology and design options. One of the results of this standardization was that the programmes was not able to adapt sufficiently to the specific needs of women and the poor. The supply of drinking water – a frequently selected option – is a case in point. It needs to be adapted to the social, as well as the technical, requirements of a specific situation.

However, while the women tended to be excluded from the village decision-making process by traditional male leaders, there was also inequality among the women themselves. The evaluation notes that, within women’s groups, there were major differences in terms of assets, capacities and influence that affected the access to benefits. Often the beneficiaries of one or another project were found to be the women relatives of an influential village man. The poorer women benefited far less frequently.

The evaluation concludes that, although the question of gender was very much present in programme design and regulations, it was much less so in the field. In spite of the quota system imposed in all the management committees and training, the result was ‘a symbolic presence’ of women. When women were ‘present’ through their representatives, they did not speak French, were generally less educated and less informed, had less financial resources than the men’s organizations and did not play a leadership and decision-making role.

Lesson: The targeting and active involvement of women are difficult under a development fund mechanism, particularly if there are major cultural constraints. Quotas are not a sufficient solution. Such fund modalities tread a fine line between allowing the communities to make their own decisions and trying to influence the communities to be equitable in the decision-making process.

Adapted from:

Development Researchers Network, République du Mali: La Participation des Beneficiaires dans le Cadre de la Première Phase du FODESA, Rapport Final, Rome: IFAD, January 2003.

Appraisal Report and various Supervision Reports of Sahelian Areas Development Fund Programme, Mali

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