Major weaknesses and gaps, and the lessons learned

This brief analysis of IFAD’s ongoing and recently completed projects provides a glimpse of how gender mainstreaming has progressed through the IFAD-funded projects in the Asia and the Pacific Region. This section discusses major weaknesses and gaps and the lessons learned.

Existing biases. It is evident from the analysis that gender inequality has been the result of continuing forms of male bias, including the notion that farmers are men; that a household is the basic unit of analysis; that the social sector is the field of activity for women, while modern technology is controlled by men; that the informal microenterprise is women’s work, while more formal small and medium-scale enterprises are the domain of men; and that women can be heads of households only if they are single.

The analysis shows that market distortions are based not only on class, but also on gender. The credit market, for instance, is rife with gender-based distortions. But gender-based distortions are also evident in resource use. This is an area upon which IFAD must reflect in more depth. For example, in Nepal men control the sale of milk, while clarified butter (ghee) is a woman’s domain. In such a situation, if a project attempts to maximize the sale of milk through a milk-distribution component, this is bound to create problems for women, who wish to maximize the production of ghee (which relies on access to some of the milk output).

Cultural and social attitudes. Mainstreaming gender issues in IFAD-funded projects thus means that there must be a focus on "efforts to modify social attitudes and value systems" (IFAD 1992). But this is the most neglected aspect in IFAD-funded projects. Most of the impact of the projects in terms of changes in social attitudes have been by-products of other activities (such as women’s access to credit). This outcome is positive, but not sufficient.

An IFAD-funded project targeting farmers in the North Cachar Hills of Assam has highlighted the importance of participatory management and the inclusion of women in the decision-making process. A workshop conducted by North Cachar Hills Community Resource Management and a local NGO enabled the farmers to contribute their views on possible solutions to the problems they encountered in growing jhum (shifting cultivation). Of particular importance was the fact that communities have the power to organize and plan the use of local resources provided they are given the necessary training and opportunities. However, it was evident that there were strong male biases that limited the participation of women in the socio-economic management process. Although the village elder felt that women were more knowledgeable than men with regard to certain areas of expertise and that women often gave good suggestions, his view was not shared by the majority, who felt that the airing of women’s views should be restricted to women’s discussion groups.

The completion evaluation mission (IFAD 1999f) of the Smallholder Livestock Development Project, Bangladesh, pointed to the relative neglect of social development issues vis-à-vis technical, financial and managerial training.

Microfinancing. Although microfinancing initiatives have been very successful in gender mainstreaming through IFAD-funded projects, there are still limitations. These are as follows:

  • Women’s control has increased, but is still restricted to homestead-based activities.
  • The productivity of women’s activities is low compared with that of men’s activities.
  • Men continue to have a dominant role in the control over larger-scale investments and investments in new sectors.
  • Few project fieldworkers are women, creating a communication barrier with women.

The following are some of the ‘second-generation’ problems and possible solutions, as identified through IFAD-funded projects:

In 1990 a path-breaking experiment was conducted in Tamil Nadu, India, that led to the empowerment of women and a change in the living conditions of female workers. Lease rights over quarries were given to the women workers, and the rights were vested in the groups formed under the Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas Scheme (DWCRA). This was made possible because of joint collaboration involving the government, the group members and social activists. The positive economic and social benefits were widely apparent. Thus, there was an increase in women’s weekly wages, a decline in domestic violence and a return of children to school. However, despite the initial success of the quarries run by DWCRA, the number of groups dwindled from 150 to about 60. This can be attributed to the change in the attitude of the Government towards the DWCRA, which was apparent from policies adopted that favoured male contractors over the DWCRA groups. The bureaucratic insensitivity to the innovative scheme greatly diminished the confidence of the female workers and left them with a feeling of uncertainty regarding the stability of their incomes and consequently their ability to provide a secure future for their children.

  • women’s graduation from microschemes to larger-scale credit schemes through formal banking systems;
  • ownership of productive assets by groups (for example, the case of brick kilns in the TNWD Project);
  • constraints on women’s participation in marketing either locally (as in Bangladesh; see IFAD 1999f) or long distance (as in Andhra Pradesh) – these constraints include social factors that restrict women’s mobility and their knowledge of market jargon; and
  • the local accumulation of savings (and interest) by village groups, as implemented in the Indian microcredit schemes.

Agriculture (including livestock and aquaculture). Crops that are grown and managed mainly by women (multicropping in upland swidden agriculture) are neglected in extension and technology development initiatives, compared with crops managed by men. If crops become commercially important, they pass into the domain of men. This has been the case of vegetable cultivation, which was carried out in home gardens and then became a main factor in agricultural diversification, for example, in the Kurigram Project in Bangladesh. During the transition, women have been ignored as farmers and have not benefited from any of the training in new technologies, though they continue to perform most of the required labour.

Forestry. Forest development and management are not a major focus in IFAD projects. This lack means that the projects ignore an important aspect of productive labour among women in forest-based (indigenous) communities. IFAD undertook an innovative beginning in this area through the Hills Leasehold Forestry Project in Nepal. Since this was a new approach, gender equality could have been targeted at the outset through a concentration on the membership of women in the groups. However, though women do most of the related labour, they have become members only if they are single, that is, if they belong to female-headed households.

Valid CSS! Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional