Transcript Gender - Green Resistance

1
Outline for the day

Problem tree

Your methodology / time line

Gender and environment

Exam: April 18

Documentary (The End of Poverty?) – this Wed @ 7 pm @ t

Readings (Earth Democracy – pages 1 – 23)

Next unit: 3rd unit: NRM per resource

Bring in an article to discuss next week – for your research
2
3
What about indicators?

indicators should:

Be developed within an accepted conceptual framework.

Be clearly defined and easy to understand.

Be subject to aggregation.

Be objective.

Have reasonable data requirements.

Be relevant to users.


Be limited in number.
Reflect causes, processes or results
4
What about indicators?

SMART

Specific

Aggressive but achievable targets

Relevant
Measurable
Time-bound
5
What about responses?

See handout

Example: river water quality

A number of policy instruments, such as in situ treatment and water quality
standards, could have positive or negative impacts on the state of the water
quality.

Other impacts can come from the effects of municipal taxes driving as urban
growth, infrastructure development reducing sewage discharges and food import
programmes to compensate for a reduction in fish as a food source.
Example policy instrument scan for water quality of rivers
6
7
To summarize
8
9
10
Problem tree analysis: Why?
11
Problem tree:
Identify the problem

Whose problem? – perceived as such by the community
The following are the basic steps that should be followed with the community, in
developing the cause-effect analysis leading to the identification of focal
problems and their solutions through the problem tree:
1.Identify, define and select specific main problems or undesired situations within
the project scope;
2.For each specific main problem selected develop a problem tree;
3.For each problem tree carry out a comprehensive cause-effect analysis of the
situation identifying the focal problems;
12
Class exercise

Draw a tree.

Write the problem on the trunk of the tree.

What are the causes of the problem?

social, economic, and political causes

including attitudes, behavior, and other factors
13
14
Your methodology


Lacking in detail

Examine the questions

Detail the tools
See: Livelihoods and Ecosystems Dealing with Complexity in Rural
Development and Agriculture Resources and References (on the web)
15
Gender and Environment
16

Readings for this section

Changing women’s roles, changing environmental knowledges: evidence from
Upper Egypt (on the web)

Gender and the environment: readings from the book – gender and natural
resource managementplease read chapter 1 , and optional: chapter 2, chapter 7 ,
and chapter 10
17
What is gender?

Gender is defined as a “culturally specific set of characteristics that identifies the
social behavior of women and men and the relationship between them” and is
regarded as an analytical tool in the study of the socio-economic process.

Gender refers to the socially constructed roles played by women and men and
assigned on the basis of their sex. Over time, these roles can change with
economic and social developments.

Gender equality implies inclusion and full participation of both men and women
in all areas of private and public life. Gender mainstreaming is a strategy to bring
gender equality issues into the mainstream of decision-making. Societies tend
to have an innate male bias; policies often inadvertently result in gender
inequality.
18
Theorizing gender and environment

Experiences of the environment are differentiated by gender through the
materially distinct daily work activities and responsibilities of men and women.
Consequently…

Gender is thus understood as a critical variable in shaping processes of
ecological change, viable livelihoods and the prospects for sustainable
development.

However

Relational perspectives on gender purport to give greater emphasis to the
dynamics of gender, emphasizing power relations between men and women
over resource access and control, and their concrete expressions in conflict,
cooperation and coexistence over environments and livelihoods.
19
Gender and environment

Women's Action Agenda 21

effectively linked concerns with women and gender with environmentally
sustainable development

both having been traditionally marginal issues on the development agenda
20
Why Does Gender Matter?
Seager (1995):
1.
Environmental institutions are gendered
2.
Individual environmental behaviour is gendered
3.
Men and women have different relationships to the environment
4.
Environmental degradation has a different impact on men
and women
5.
Environmental action / conflict / discourse is gendered.
21
Gender equality and gender mainstreaming

As mainstreaming focuses on gender equality as a goal rather than women
as a target group, women’s development is not viewed as a sector; but
rather, equality issues are integrated into sectoral analysis and not confined
to isolated programmes.

The main components of an effective mainstreaming capacity include:



clarity about and commitment to the goal of gender equality;
incorporation of gender issues in the planning and decision-making process;
and availability of gender-disaggregated data.
22


Since the relationships between increased employment and income, and
economic empowerment and gender equality are not straightforward
Therefore:

economic activity is not a sufficient condition for gender equality

and, not all employment is empowering.
23
Gender equality and economic activity

Economic equality is definable as “the ability of men and women to support
the same standard of living for themselves over their lifetimes”

increased income for women does not necessarily lead to an improvement
in their bargaining power in decision-making
24
Gender-aware economic analysis
(a) At the macro level -- women’s unpaid labour must be included in the
measurement of the size of the economy, in order to account for the total
contribution of women to economic output and to assess the opportunity cost of
resource transfers between sectors;
(b) At the meso level (Government departments, intermediary institutions,
product and factor markets) -- a need to recognize that neither resource allocation
processes nor markets are gender neutral;
(c) At the micro level, inequalities within the household regarding divisions of
labour and decision-making constrain women’s access to and control over resources
and the returns of their labour.
Source: Sally Baden, “Gender issues in agricultural liberalization”, Bridge (development-gender), Report No. 41,
Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, 1998, www.ids.ac.uk.
25
Theoretical reflections on
environmental policies and their gender impacts
The disregard of women’s everyday-life

Different patterns of time use

Different share of non-market and market activities

Different kind of work
Environmental policy tends to take women’s time for environmental activities
for granted
26
Theoretical reflections on
environmental policies and their gender impacts
The disregard of the needs of vulnerable groups:
Pregnant women, small children and elderly people are vulnerable groups, women are the main
carers
Risk definitions, threshold limits and critical amounts are oriented to the needs of a middle-aged
healthy man
27
Theoretical reflections on
environmental policies and their gender impacts
The “feminization of environmental responsibility”:
Women as “nurses to the ill environment”
The burden of environmental responsibility is assigned to women
28
Theoretical reflections on
environmental policies and their gender impacts
The lack of “shaping power” of women:
 Gap between the responsibility for the environment that is assigned to women and their real
influence
 Lack of shaping power (Schultz/Weller 1995):

What is the shaping power of women?




the power to frame problems and fashion solutions,
the power to create and shape knowledge, new technologies and environmental strategies and planning
the possibility of influence on decision making processes
the possibility of influence on the technical design of products or technologies
29
Conclusions for an environmental policy
Environmental policy should (at least)

take into account the different every-day needs of men and women

take into account the different needs of especially vulnerable groups

develop concepts of shared responsibility and

increase the shaping power of women, especially with respect to all forms
of decision-making.
30
Tools for gender mainstreaming

to eradicate the bias inherent in social attitudes and to assess the
contribution of men and women to the agricultural sector, decision makers
and analysts must acquire relevant skills through training in gender-sensitive
analysis and participatory approaches.

(a) Statistics – designed to include gender-disaggregated data (where
relevant) and with appropriate data collection methods; (b) Surveys – to
trace current gender relations; (c) Cost-benefit analysis – carried out with a
gender perspective in order to weigh the pros and cons of the impact of
policies on both sexes; (d) Research – to identify current issues and trends
in a specific area; (e) Gender impact analysis – to pinpoint the differences
in the impact of specific policies or action plans on men and women.
31
gender as relational: involving the interaction of men and women, structured
through norms and institutions, reconfigured through individual agency
Work has centered on

gendered property rights (water and land)

gender dynamics in local participation in development programmes and community-based institutions

the micro- and macro-politics of collective action

geographical mobility ; gendered environmental knowledge

livelihoods and resource use ; history

and dynamics of gender in policy discourses and within environmental departments of development
agencies
32
Gender and Natural Resources Management

gender is NOT primarily relevant only within households (a view that is
often stated in mainstream environmental and political ecology research)

gender is salient within policy and practice across a variety of scales, and
within institutions central to natural resource governance, from gendered
property relations to the gendered positions of actors within organizations
charged with governing or managing natural resources.
33
Gender in the neo-liberal agenda

There are links between economic reform (doi moi), natural resource management
policies and gender in Vietnam, where privatization of coastal aquaculture has brought
about a transformation of resource access and control.

Because of gender biases that run through the new institutional arrangements associated
with economic reform, this process has built on and reinforced social hierarchies within
communities, and converged with a wider reassertion of patriarchal power and family
ideologies in Vietnam to create gendered exclusions around access to natural resources.

Despite women's expanded role during the war years, gender biases in the reform process
itself, coupled with a revitalization of male-dominated kinship relations, are undermining
any gains achieved.

Gendered power is thus multi-scalar and is at work in various ways and at various levels.
34
homework

Please email me, based on the readings (and you can read more) – how: (1) what
new light/perspective you’ve attained re: gender and environment? (2) what are
the many multi-sectoral links between gender and NRM? (3) how it applies/you
can apply it to the Arab world?
35
‘gender in agriculture and agro-processing
in Lebanon.’ UN – ESCWA. 2001

The Beijing Platform for Action (1995), an agenda for women’s empowerment, calls on
Governments and active players to promote a policy of gender mainstreaming.

Gender mainstreaming focuses on gender equality as a goal and not women as a target
group.

Inadequate gender-desegregated data is a major constraint to a full understanding of the
roles and responsibilities of women in the agricultural sector. Specifically, the data on
Lebanon regarding the status of women in agriculture and agro-processing is inadequate
and based largely on surveys that vary in their assumptions and use of analytical
techniques.

As a consequence, available statistics are often inconsistent and cannot therefore provide
a reliable basis of comparison.
36
Gender and agriculture – in Lebanon

the risk of poverty is higher among rural women than among men.

Usually women have a harder time coping with and overcoming poverty.
37
Gender and agriculture in Lebanon: bias in
access to resources

Women do not buy land and inheriting land, especially agricultural land, is
restricted for women by (sectarian) law and/or by social norms; land
ownership is predominantly exclusive to men.

Women’s access to credit is restricted by the unavailability of land title as
collateral. Training, extension services and technological innovations do not
normally target the needs of women and women are seldom encouraged to
participate.
38
Gender and agriculture: household income

Women tend to spend more of their income on food, education and health.

As traditionally women’s loan repayment rate is higher than men’s, donor
agencies and NGOs have actively pursued female clients.


Group lending has become a common venue for extending credit in both rural and
urban areas— especially to women. The advantages of group lending include: a
reduction in institutional transaction costs; encouragement of the poor—women,
in particular—to work in groups for financial and social reasons; and a better
repayment record because of peer pressure and group solidarity.
Rural women often supplement the family income by producing dairy
products and food preserves.
39
Gender and food security

the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) maintains that
women play a crucial role as producers of food, managers of natural
resources and prime executors of household food security

maintaining the three pillars of food security,

food production, access to available food and nutritional security.

women often face social, cultural and economic constraints that impair their
ability to carry out this role.
40
Gender and food security: obstacles

Food production 
insecure land tenure,
 inability to use land as collateral for credit,
 lower educational level, and
 insufficient agricultural extension programs geared towards
women farmers

41
Gender, poverty and rural development

Despite its shrinking contribution to gross domestic product (GDP), the
agricultural sector remains the mainstay of a relatively high proportion of the
labour force in Arab countries

Work is defined by The World Women 2000


“the participation of individuals in productive activities for which they either receive
remuneration (in cash or in kind) for their participation or are unpaid because they are
contributors to a family business enterprise. It also includes subsistence production of
goods for their own households and non-economic activities such as domestic work…”
In Western Asia - 34 % of the female labour force are contributing family
workers, and therefore unpaid, as compared with only 7 % of the male working
force.
42
Gender, poverty and rural development
43
Sources of useful data

(a) Labour force surveys

(b) Poverty assessments



(c) Household sample surveys
(d) Agricultural censuses
(e) Other sources: studies in international journals, university thesis and
research projects may be useful sources of information.