Gender Equity

Gender and Inorganic Nitrogen: What are the Implications of Moving Towards a More Balanced Use of Nitrogen Fertilizer in the Tropics?

Citation:

Farnworth, Cathy Rozel, Clare Stirling, Tek B. Sapkota, M. L. Jat, Michael Misiko, and Simon Attwood. 2017. “Gender and Inorganic Nitrogen: What are the Implications of Moving Towards a More Balanced Use of Nitrogen Fertilizer in the Tropics?” International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability 15 (2): 136-52.

Authors: Cathy Rozel Farnworth, Clare Stirling, Tek B. Sapkota, M. L. Jat, Michael Misiko, Simon Attwood

Abstract:

For agriculture to play a role in climate change mitigation strategies to reduce emissions from inorganic nitrogen (N) fertilizer through a more balanced and efficient use are necessary. Such strategies should align with the overarching principle of sustainable intensification and will need to consider the economic, environmental and social trade-offs of reduced fertilizer-related emissions. However, the gender equity dimensions of such strategies are rarely considered. The case studies cited in this paper, from India, Lake Victoria in East Africa and more broadly from sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), show that the negative externalities of imbalanced inorganic N use in high- and low-use scenarios impact more strongly on women and children. We examine, through a literature review of recent work in SSA, the relative jointness of intra-household bargaining processes in low N use scenarios to assess the degree to which they impact upon N use. We suggest that gender-equitable strategies for achieving more balanced use of N will increase the likelihood of attaining macro-level reductions in GHG emissions provided that they secure equity in intra-household decision-making and address food security. Gender-equitable N use efficiency strategies will help to integrate and assure gender and social equity co-benefits at local scales. 

Keywords: inorganic fertilizer, nitrogen use efficiency, mitigation, Gender, low-emissions development, India, Sub-Saharan Africa

Topics: Agriculture, Development, Economies, Environment, Climate Change, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equity, Households, Livelihoods, Security, Food Security Regions: Africa, East Africa, Asia, South Asia Countries: India

Year: 2017

Solutions to the Crisis? The Green New Deal, Degrowth, and the Solidarity Economy: Alternatives to the Capitalist Growth Economy from an Ecofeminist Economics Perspective

Citation:

Bauhardt, Christine. 2014. “Solutions to the Crisis? The Green New Deal, Degrowth, and the Solidarity Economy: Alternatives to the Capitalist Growth Economy from an Ecofeminist Economics Perspective.” Ecological Economics 102 (June): 60–8.

Author: Christine Bauhardt

Abstract:

This article deals with three approaches conceived as alternative approaches to the capitalist growth economy: the Green New Deal, Degrowth, and the Solidarity Economy. Ecofeminist economics has much to offer to each of these approaches, but these contributions remain, as of yet, unrealized. The Green New Deal largely represents the green economy, which holds economic success as contingent upon the ecological restructuring of industrial production. The degrowth approach more fundamentally raises questions concerning the relationship between material prosperity and individual and social well-being. The principles of the solidarity economy involve the immediate implementation of the principles of self-determination and cooperation. None of these approaches takes into account the claims of ecofeminist economics; and none of them clearly view gender equity as essential to economic change. The three approaches are, however, deeply gendered in the sense that they are implicitly based on assumptions concerning women's labor in the sphere of social reproduction. This article demonstrates how each approach can be improved upon by the integration of ecofeminist economic principles in order to achieve economic change that also meets claims for gender equity.

Keywords: ecofeminist ecological economics, degrowth, care economy, gender equity, social reproduction

Topics: Economies, Environment, Climate Change, Feminisms, Gender, Gender Analysis, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equity, Political Economies

Year: 2014

Gender Equity, Citizenship and Public Water in Bangladesh

Citation:

Sultana, Farhana, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, and Sarah Miraglia. 2016. “Gender Equity, Citizenship and Public Water in Bangladesh.” In Making Public in a Privatized World: The Struggle for Essential Services, edited by David McDonald, 149-64. London: Zed Books Ltd.

Authors: Farhana Sultana, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Sarah Miraglia

Annotation:

Summary:
“This study underscores the significance of a gendered perspective, the need to focus on women’s lived realities, and the importance of analyzing how politics of place shape access, delivery and preferences for public water. The study affirms equity, affordability, sustainability, and efficiency as generally desirable aspects of public water provision, but questions the means of creating and evaluating public systems to achieve these goals, and warns against entrenching local power hierarchies or further marginalizing the poor or exacerbating their exploitation. The study argues that attention to gender, experience, and place is crucial to any conceptualization of public service and water justice” (Sultana et al. 2016, 150).

Topics: Development, Economies, Poverty, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equity, Governance, Infrastructure, Water & Sanitation, Political Economies Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Bangladesh

Year: 2016

Gendered Waters: The Participation of Women in the ‘One Million Cisterns’ Rainwater Harvesting Program in the Brazilian Semi-Arid Region

Citation:

de Moraes, Andrea Ferreira Jacques, and Cecilia Rocha. 2013. “Gendered Waters: The Participation of Women in the ‘One Million Cisterns’ Rainwater Harvesting Program in the Brazilian Semi-Arid Region.” Journal of Cleaner Production 60 (December): 163–9.

Authors: Andrea Ferreira Jacques de Moraes, Cecilia Rocha

Abstract:

Women, especially in developing countries, are often responsible for managing water at the household level. However, they are rarely represented in bodies that decide on water management, and they hardly play a role in the implementation of projects to increase water access. While the need for enhanced gender equity in water management is acknowledged in the international development discourse, the complexities of implementing it are poorly understood. This article presents a qualitative case study of women participation in the Program ‘One Million Cisterns’ in the Brazilian Semi-Arid region, to illustrate the promise and the challenges of bringing about women's participation and empowering. The case study shows that women not only derived significant material benefits from the program (access to water), they also acquired roles and responsibilities - as cistern builders and as members of local water commissions - that traditionally had been reserved for men. Key for this transformational process, we argue, was the role played by local feminist NGOs and social movements who helped rural women create new spaces for social inclusion in water development.

Keywords: water management, gender and development, Latin America, Brazil, women and water, gender inequality, Rainwater harvesting

Topics: Development, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equity, Governance, Households, Infrastructure, Water & Sanitation, Livelihoods, NGOs Regions: Americas, South America Countries: Brazil

Year: 2013

Diverting the Flow: Gender Equity and Water in South Asia

Citation:

Zwarteveen, Margreet, Sara Ahmed, and Suman Rimal Gautam, eds. 2012. Diverting the Flow: Gender Equity and Water in South Asia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Authors: Margreet Zwarteveen, Sara Ahmed, Suman Rimal Guatam

Annotation:

Summary:
South Asia's significant water resources are unevenly distributed, with about a fifth of the population lacking adequate access. Across the region this vital substance determines livelihoods and in some cases even survival. By revealing the extent to which water access depends on power relations and politics, Diverting the Flow offers new perspectives on the relationship between gender equity and water issues in South Asia.
 
Drawing on empirical research and relevant theoretical frameworks, the contributors show how gender intersects with other axes of social difference--such as class, caste, ethnicity, age, and religion--to shape water use and management practices. Each of the volume's six thematic sections begins by introducing key concepts, debates, and theories before moving on to parse such issues as rights, policies, technologies, and intervention strategies. Taken together, they demonstrate that gender issues are the key to understanding and improving water distribution and management practices in the region. Featuring work by leading scholars in the field, this volume will be essential reading for students and scholars of water, gender, and development in South Asia. (Summary from University of Chicago Press
 
Table of Contents
1. Gender and Water in South Asia: Revisiting Perspectives, Policies and Practice
Sara Ahmed and Margreet Zwarteveen
 
2. Understanding Gendered Agency in Water Governance
Frances Cleaver
 
3. Gender, Water Laws and Policies: An Introduction
Margreet Zwarteveen and Sara Ahmed
 
4. Decentralising or Marginalising Women: Gender Relations and Sector Reforms in India
Seema K. Kulkarni and K.J. Joy
 
5. The Right to Water in Different Discourses
Priya Sangameswaran
 
6. Water Rights and Gender Rights: The Sri Lanka Experience
Kusum Athukorala and Ruana Rajepakse
 
7. Gender in Drinking Water and Sanitation: An Introduction
Deepa Joshi and Margreet Zwarteveen
 
8. Sanitation for the Urban Poor: Gender Matters
Deepa Joshi, Ben Fawcett and Fouzia Mannan
 
9. Reducing a Community’s Water and Sanitation Burden: Insights from Maharashtra
Nitish Jha
 
10. Gendered Waters, Poisoned Wells: Political Ecology of the Arsenic Crisis in Bangladesh
Farhana Sultana
 
11. Modern Water for Modern Women: Questioning the Relationship between Gender, Empowerment and Participation
Kathleen O’Reilly
 
12. Gender, Water and Agrarian Change: An Introduction
Margreet Zwarteveen
 
13. Groundwater Vending and Appropriation of Women’s Labour: Gender, Water Scarcity and Agrarian Change in a Gujarati Village, India
Anjal Prakash
 
14. Highlighting the User in Waste Water Irrigation Research: Gender, Class and Caste Dynamics of Livelihoods near Hyderabad, India
Stephanie Buechler and Gayathri Devi Mekala
 
15. Gender and Water Technologies: An Introduction
Margreet Zwarteveen
 
16. Farming Women and Irrigation Technology: Cases from Nepal
Bhawana Upadhyay
 
17. Gender and Water Technologies: Linking the Variables in Arsenic and Fluoride Mitigation
Nandita Singh
 
18. Perspectives on Gender and Large Dams
Lyla Mehta
 
19. Large Water Control Mechanisms: Gender Impact of the Damodar Valley Corporation, India
Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt
 
20. Strategies to Address Gendered Water Concerns: An Introduction
Suman Rimal Gautam and Margreet Zwarteveen
 
21. Improving Processes of Natural Resources Management at the Grassroots: The Case of the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA)
Smita Mishra Panda and Ravi Sannabhadti
 
22. Thinking and Acting on Gender Issues: The Interface of Policy, Culture and Identity
Pranita Bhushan Udas
 
23. Adopting a Gender Approach in a Water and Sanitation Project: The Case of the 4WS Project in Coastal Communities in South Asia
Christine Sijbesma, Kochurani Mathew, Rashika Nishshanka, Palitha Jayaweera, Marielle Snel, Helvi Heinonen-Tanski, Avizit Reaz Quazi, M.D. Jakariya

Topics: Caste, Class, Development, Feminisms, Feminist Political Ecology, Gender, Gender Roles, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equity, Infrastructure, Water & Sanitation, Livelihoods, Religion Regions: Asia, South Asia

Year: 2012

A Woman's Field is Made at Night: Gendered Land Rights and Norms in Burkina Faso

Citation:

Kevane, Michael, and Leslie C. Gray. 1999. “A Woman's Field is Made at Night: Gendered Land Rights and Norms in Burkina Faso.” Feminist Economics 5 (3): 1-26.

Authors: Michael Kevane, Leslie C. Gray

Abstract:

Gendered social norms and institutions are important determinants of agricultural activities in southwestern Burkina Faso. This paper argues that gendered land tenure, in particular, has effects on equity and efficiency. The usual view of women as holders of secondary, or indirect, rights to land must be supplemented by a more nuanced understanding of tenure. Women's rights are in fact considerably more complex than the simple right to fields from their husbands. First, women's rights to property obtained from men may be coupled with other rights and obligations. In many ethnic groups, women have share rights to the harvest of their husbands. Second, despite land scarcity and rises in land value certain types of rights are strengthening. Specifically, women are more and more able to obtain land through the market. Finally, government intervention in the gendering of tenure seems to have eroded women's individual rights to land even when government projects explicitly try to incorporate women as "partners" in land-use programs.

Keywords: land, Africa, Gender, women, Burkina Faso

Topics: Agriculture, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equity, Land Tenure, Rights, Human Rights, Land Rights, Property Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Burkina Faso

Year: 1999

Gender and the Role of Women in Colombia’s Peace Process

Citation:

Bouvier, Virginia M. 2016. Gender and the Role of Women in Colombia’s Peace Process. New York: UN Women.

Author: Virginia M. Bouvier

Abstract:

The promises and visions articulated in United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 and subsequent UN resolutions and position papers that recognize the connection between gender equity and women’s participation in all aspects of peace processes and peacebuilding on the one hand, and international peace and security on the other, have not been fulfilled. Nonetheless, these resolutions have opened the way for advocacy that has had some successes in specific contexts. Colombia offers one such case.
 
Through desk research, literature review, and personal interviews, this paper provides an overview of the Colombian internal armed conflict and the peace process currently underway to transform it. It begins with an historical overview of the conflict, and then explores some of its gender dimensions. It analyzes the differential impact of the internal armed conflict on the lives of women and men, LBGTI persons, and boys, girls and adolescents, as well as the intersectionality between multiple components of identity, including gender, class, age, ethnicity, and region. The paper then turns to the peace process. It explores the roles of women in preparing the ground for a political solution to Colombia’s internal armed conflict. It considers women’s official, semi-official, and unofficial roles at, around, and outside the peace talks that were launched in late 2012 between the Colombian government and the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC-EP). This paper underscores the essentially gendered nature of both war and peace. It assesses shifting gender roles and ideologies, and the ways that they intersect with a peace process and transitions in a post-Accord period, particularly in relation to issues of transitional justice. Finally, my paper explores how greater consideration of gendered dynamics, as well as increased participation of women in the peace process and all commissions and bodies created to implement peace accords, will better equip Colombia to address the challenges ahead and will help ensure a more sustainable peace. 

Topics: Age, Armed Conflict, Class, Ethnicity, Gender, Gender Roles, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equity, Peace and Security, International Organizations, Peacebuilding, Peace Processes, Security, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325 Regions: Americas, South America Countries: Colombia

Year: 2016

Gender Equality, Economic Growth, and Women’s Agency: The “Endless Variety” and “Monotonous Similarity” of Patriarchal Constraints

Citation:

Kabeer, Naila. 2016. “Gender Equality, Economic Growth, and Women’s Agency: The ‘Endless Variety’ and ‘Monotonous Similarity’ of Patriarchal Constraints.” Feminist Economics 22 (1): 295–321.

Author: Naila Kabeer

Abstract:

Macroeconometric studies generally find fairly robust evidence that gender equality has a positive impact on economic growth, but reverse findings relating to the impact of economic growth on gender equality are far less consistent. The high level of aggregation at which these studies are carried out makes it difficult to ascertain the causal pathways that might explain this asymmetry in impacts. Using a feminist institutional framework, this contribution explores studies carried out at lower levels of analysis for insights into the pathways likely to be driving these two sets of relationships and a possible explanation for their asymmetry.

Keywords: agency, empowerment, development, growth, inequality, Gender

Topics: Development, Economies, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Gender Equality/Inequality, Gender Equity

Year: 2016

Can Climate Finance Achieve Gender Equity in Developing Countries?

Citation:

Wong, Sam. 2014. “Can Climate Finance Achieve Gender Equity in Developing Countries?” WIDER Working Paper 2014/064, United Nations University - The World Institute for Development Economics Research, Helsinki. 

Author: Sam Wong

Abstract:

We develop the climate finance-gender equity framework in this paper and use the ‘contextual-procedural-distributive’ equity as a lens of analysis to examine how climate finance helps challenge, and reinforce, gender inequities in the mitigation, adaptation and disaster management strategies. Focusing on the examples of tree-planting, smart-agriculture and disaster information dissemination projects, this paper argues that climate finance can achieve gender equity if three aspects are critically considered: (1) how different incentives and preferences, between men and women, are shaped by their livelihood experiences and priorities, and what factors enable, and restrict, their access to resources; (2) how formal and informal participatory arena offers a genuine space for women, and men, to make decisions that empower them; and (3) how women’s practical and strategic needs are met and the contradictions resolved. This paper also suggests that climate finance needs to address and challenge unequal socio-political arrangements, such as access to land rights, that help perpetuate gender inequities.

Keywords: climate finance, gender equity, access, land rights, Green Climate Fund

Topics: Agriculture, Environment, Climate Change, Environmental Disasters, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equity, Livelihoods, Rights, Land Rights

Year: 2014

Gender, Agrobiodiversity, and Climate Change: A Study of Adaptation Practices in the Nepal Himalayas

Citation:

Bhattarai, Basundhara, Ruth Beilin, and Rebecca Ford. 2015. “Gender, Agrobiodiversity, and Climate Change: A Study of Adaptation Practices in the Nepal Himalayas.” World Development 70: 122–32.

Authors: Basundhara Bhattarai, Ruth Beilin, Rebecca Ford

Keywords: Gender, agrobiodiversity management, climate change, adaptation, Nepal

Annotation:

Summary: 
Gender is seminal to agrobiodiversity management, and inequities are likely to be exacerbated under a changing climate. Using in-depth interviews with farmers and officials from government and non-government organizations in Nepal, we explore how gender relations are influenced by wider socio-economic changes, and how alterations in gender relations shape responses to climate change. Combining feminist political ecology and critical social-ecological systems thinking, we analyze how gender and adaptation interact as households abandon certain crops, adopt high-yielding varieties and shift to cash crops. We argue that the prevailing development paradigm reinforces inequitable gender structures in agrobiodiversity management, undermining adaptation to the changing climate. (Summary from original source) 

Topics: Development, Economies, Environment, Climate Change, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equity, Governance, Households, NGOs Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Nepal

Year: 2015

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