International Financial Institutions

Revisiting the World Bank’s Land Law Reform Agenda in Africa: The Promise and Perils of Customary Practices

Citation:

Collins, Andrea, and Matthew I. Mitchell. 2018. “Revisiting the World Bank’s Land Law Reform Agenda in Africa: The Promise and Perils of Customary Practices.” Journal of Agrarian Change 18 (1): 112–31.

Authors: Andrea Collins, Matthew I. Mitchell

Abstract:

This paper revisits the World Bank's land law reform agenda in Africa by focusing on two central issues: (1) land law reform as a tool for resolving land conflicts, and (2) the role of land law reform in addressing gender inequalities. While the Bank's recent land report provides insights for improving land governance in Africa, it fails to acknowledge the exploitative and contentious politics that often characterize customary land tenure systems, and the local power dynamics that undermine the ability of marginalized groups to secure land rights. Using insights from recent fieldwork, the paper analyses the links between land law reform and conflict in Ghana, and the gendered dynamics of reforming land governance in Tanzania. These “crucial cases” illustrate how land law reform can provoke conflicts over land and threaten the rights of vulnerable populations (e.g. migrants and women) when customary practices are uncritically endorsed as a means of improving land governance. As such, the paper concludes with a series of recommendations on how to navigate the promise and perils of customary practices in the governance of land.

Keywords: customary practices, Ghana, land law reform, World Bank, Tanzania, Africa

Topics: Conflict Prevention, Displacement & Migration, Conflict, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Land Tenure, Governance, International Financial Institutions, International Organizations, Rights, Land Rights, Property Rights Regions: Africa, East Africa, West Africa Countries: Ghana, Tanzania

Year: 2018

Gender and Settler Colonialism in Palestinian Agriculture: Structural Transformations

Citation:

Awwad, Nida Abu. 2016. “Gender and Settler Colonialism in Palestinian Agriculture: Structural Transformations.” Arab Studies Quarterly 38 (3): 540–61.

Author: Nida Abu Awwad

Abstract:

The gendered nature of the agricultural sector is significantly influenced by the political and socio-economic and cultural structure of any society. The division of labor between males and females within the family farm is seriously affected as a response to economic pressures along with the impact of other restrictions imposed by predetermined gender roles. In the Palestinian context, economic pressures were created mainly by the structural transformation in Palestinian agriculture following the Zionist settler colonization of Palestine, along with other minor factors related to the Palestinian neo-liberal economic policies dictated by the international financial institution and Zionist interests. This article argues that the gendered nature of the Palestinian agriculture sector has been transformed and has promoted women’s exploitation as follows: First, restructure of the agricultural employment by the decline of both women’s and men’s employment of the total Palestinian labor force within serious exploitive and fluctuating conditions; second, changes in tasks and division of labor, women’s property rights for agricultural land resources and services provided by the Palestinian Authority; and finally increasing women’s burden by increasing their time allocation for agricultural tasks. The data presented in the article are based on a comprehensive analysis of secondary information on Palestinian agriculture, and primary data collected in 2010 with the help of a few households case studies (life history) from two locations in the central region of the West Bank.

Keywords: gender, settler colonialism, structural transformation, West Bank, Gaza Strip, Zionist settlements, Palestinian agriculture, women's contribution, palestine

Topics: Agriculture, Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Economies, Economic Inequality, Gender, Gender Roles, International Financial Institutions, Rights, Property Rights Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East Countries: Palestine / Occupied Palestinian Territories

Year: 2016

Questioning Financial Governance from a Feminist Perspective

Citation:

Young, Brigitte, Isabella Bakker, and Diane Elson, eds. 2011. Questioning Financial Governance from a Feminist Perspective. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Authors: Brigitte Young, Isabella Bakker, Diane Elson

Annotation:

Summary:
Questioning Financial Governance from a Feminist Perspective brings together feminist economists and feminist political economists from different countries located in North America and Europe to analyze the 'strategic silence' about gender in fiscal and monetary policy, and financial regulation. This silence reflects a set of assumptions that the key instruments of financial governance are gender-neutral. This often masks the ways in which financial governance operates to the disadvantage of women and reinforces gender inequality. This book examines both the transformations in the governance of finance that predate the financial crisis, as well as some dimension of the crisis itself. The transformations increasingly involved private as well as public forms of power, along with institutions of state and civil society, operating at the local, national, regional and global levels. An important aspect of these transformations has been the creation of policy rules (often enacted in laws) that limit the discretion of national policy makers with respect to fiscal, monetary, and financial sector policies. These policy rules tend to have inscribed in them a series of biases that have gender (as well as class and race-based) outcomes. The biases identified by the authors in the various chapters are the deflationary bias, male breadwinner bias, and commodification bias, adding two new biases: risk bias and creditor bias. The originality of the book is that its primary focus is on macroeconomic policies (fiscal and monetary) and financial governance from a feminist perspective with a focus on the gross domestic product and its fluctuations and growth, paid employment and inflation, the budget surplus/deficit, levels of government expenditure and tax revenue, and supply of money. The central findings are that the key instruments of financial governance are not gender neutral. Each chapter considers examples of financial governance, and how it relates to the gender order, including divisions of labour, and relations of power and privilege. (Summary from WorldCat)
 
Table of Contents:
1. Macroeconomic regimes in OECD countries and the interrelation with gender orders
Friederike Maier
 
2. Changing macroeconomic governance and gender orders: the case of Canada
Isabella Bakker
 
3. EU macroeconomic governance and gender orders: the case of Austria
Christa Schlager
 
4. Taxation, employment, and gender: the case of state taxes in the USA
Caren Grown
 
5. Central banks, employment, and gender in developing countries
James Heintz
 
6. IMF policies and gender orders: the case of the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility
Tonia Warnecke
 
7. The role of gender in governance of the financial sector
Brigitte Young
 
8. Macroeconomic governance, gendered inequality, and global crises
Adrienne Roberts.
 

Topics: Development, Economies, Governance, International Financial Institutions, Privatization Regions: Americas, North America, Europe, Western Europe Countries: Austria, Canada, United States of America

Year: 2011

Gender and Macroeconomic Policy

Citation:

Raj, Nallari, Griffith Breda, and the World Bank. 2011. Gender and Macroeconomic Policy. Washington, D.C.: World Bank.

Authors: Raj Nallari, Breda Griffith, World Bank

Annotation:

Summary:
This report aims to show how macroeconomic policies create differential opportunities for women and men. This volume comprises nine chapters covering four broad themes: gender as a category of analysis in macroeconomics; the implications of gender for macroeconomic aggregates, in particular consumption and economic growth; the role of gender in the labor market, globalization, and access to credit; and gender budgeting. Chapters one and two address the first theme. Chapter one focuses on the macroeconomic cost to growth and development that arises from rigid gender roles and associated gender asymmetries. Chapter two documents the progress made in gender mainstreaming by highlighting developments in data collection and monitoring that have moved beyond simply disaggregating data by male and female. Chapters three and four cover the second theme. Chapter three considers the role of gender relations in the macroeconomic aggregates of consumption, savings, investment, and government expenditure and the implications for macroeconomic policy in these areas. Chapter four examines gender relations and economic growth. Chapters five through seven focus on the third theme. Chapter five examines the labor market. Chapter six examines how globalization affects gender relations, particularly employment. Chapter seven concentrates on women's access to finance and documents gender asymmetries in this market. Chapter eight, on the fourth theme, highlights the impact fiscal policies have on gender relations. It documents how policy can be made more gender specific and reports on the progress made by countries that have adopted gender-responsive government budgeting. Chapter nine summarizes what is known about gender and macroeconomic policy, noting areas in which the literature is well developed as well as areas that require further research and study (Summary from WorldCat).
 

Topics: Development, Economies, Gender Budgeting, Globalization, International Financial Institutions

Year: 2011

Feminist Economics and the World Bank: History, Theory and Policy

Citation:

Kuiper, Edith, and Drucilla K. Barker, eds. 2006. Feminist Economics and the World Bank: History, Theory and Policy. London: Routledge. 

Authors: Edith Kuiper, Drucilla Barker

Annotation:

Summary:
With contributions from leading scholars, this anthology critically examines the relationships between gender, growth, development and the World Bank. Highlighting the importance and challenge of taking gender into account in development theory and policy, it will be a useful resource for policymakers, activists and scholars alike (Summary from WorldCat).
 
Table of Contents:
1. Feminist economics and the World Bank : an introduction
Drucilla K. Barker and Edith Kuiper
 
2. The World Bank, development, adjustment and gender equality
Zafiris Tzannatos
 
3. An assessment of efforts to promote gender equality at the World Bank
Carolyn M. Long
 
4. Rhetoric and realities : a comment
Sakuntala Navarsimhan
 
5. Engendering development : a critique
Rose-Marie Avin
 
6. Engendering agricultural technology for Africa's farmers
Cheryl Doss
 
7. Taking gender differences in bargaining power seriously
Stephanie Seguino
 
8. World Bank discourse and World Bank policy in Engendering development : a comment
Karin Schoenpflug
 
9. Colonizing knowledge : economics and interdisciplinarity in Engendering development
Suzanne Bergeron
 
10. Adjustment with a woman's face : gender and macroeconomic policy at the World Bank
Cynthia Wood
 
11. Gender and intrahousehold decision-making : international migration and other frontiers for development policy
Aida Orgocka and Gale Summerfield
 
12. Engendering development or gender main-streaming? : a critical assessment from the Commonwealth Caribbean
Violet Eudine Barriteau
 
13. "Disciplining" and "engendering" the World Bank : a comment
Laura Parisi
 
14. A seat at the table : feminist economists negotiate development
Drucilla K. Barker
 
15. Why feminist economists should pay more attention to the coherence between the World Bank and the WTO
Mariama Williams
 
16. Engendering the German Parliamentary Commission report on "Globalization of the world economy"
Brigitte Young
 
17. Women's rights and Engendering development
Diane Elson.
 

Topics: Agriculture, Development, Economies, Globalization, International Financial Institutions Regions: Africa, Americas, Caribbean countries

Year: 2006

Gendering the World Bank: Neoliberalism and the Gendered Foundations of Global Governance

Citation:

Griffin, Penny. 2009. Gendering the World Bank: Neoliberalism and the Gendered Foundations of Global Governance. Basingstoke [England]: Palgrave Macmillan.

Author: Penny Griffin

Annotation:

Summary:
This text provides a wide-ranging and accessible acount of the constitution and effects of discourses of neoliberal governance. Paying particular attention to how gender matters in and to contemporary global governance, the author focuses in particular on the development discourse of the World Bank (Summary from WorldCat).
 
Table of Contents:
1. Discourse, sex and gender in global governance
 
2. Analysing 'the economy'
 
3. Analysing the World Bank
 
4. World Bank policy-making (1) : gender in/and the World Bank
 
5. World Bank policy-making (2) : reproducing (economically viable) gender norms
 
6. World bank policy-making (3) : gender, HIV/AIDS and sub-Saharan Africa
 
App. 1. Interviewee codes (anonymised)
 
App. 2. Schedule of questions for interview
 

Topics: Development, Economies, Globalization, International Financial Institutions

Year: 2009

Structural Adjustment and African Women Farmers

Citation:

Gladwin, Christina H, ed. 1991. Structural Adjustment and African Women Farmers. Gainesville: University of Florida Press: Center for African Studies, University of Florida.

Author: Christina H. Gladwin

Annotation:

Summary: 
Focuses on the debates surrounding structural lending programmes and the effect they have on women in Africa. It questions the conventional dependency model and provides some counter-evidence that the economic position of women in societies with freer market policies has improved (Summary from WorldCat).
 
Table of Contents:
1. Structural adjustment and structural transformation in sub-Saharan Africa
Stephen O'Brien
 
2. Women, structural adjustment, and transformation: some lessons and questions from the African experience
Uma Lele
 
3. Getting priorities right: structural transformation and strategic notions
Bruce F. Johnston
 
4. Policies to overcome the negative effects of structural adjustment programs on African female-headed households
Jean M. Due
 
5. Impact of structural adjustment programs on Women and their households in Bendel and Ogun States, Nigeria
Patience Elabor-Idemudia
 
6. Women and structural adjustment in Zaire
Brooke Schoef et al.
 
7. Impact of structural adjustment programs on rural women in Tanzania
Ruth Meena
 
8. Fertilizer subsidy removal programs and their potential impacts on women farmers in Malawi and Cameroon
Christina H. Gladwin
 
9. Women traders in Ghana and the structural adjustment program
Gracia Clark and Takyiwaa Manuh
 
10. Ideology and political economy of gender: women and land in Nso, Cameroon
Miriam Goheen
 
11. Women's agricultural work in a multimodal rural economy: Ibarapa District, Oyo State, Nigeria
Jane I. Guyer with Olukemi Idowu
 
12. Structural transformation and its consequences for Orma women pastoralists
Jean Ensminger
 
13. New women's organizations in Nigeria: one response to structural adjustment
Lillian Trager and Clara Osinulu
 
14. Role of home economics agents in rural development programs in northern Nigeria: impacts of structural adjustment
Comfort B. Olayiwole
 
15. Curriculum planning for women and agricultural households: the case of Cameroon
Suzanna Smith, Barbara Taylor
 
16. Women farmers, structural adjustment, and FAO's plan of action for integration of women in development
Anita Spring and Vicki Wilde.
 

Topics: Agriculture, Economies, Poverty, Households, International Financial Institutions, Political Economies, Rights, Land Rights Regions: Africa, Central Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, West Africa Countries: Cameroon, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania

Year: 1991

Male Bias in the Development Process

Citation:

Elson, Diane, ed. 1990. Male Bias in the Development Process. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Author: Diane Elson

Annotation:

Table of Contents:
1. Male bias in the development process - an overview
 
2. Women, work and property in the Chinese peasant household of the 1980s
Diane Elson
 
3. Changing gender relations in Zimbabwe - the case of individual family resettlement areas
Delia Davin
 
4. The limits to women's independent careers - gender in the formal and informal sectors in Nigeria
Susie Jacobs
 
5. Informal sector or female sector? - gender bias in urban labour market models
Carolyne Dennis
 
6. Male bias and women's work in Mexico's border industries
Alison MacEwan Scott
 
7. Male bias in macroeconomics - the case of structural adjustment
Ruth Pearson
 
8. Overcoming male bias
Diane Elson

Topics: Development, Gendered Power Relations, Households, International Financial Institutions Regions: Africa, East Africa, West Africa, Americas, Central America, Asia, East Asia Countries: China, Mexico, Nigeria, Zimbabwe

Year: 1990

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