International Financial Institutions

Citation:

Griffin, Penny. 2010. “Gender, Governance and the Global Political Economy.” Australian Journal of International Affairs 64 (1): 86–104.

Author: Penny Griffin

Abstract:

This article considers a range of governance actors (including also the role of political enquiry into the global political economy in and of itself) to analyze how neo-liberal governance strategies seek to socialize human bodies (female, male or otherwise) into a global system of neo-liberal economic productivity. Contemporary mechanisms of global governance, it is suggested, seek to engineer a capitalist ‘market society’ while claiming to ‘empower’ poor people. In recent years, ‘empowerment’ rhetoric in global governance has increasingly depended on measuring the ‘economic’ role(s) of women in developing countries, judging their contributions productive only where they can be gauged to directly contribute to ‘formal economy’ growth. Reinforcing the assumption that ‘formal’ contributions are the only contributions worth measuring, such rhetoric simultaneously eradicates all other (non-competitive and/or non-entrepreneurial) behavioral possibilities for women, while clearly excluding all those who are not ‘women’. Against the instrumentalization of gender (as a category pertaining only to women and studies of women), this article argues that gender in global governance means much more than simply describing whether people are male or female and quantifying their productive capacities accordingly. As a broad and complex category of analysis, gender enriches the dynamism both of our studies of and practices in the global political economy. To ignore gender's role in the global political economy is to fail to see the power that gender (as a composite part of the relations of power that drive systems of economic development and growth) brings to our everyday understandings, and especially to our understandings of economic ‘common sense.’ (Abstract from original)

Topics: Globalization, International Financial Institutions, Political Economies

Year: 2010

Citation:

Elson, Diane. 1995. “Gender Awareness in Modeling Structural Adjustment.” World Development 23 (11): 1851–68.

Author: Diane Elson

Abstract:

The macroeconomic models underpinning the design of structural adjustment programs are gender-blind. This paper discusses strategies for introducing gender analysis into these models and evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of the models from a gender perspective. It concludes that besides being blind to gender, the models are also blind to the waste of resources and impoverishment that stems from deficient aggregate demand, undemocratic decision making and directly unproductive expenditures that buttress male power. This waste is, however, likely to be diminished by moves to more egalitarian systems of gender relations, entailing changes in the structure of entitlements and the social matrix in which macroeconomic processes are embedded. (Abstract from original)

Topics: Development, Economies, Poverty, International Financial Institutions

Year: 1995

Citation:

Detraz, Nicole, and Dursun Peksen. 2015. "The Effect of IMF Programs on Women’s Economic and Political Rights." International Interactions 42 (1): 81-105.

Authors: Nicole Detraz, Dursun Peksen

Abstract:

Though much research has been devoted to the socioeconomic and political consequences of International Monetary Fund (IMF) programs for recipient countries, little is known about the impacts of these programs on the level of respect for women’s rights. We postulate that IMF-induced policy reforms of privatization and public spending cuts, and the growing political repression and instability following the implementation of IMF programs, undermine the government’s ability and willingness to protect women’s economic and political rights. To substantiate the theoretical claims, we combine data on women’s political and economic rights with data on IMF programs for the years 1981–2004. Our findings suggest that IMF involvement is likely to deteriorate the level of respect for women’s economic rights while having no discernible effect on women’s political rights. The results further indicate that the effect of these programs is not conditioned by political regime type and economic wealth of recipient countries. One major policy implication of our findings is that the IMF should start to recognize that the conditions attached to lending programs might be implemented at the expense of women’s economic rights and that more explicit protections of women’s rights need to be included in program negotiations. (Abstract from original)

Keywords: gender equality, IMF programs, international financial institutions, neoliberalism, women's rights

Topics: Development, International Financial Institutions, Rights, Women's Rights

Year: 2015

Citation:

Collison, Brooke. 2003. "The World Bank and Women's Sustainable Economic Development: A Beautiful Marriage or a Contradiction in Terms?" Canadian Woman Studies 23: 22-28.

Author: Brooke Collison

Annotation:

Topics: Development, Gender Mainstreaming, International Financial Institutions

Year: 2003

Citation:

Chant, Sylvia. 2016. “Women, Girls, and World Poverty: Empowerment, Equality or Essentialism?” International Development Planning Review 38 (1): 1–24.

Author: Sylvia Chant

Abstract:

This paper asks if mounting reliance on women and girls to solve world poverty is an effective means to achieve greater female empowerment and gender equality, or whether, instead, it threatens to lock-down essentializing stereotypes which are unlikely to dismantle gender disparities within and beyond the home. The notion of a ‘feminization of poverty’ has been widely popularized over the past twenty years, and has had some benefits in respect of drawing attention to gendered disadvantage. However, whether the kinds of policy initiatives which have emerged to address this are good for women and girls is more contentious. The discussion highlights some key problems and paradoxes in three popular interventions nominally oriented to helping women lift themselves and their households out of poverty: conditional cash transfer programs, microfinance schemes, and ‘investing in girls’, as promulgated inter alia by the Nike Foundation’s ‘Girl Effect.’ (Abstract from original)

Topics: Development, Economies, Poverty, International Financial Institutions, Multi-National Corporations

Year: 2016

Citation:

Chant, Sylvia. 2016. "Galvanizing girls for development? Critiquing the Shift From 'Smart to 'Smarter' Economics." Progress in Development Studies 16 (4): 314-328.

Author: Sylvia Chant

Abstract:

This paper traces the mounting interest in, and visibility of, girls and young women in development policy, especially since the turn of the 21st century when a ‘Smart Economics’ rationale for promoting gender equality and female empowerment has become ever more prominent and explicit. ‘Smart Economics’, which is strongly associated with an increased influence of corporate stakeholders, frequently through public-private partnerships, stresses a ‘business case’ for investing in women for developmental (read economic) efficiency, with investment in younger generations of women being touted as more efficient still. The latter is encapsulated in the term ‘Smarter Economics’, with the Nike Foundation’s ‘Girl Effect’ being a showcase example.  In this, and similar, initiatives linked with neoliberal development, ‘investing in girls’ appears to be driven not only by imperatives of ‘female empowerment’, but also to realize more general dividends for future economic growth and poverty alleviation.  Yet while it may well be that girls and young women have benefited from their rapid relocation from the sidelines towards the center of development discourse and planning, major questions remain as to whose voices are prioritized, and whose agendas are primarily served by the current shift from ‘Smart’ to ‘Smarter Economics. (Abstract from original)

Keywords: smart economics, girls in development policy, gender inequality, 'Girl Effect', corporate stakeholders, neoliberal development

Topics: Development, Globalization, International Financial Institutions, Multi-National Corporations

Year: 2016

Citation:

Calkin, Sydney. 2016. “Globalizing ‘Girl Power’: Corporate Social Responsibility and Transnational Business Initiatives for Gender Equality.” Globalizations 13 (2): 158-72.

Author: Sydney Calkin

Abstract:

The recent emergence of ‘transnational business feminism’ [Roberts, A. (2014). The political economy of ‘transnational business feminism’. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 17(2), 209–231] accompanied by numerous ‘transnational business initiatives for the governance of gender’ [Prügl, E., & True, J. (2014). Equality means business? Governing gender through transnational public–private partnerships. Review of International Political Economy, 21(6), 1137–1169] constitutes a significant area of debate in the feminist political economy literature. In this paper I focus on the confluence of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) agenda with the visibility of gender issues in development and the resultant corporate agenda for the promotion of women and girls’ empowerment. The paper draws on two gender-focused World Bank collaborations with private sector actors: the Global Private Sector Leaders Forum and the Girl Effect campaign. The paper argues that the dominant model of corporate citizenship inscribed within the discourse of transnational business initiatives is framed in terms of capitalizing on the potential power of girls and women, achieving an easy convergence between gender equality and corporate profit. I suggest that the construction of an unproblematic synergy between these goals serves to moralize corporate-led development interventions and therefore does not challenge corporate power in the development process, but instead allows corporations to subscribe to voluntary, non-binding codes and cultivate a socially conscious brand image. (Abstract from original)

Keywords: corporate social responsibility, gender equality, women's empowerment, World Bank, Nike

Topics: Development, Globalization, International Financial Institutions, Multi-National Corporations, Privatization

Year: 2016

Citation:

Calkin, Sydney. 2015. “‘Tapping’ Women for Post-Crisis Capitalism: Evidence from the 2012 World Development Report.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 17 (4): 611–29.

Author: Sydney Calkin

Abstract:

Girls and women have become the public faces of development today, through the success of ‘Gender Equality as Smart Economics’ policy agendas and similar development narratives that mediate feminist claims through market logic. Women, these narratives assert, are more productive, responsible, and sustainable economic agents for future growth in the context of global financial crisis and therefore their empowerment is economically prudent. In this article, I provide a feminist reading of Foucault's critique of human capital to examine the discursive terrain of the ‘Smart Economics’ agenda and to understand the knowledge it produces about female bodies, subjectivities and agency. Through a discussion of the World Bank's 2012 World Development Report on gender equality, I argue that the current narratives of women's empowerment are premised on a series of gender essentialisms and their ‘activation’ through biopolitical interventions. The activation narrative of human capital appears, under feminist eyes, to reflect the notion that the supposedly intrinsic responsible and maternal nature of women can be harnessed to produce more profitable and sustainable development outcomes and, by extension, ‘rescue’ global capitalism. (Abstract from original)

Keywords: gender and development, women's empowerment, smart economics, World Bank, financial crisis

Topics: Development, International Financial Institutions

Year: 2015

Citation:

Authors: Sarah Bradshaw, Ana Quirós Víquez

Abstract:

Conditional Cash Transfer programmes aim to alleviate short-term poverty through cash transfers to poor households, and to reduce longer-term poverty through making these transfers conditional on household investment in the health and education of children. These programmes have become increasingly popular with institutions such as the World Bank. However, the need for conditionalities has been questioned on a number of levels, including its necessity: it has been suggested that the cash transfer in itself may be sufficient to secure most of the programme's wider aims. The example of Nicaragua supports this contention, demonstrating that only a small incentive is needed to bring the desired changes in the uptake of education, since this is something prized by the poor themselves. In health, the Nicaraguan case suggests that demand-side initiatives might not be as important as supply-side changes that improve the affordability and accessibility of services. The Nicaragua case also highlights the long-term limitations of applying such programmes in countries with high levels of poverty and low economic growth. A gendered analysis of the programme highlights the fact that women ‘beneficiaries’ bear the economic and social cost of the programme without apparent benefit to themselves or even necessarily to the household in the short or longer term. (Abstract from original)

Topics: Economies, Poverty, Education, Health, International Financial Institutions Regions: Americas, Central America Countries: Nicaragua

Year: 2008

Citation:

Bradshaw, Sarah. 2008. “From Structural Adjustment to Social Adjustment: A Gendered Analysis of Conditional Cash Transfer Programmes in Mexico and Nicaragua.” Global Social Policy 8 (2): 188–207. 

Author: Sarah Bradshaw

Abstract:

The article explores the implications for gender roles and relations in Nicaragua of implementing a Conditional Cash Transfer programme aimed at improving the situation of the extreme poor. Nicaragua's programme, the Social Protection Network/Red de Protección Social (RPS), is modelled on the Progresa/Oportunidades programme of Mexico and shares many features in common. Evaluations of Progresa have suggested positive outcomes for women. However, examination of the findings highlight some cause for concern particularly around what inclusion on the programme means for the women involved. The article explores the consequences of translating this programme aimed at addressing the structural causes of poverty into a more overtly neoliberal and neo-conservative policy context such as that in Nicaragua. It highlights how a key feature of the RPS is the `social adjustment' of women's behaviour for economic growth gains and discusses the possible consequences for the women included and excluded from the programme. (Abstract from original)

Topics: Economies, Poverty, Gender, Gender Roles, International Financial Institutions Regions: Americas, Central America Countries: Mexico, Nicaragua

Year: 2008