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Mwangaza newsletters

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Authors: 
ActionAid Kenya
2005

Abstract

This is a collection of newsletters from ActionAid Kenya, Western region. The newsletters are designed to share learning tools and ideas to increase learning, sharing and documentation within the region, and to provide an avenue for sharing experiences with the rest of ActionAid Kenya. Mwangaza is Kiswahili for illumination. Some regular features of the newsletter include: working with community-based organisations; gender perspectives; HIV/AIDS perspectives; transparency, accountability and effective management; research perspectives; and news and updates.

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Realilty and analysis: personal and technical reflections on the working lives of six women

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Authors: 
Basu, Kausik
et al
2004

Abstract

A group of development analysts had a dialogue about labour market, trade and poverty issues in 2004. They preceded the dialogue with exposure to the realities of the lives of six women from the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) in Gujarat, India. The struggles faced by these women provided the frame for the technical dialogue that followed. This is a compendium of personal and technical reflections of the analysts involved in the exercise. While the personal reflections focus on the experience of the participants, the technical reflections give an economic analysis of the situation of the women. The exercise was part of the Cornell-SEWA-WIEGO exposure and dialogue programme aimed at starting a dialogue between mainstream economists, SEWA activists, and WIEGO (Women) researchers around key assumptions of neo-classical economics and neo-liberal economic policies, which trouble ground level activists and researchers working on issues of employment and labour. This project is described in an appendix in this document. An epilogue examines the use of exposure methodology for dialogue and key issues.

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Reflections on gender and participatory development

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Authors: 
Kanji, Nazneen
2004

Abstract

The article, as part of the special 50th issue of PLA Notes, provides a general reflection on participatory development from a gender perspective and looks to future challenges. The article begins by laying out the case for a focus on gender issues, and then discusses the tensions between gender perspectives and participation. Some of these tensions include the myth of community; space, time and opportunity for participation (these can often be limited or determined by gender roles within a community); gender and policy processes; womenÆs participation and the role of the facilitator or change agent. Some of the achievements in using participatory methods in a gender responsive way include sexual and reproductive health (such as the Stepping Stones program), literacy and adult learning (such as Reflect), and linking the local to the national (such as the Self Employed Women's Association in India). The author also identifies some of the challenges for participatory development if it is to be equitable: it fundamentally has to deal with gender-based oppression. Some of the key points addressed include the impact of liberalization and privatization on women's participation in the public sphere and the linkages and disconnects between individual values and institutional change. Overall, the author highlights, from a personal perspective, some achievements and lessons and discusses the common challenges ahead in the current global context, for advocates of both participatory development and gender equality.

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Battles over booklets: gender myths in the British aid programme

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Authors: 
Eyben, Rosalind
2004

Abstract

Official policy documents are outcomes of intensely fought internal struggles. Through an analysis of a series of publicity booklets produced by the British aid programme between 1986 and 1998, this article explores how particular ways of thinking about women and gender were taken up by one donor agency. Based on the author's own experience, the article identifies the underlying processes related to power and knowledge that shaped a protracted and evolving bureaucratic contest over the text and pictures each booklet contained. The article explores how certain gender myths were used by the various contestants either to preserve or transform a policy agenda as represented in these booklets. In that contest, myths or stories were selected to resonate with the wider currents of ideology that were shaping aid policy at the time of each booklet's production. The article considers the external and internal political environment to which each booklet was responding and links the key policy messages of the booklets with the gender myths that each contains.|Author's abstract

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Participatory civil society-led approaches to educational interventions for girl child labourers in India: the road ahead

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Authors: 
Devi, Upala
2002

Abstract

This paper analyses the role of civil society in advocating for the adoption of the Bill on the Right to Education in India. The author argues that recent successes in civil society mobilisation could form a good basis to implementing the right to education with the active collaboration and participation of the Indian government. Thus she demonstrates how civil societyûgovernment collaborative approaches have been able to tackle child labour and contribute to increasing access to educational opportunities for girls. In doing so, the author recommends: that there be an increase in sensitisation, mentoring, awareness-building, and in developing the participatory governance capacities of rights-unaware communities, while mobilising the masses to achieve reforms through advocacy; that there be a requirement for state bureaucracy to train staff in reforming legal and regulatory frameworks, and implementation systems; that at the local level designing methods of participation that incorporate new bargaining tools e.g. Public Interest Litigation (PIL); and working with women in æpositions of powerÆ as potential agents and champions of change. Some of the observations that have been made in the interim period following the passing of the Right to Education Bill include: a call from representatives from civil society to government to set up a 'National Commission on Education' comprised of experts, which would ensure a participation through involving civil society actors as an integral component in any planning and delivery to ensure implementation of the Constitutional provision; and the formation of state-level networks of civil-society organisations several Indian states to lobby the state governments to implement the principles of the Bill on the ground.

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