GENDER STUDIES

The question invites the writer to give a valid discussion towards the view that Gender and Development (GAD) initiatives are more desirable than Women in Development (WID) endeavours. The Gender and Development (GAD) approach was developed as a response to the failure of WID projects to effect qualitative and long-lasting changes in women’s social status. GAD focuses on social, economic, political and cultural forces that determine how men and women participate in, benefit from, and control project resources and activities differently. This approach shifts the focus from women as a group to the socially determined relations between women and men. The GAD approach promotes a development process that transforms gender relations in order to enable women to participate on an equal basis with men in determining their common future. The emphasis has shifted to the more strategic needs of women, leading to a sharpening of the gender focus of preparatory analysis. Although the approach emphasizes the importance of women’s collective organization for self empowerment, the target groups are still primarily women. Unlike the GAD initiatives, WID policies and interventions have, in the main, concentrated on women’s productive work. The failure to make an explicit link to women’s reproductive work has often added to women’s workload. Gradually, it was recognized that an approach that focused on women in isolation was inadequate and not sustainable because it did not take into account the overall project objectives or integrate women fully into their implementation. Moreover, it did not address or change unequal gender relations in various social and economic settings.
According to (00000) Gender and Development initiatives are a theoretical and practical approach to development which emphasizes on benefits of development distributed on an equal basis of gender neutrality and focus on how social roles, reproductive roles and economic roles are linked to gender inequalities of