Women's Rights to Land and Assets: Experience of Mainstreaming Gender in

Development Projects
Author(s): Nitya Rao
Source: Economic and Political Weekly , Oct. 29 - Nov. 4, 2005, Vol. 40, No. 44/45 (Oct.
29 - Nov. 4, 2005), pp. 4701-4708
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly

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 Women's Rights to Land and Assets
Experience of Mainstreaming Gender
in Development Projects
It is important to make a conceptual distinction between projects that seek to reduce poverty
and enhance productivity and those that seek to empower women, as the strategies
adopted in each case could be different. Effective poverty targeting can ensure that short-term
material benefits reach the poorest without necessarily leading to enhanced voice and
equality, as the review of some development projects in Bangladesh, India and Nepal reveals.
This paper assesses progress towards gender equality and rural poverty reduction
through women's control over land and identifies a few key policy options in mainstreaming
gender in developmeent programmes to achieve the millennium development goals.

NITYA RAO

he objective of this paper is to assess progress towardsopposite, namely, that increasing prosperity can have perverse
gender equality and rural poverty reduction throughgender effects [Agnihotri 2000; Rustagi 2000]. It is therefore
women's control over land and other productive resources,important to make a conceptual distinction between projects that
based on the experiences in some south Asian countries, namely,seek to reduce poverty and enhance productivity and those that
Bangladesh, India and Nepal. After briefly setting out a frame-seek to empower women, as the strategies adopted could be
work for understanding access to assets in the current context different. Effective poverty targeting can ensure that short-term,
material benefits reach the poorest without necessarily leading
of structural reforms, the paper identifies a few key policy options
in terms of mainstreaming gender in development programmes to enhanced voice and equality, as revealed by the review of
to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). several projects in this paper.
While globally there has been a push for women's property
and inheritance rights following the UN Convention on Elimi-
Structural Reform and Changing
nation of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) Livelihood Patterns
commitment to equal access to land and other property (Ar-
ticles 14, 15 and 16) in 1979, progress has been slow. In most Most of south Asia has adopted some form of structural
of south Asia, women do have legal rights guaranteed by the adjustment in the 1980s and 1990s, directed by IMF-World Bank
constitution, yet they usually do not exercise them. In India and
packages. The objectives have been short-term stabilisation and
Sri Lanka, non-interference policies have been cited in relation
long-term growth by reorienting production towards the market
to certain minority communities and indigenous peoples [FAO system and cutting back on state subsidies and interventions that
et al 2004:8]. Personal laws are invoked to counteract legalencourage "market distortions". The implications for agriculture
provisions. and the rural sector, which support more than 70 per cent of the
There have been several reasons for this lack of action and population in most of these countries, have however been far
implementation of property rights for women. Land inheritance, from positive. In three of them - India, Nepal and Pakistan -
the major form of land acquisition in south Asia, is a key element
there has been a slow down in agricultural growth over the 1990s
of family and kinship relations, and a way of structuring in the table.
social
relations on the ground [Dube 1997]. Land is valued not In just
Nepal, the Agriculture Perspective Plan (APP) launched
for material reasons or as a productive resource, but also in for
1996, underscored the need to prioritise agriculture in the
growth process. To accelerate growth, APP proposed substantial
symbolic reasons in terms of identity, status and hierarchy within
a given social context. Policies therefore do not enter a social
increases in investments in irrigation, rural roads, fertiliser and
vacuum, but rather influence the economic and social life of the
Table: Growth Rates in Different Sectors
household, and in this process, conflicts cannot be ruled out
[Gupta 1997]. Women in south Asia are dependent on men for Country Agriculture Industry Services
1980-81 1990-91 1981-82 1991-92 1980-81 1990-91
at least one key agricultural activity - ploughing - and also for to to to to to to
security and social support, given the fragile nature of state-led 1989-90 1997-98 1990-91 1998-99 1989-90 1999-2000
social protection. Most women do have access and use rights
India 2.85 1.41 7.8 5.8 - -
to land though these are contingent on their relationships to menPakistan 5.4 4.4 8.2 4.8 6.7 4.6
and unless the relationship breaks down, they often do not find Bangladesh 2.29 3.29 3.64 3.89 6.06 6.44
a need to claim independent rights. Nepal 3.59 2.57 7.8 7.2 3.6 6.2
Sri Lanka 2.4 2.4 4.2 7.2 5.3 5.73
It is often assumed that poverty reduction would lead to gender
equality. Research on sex ratios in India, however, point to theSource: Compiled from Human Develop

Economic and Political Weekly October 29, 2005 4701

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technology. However, ignoring the APP, both input and output a decline in per capita cultivable land over the last two decades,
markets in agriculture were deregulated, price subsidies in fertilisers but also a growing disparity in the pattern of landownership. In
and capital subsidies in shallow tube wells abolished and subsidised Bangladesh, for instance, 50 per cent of rural households are
credit withdrawn, leading to the collapse of the agricultural functionally landless (<0.2 ha) [Hossain et al 2000], in India close
sector, dominated by small and marginal farmers. The share of to 60 per cent have less than 0.40 hectares (56 per cent of male
agriculture in total output has declined, and benefits of reforms headed and 75 per cent of female headed households) (NSS data)
seem primarily to have gone to the urban business community and in Nepal while 29 per cent are landless, another 47 per cent
[UNDP 2004:37]. The emphasis on free trade has adversely own less than 0.5 hectares of land [UNDP 2004]. The pattern
affected the poor, in the absence of institutions to safeguard their of landownership reveals both caste and gender disparities, with
interests. women owning about 10 per cent of the land, but the size of
India and Pakistan have had similar experiences. While struc- these holdings being on average two-thirds that of men.
tural reforms have been slower in agriculture than other sectors, States have tried to implement some form of land reform
since the mid-1990s, India has gradually opened up its agricul- programme post-independence, despite the fact that the quantum
tural sector to international trade, signing the Uruguay Round of such land available for distribution is nominal.2 Bangladesh
Agreement (URA) of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs for instance has 2.1 million ha of government-controlled surplus
(GATT) in 1994. Some of the key fallouts have been falling ("khas") land, and even if equally distributed to the 10.5 million
extension services, less institutional credit and inadequate price landless households, each would get less than 0.5 acres, not
support systems on the one hand and an increase in corporate considered viable as an insurance mechanism [Khan 2004:85].
agriculture on the other. Alongside a decline in the average annual Yet as Barkat et al (2001) demonstrate, less than 50 per cent
growth rate of the agriculture [GoI 2002:22], real incomes, has been distributed and of this, less than half to the landless.
especially for small and marginal farmers, have eroded. For the Amongst the genuine people who got listed and land allocated
first time, the poorest are facing a decline in annual cereal to them, more than half (56 per cent) could not retain it due to
availability to the extent of 10 kg per head between 1995-96 and physical threats, false deeds, corruption and so on. Instances of
2000-01 (156.6 kg to 147.3 kg per capita) [Patnaik 2002:138]. successful claims to land can be found where the landless
The connection between public expenditure and poverty levels beneficiaries have organised themselves and struggled to retain
may not be straightforward, yet clearly, despite all charges of control over the land, with assistance from trade unions, NGOs
corruption or inefficiency, the state has a role to play in addressing and other civil society actors, but also where support in terms
issues of equality. of credit, inputs, marketing and price-support has been forthcom-
The withdrawal of the state is closely linked to a dependence ing (ibid:155).3 In such a context, for women to claim rights
on money and markets - the new themes within development to land appears even more problematic.
discourse [Zwarteveen 1998]. This emphasis has had two types Data from all over south Asia not surprisingly then reveals that
of implications: first, treating assets such as land and water the share of agriculture to household incomes has been declining
primarily as economic goods (hence justifying a range of user over the past decade, landownership is no longer the predominant
fees and contributions), and second, devolution of management source of household income in rural areas, and more and more
control to overcome state inefficiencies as well as enhance rural people have been driven to look for alternate income and
incentives for more intensive resource utilisation at the local employment sources, largely in the urban, informal sector, in
trade and services.4 As Heyer (1989) found in her Tamil Nadu
level. While both these aspects, that is, local control and engage-
ment with markets, offer potential opportunities to women, study, asset strategies of the landless involved investing in human
participation nevertheless involves challenging the status quo, resources such as education and in social support networks, rather
overcoming a range of socio-economic barriers, and implies the than land.
existence of considerable social risk and uncertainty. Women's Most of the non-farm income is constituted of male income,
strategies thus often involve the use of more indirect means asto women's lower literacy status has disadvantaged them in the
obtain access to resources, be it land, water or trees. It is in
labour markets. Studies reveal that while women may be em-
ployed for more number of days, this is at the lowest level of
recognition of this social embeddedness of productive resources,
that many organisations working on the ground have in fact informal employment, where the work is piece-rate and lower
paid. There is hence a decline in their net earnings.5 It is only
focused either on "creating new assets" for women in wastelands
and other common property rather than claiming property rightsin Sri Lanka that women's labour force participation has been
over existing resources especially land, or organising women into
steadily increasing in all sectors in the 1990s at a faster rate than
groups to better enable them to face risks. for men [CENWOR 1998]. This growing visibility of women,
Given the reality of both the policy framework and the
while not fully taken into account in state-run projects and
nature of markets, one needs to carefully examine the types programmes
of including land distribution and skill development,
assets that can contribute to gender equality and women's has led to an increase in domestic violence at the household level
empowerment. with husbands feeling frustrated about losing a part of their
"provider" role.
Defining Assets It is interesting to note that educated rural women are not just
better able to secure formal employment than men [Harriss-White
In 1995, out of 1.3 billion of the world's poor, 515 million and Janakarajan 2004], but their aspirations too change and they
lived in south Asia, and during the 1990s, the incidence of poverty
are resistant to undertaking agricultural work, except in mana
increased in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka [Haq 2002:48]. gerial-supervisory roles [Ramakumar 2003]. The first report of
While a majority of the population of south Asia resides in ruralthe National Commission on Farmers [GoI 2004:xiii] confirms
the need to rethink the concept of "work" for rural women to
areas and is primarily dependent on agriculture, one not only finds

4702 Economic and Political Weekly October 29, 2005

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include not just hard, manual labour, but also a range of other through legal entitlements over physical assets, which is one
community activities such as preparation of noon meals, running crucial aspect, but also by strengthening other sources of entitle-
of creches and day care centres. Education and skills seem to ments, as different assets may have different meanings for men
be contributing to differentiation, rather than just landholdings, and women, and these too could vary with context. While land
hence it is important to enable women to compete in these areas.6 is a major physical asset for most rural communities, it may
Within the livelihoods approaches, assets have been defined become a non-asset if its productive use is restricted. In the war
as a set of "capitals" that include natural, physical, human, social iones of Sri Lanka, for instance, rather than investing in land,
and financial capitals, all of which jointly play a key role not households tend to invest in easily moveable items, such as
just in poverty reduction, but also in reducing vulnerabilities to jewellery [Korf 2004:289], take to migration and so on. It is only
stresses and shocks [Scoones 1998]. If one adopts a livelihoods when access to and control over all the different assets or "capi-
approach, it would be important to explore the plethora of tals" collapse, that women or for that matter households, are
resources available in a given context - who has access to and unable to cope with vulnerability and move towards destitution.
control over what resource and the implications of this for gender If one looks at resource rights as a range of entitlements, with
equality. Apart from land, in the rural context, one could then different routes to access (inheritance, markets, user groups, state
consider livestock and labour as key individual/household assets, transfers, etc) and control, a helpful framework for discussion
and common property, whether forests, grazing land or water of gender equality, is one developed by Sara Longwe. She sees
resources (including marine and coastal) as community/state empowerment as a process that moves through five levels of
assets. For women particularly, public infrastructure supports in equality, from welfare and access through conscientisation to
the form of drinking water, electricity and health facility are major participation and control. The level of control within this frame-
assets, as they directly reduce their burden of work. In this context, work denotes a control over decision-making processes at par
the identification of reduction of time poverty for women and with men. This is important in the case of land, which is rarely
girls by the MDG Task Force Report as a strategy for gender considered individual property by either men or women, but seen
equality is welcome [Birdsall et al 2004]. as a joint household resource, whose use is subject/open to
All rural livelihoods involve domestic labour to maintain and
negotiation. Women do not act as autonomous individuals in
reproduce the household over time. Women play a central rolerelation to land, but neither do men, as both have gendered roles
In providing these services: child care, food preparation, fuel andto play and gendered ideologies to live up to. Hence demanding
water collection, care of the ill and elderly, and a range ofa legal title that threatens the symbolic elements of landownership
activities that move into food production and income generatingand the relationships these represent, is likely to be both resented
work, such as livestock care, homestead gardening and so on. and resisted. The problem for women arises when the marriage
Livelihood research pays lip-service to these activities and therebreaks down, and lacking a legal title, they are then threatened
are still too few studies that routinely collect data on domestic with destitution.
work alongside descriptions and analysis of occupations, employ- A second important point is clearly the complementarity between
ment and farm production [Jackson and Rao 2004], or provideassets - land, livestock and labour - that tend to mutually
them equal recognition as legitimate forms of work. A few thatreinforce each other. This also points to the possibilities of
exist such as by Sarin (1997) note that the closure of forests fordifferent starting points, rather than a single blueprint for south
protection by community-based Joint Forest Management groups Asia. While group approaches for women in terms of joint land
(JFM is a widespread programme within rural India) has led to use may be problematic due to caste-class intersections apart from
firewood collection now involving greater time and longerjourneysgender differences, new institutional approaches for control of
to more distant forests by women. This is also a finding in equipment and inputs, infrastructure (such as irrigation), enhanc-
Agarwal's (1997) study of JFM in eight Indian states. Yet, a study ing the level of skills to engage in new forms of production, may
in Nepal by Cooke (2000) found that while women still spendlead to improved gender equality outcomes. The key implication
more time than men in collection, the increased collection time of such an understanding would be to create an enabling envi-
comes almost equally from women and men. ronment for control over a range of livelihood assets on the one
Assets then can be meaningfully understood as offering a range hand, while also ensuring women's voices and rights in the new
of "entitlements": ownership (through trade, production, own- institutions being created to manage common resources.
labour or inheritance); exchange (through market-based trade or
transfers from the state, such as public works, social security and
Violence and Intra-household Disparities:
food subsidies) and legal [Sen 1981 ]. Property rights particularly A Result of Assetlessness
are fuzzy and mediated by family and kinship ties, and a strict
focus on legal rights, can jeopardise women's rights to land, often There is considerable evidence to show that the lack of assets
unrecorded. The difficulties posed for women due to the legalenhances vulnerability and also poverty in its larger sense, but
framework of individual titling followed in most developingin addition, assetless women are subject to threats of violenc
countries has in fact led to a rethinking of this strategy at theand allocational inequalities within the household. While the lack
global level, with a shift towards more locally negotiated rights of productive assets puts women at a structural disadvantage an
[World Bank 2001]. can thus be seen to contribute to violence, the threat of violenc
An "entitlements" approach is at its core a political struggleitself inhibits participation, and economic vulnerability is a major
over negotiating power relations, whether through legal recog- reason for women's acceptance of it in their daily lives [Lloyd
nition or manipulation of custom. In the case of land, this wouldand Taluc 1999]. There is at the same time considerable evidenc
imply recognition of inheritance rights, but also other "second-of violence against women who are making claims to property
ary" rights. What is needed then is to strengthen women's rights, an extreme example being that of branding and killing
bargaining power and control over decision-making, not justwomen as witches [Kelkar and Nathan 1991].

Economic and Political Weekly October 29, 2005 4703

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 Based on a study of 500 households in Kerala, Panda seem to retain an edge in teras of autonomy and decision-making
[2003:34-35] notes that more than 35 percent of women reported either (investment iw health care and purchase of jewellery are
experiencing either physical or psychological violence within the indicators used), though adivasi (indigenous) women seem
their marriage. This is despite the fact that Kerala has high levels to be slightly better off in this respect.
of women's literacy, favourable sex ratios and a generally enabling What seems clear is that assets under the control of men or
environment for women. The regression analysis to identify women have different effects on the allocation of work and also
major causal factors finds a strong negative correlation between expenditures within the household. Current patrilineal inherit-
property ownership, particularly house ownership, and violence, ance seems to favour boys over girls. but if daughters did have
followed by the husband's employment status. Even if a woman more resources at their disposal, it is likely that they would be
does not use the exit option, the very existence of immovable valued more as potential sources of livelihood security.
property in her name could deter the husband from violence
[Panda and Agarwal 2005:824]. A similar correlation can be Assessing Gains and Gaps in Project Experiences
assumed in the context of HIV. If women have a secure home,
a site for economic activity and collateral for credit, they could In line with the multiple dimensions of poverty as identified
potentially reduce risk factors (violence, risky behaviour) and by the poor themselves, namely, lack of income and assets; sense
if infected, can better cover costs and cope with the infection of voicelessness and powerlessness in the institutions of state
[Strickland 2004:11-12]. and society, and vulnerability to adverse shocks [Chambers
There have been several studies on intra-household allocation 1995], most international agencies have in the last five years
of roles, responsibilities and resources in south Asia. Yet these
modified their strategic objectives to reflect this broader under-
are not fixed, but change as a result of external factors, be standing
it of poverty. IFAD, for instance, has now identified three
macro-policy shifts or micro-project interventions. Akram-Lodhi' strategic
s objectives: strengthening the capacity of the rural poor
(1996:97) analysis of time allocation data by class and gender and their organisations; improving equitable access to productive
across activities based on the baseline survey of the Salinity resources and technology; and increasing access of the poor to
Control and Reclamation Project (SCARP) of Mardan in the financial assets and markets [IFAD 2002]. I focus on the first
North West Frontier Province, funded by the World Bank, CIDA two in the rest of this paper, as community organisations and
and government of Pakistan, reveals that while the middle, smalluser groups have now become a widely accepted strategy for
and poor peasants tend to work harder than the rich peasant classimplementation of projects concerned with asset creation and
overall, women of the rich peasant class work longer than any management.
other group. A reason for this is the need to prepare food forDespite a formal commitment to gender mainstreaming, that
hired-in labour as well as enhanced livestock maintenance tasks,is, consideration of gender relations and gender differences in
both within the household compound, in a context where it all is stages of planning, implementation and monitoring of projects,
not possible to hire-in female labour to assist with these tasks.
recent reviews and assessments across agencies reveal less than
The need to entertain guests more frequently to demonstrate their
satisfactory performance in relation to these key objectives, from
economic position further adds to women's domestic workloads.
a gender perspective. Gender equality in most cases does not
Papanek (1989) has termed this "status-production" work, where
feature as an explicit goal of the project, and this may be because
of the assumption that gender has been mainstreamed into the
women work harder to improve household status as this has long-
term pay-offs in terms of family welfare, thus contributing project
to design, yet in practice it leads to the exclusion of women,
their own future security. particularly from decision-making and control positions. In the
Another interesting example of class/caste and gender inter- IFAD-supported Orissa Tribal Development Project, for instance,
sections, with particular reference to the land question, comesself-gelp groups (SHGs) were organised for women, while the
from Gupta's (1997) research on land transactions and dowry Water Users Society and Village Committee, from which they
payments in a West Bengal village. Given the tight monitoring were excluded, were taking the major decisions. Women there-
of land sales, mortgages and transfers by the state, especially fore
of soon lost interest in the SHGs, and the numbers did not
redistributed land post-1977, dowry has become one way increaseof beyond three. I analyse below a few project experiences
informally accessing land. Dowry demands may be either in land with a view to drawing lessons for the future.
or cash, though there is more pressure on landed households for
payments of dowry in land. In a later study, Gupta (2002) found
Bangladesh: Fisheries and Homestead Cultivation
that 33 per cent of 870 households across four villages had lost
land due to dowry demands, more valuable now due to tech- Bangladesh has a high level of rural poverty, but also a network
nological innovations. This has led to devaluation if not outright
of NGOs implementing varied sets of interventions for poverty
ill-treatment of daughters in these families. In landless house-alleviation. It therefore offers some valuable insights in terms
holds, dowry transactions are usually in cash, to invest in small
of enhancing development effectiveness. The findings from a
businesses or improvements in labour quality. Further, since
study of the impacts of vegetable production and fishpond
contributions of both men and women here are clearly measur-
management technologies on household resource allocation, but
able, women tend to be valued more than in landed households.
also on women's empowerment, raise some interesting issues
Deshpande (2002:27), however, uses NSS data on per capita
[Hallman et al 2003]. First, a certain level of material and non-
expenditures and NFHS-2 data on autonomy and decision-making material assets is a precondition for the adoption of new tech-
to challenge the existence of a trade-off between autonomy and nologies, hence while a majority of the adopters were "poor"
material prosperity in contemporary times. Comparing data across(55 per cent owned between 1-4.5 acres of land), the very poor
major social categories in India, she finds that while dalit women
(landless) were largely excluded. Secondly, while poor women
are materially worse off than upper caste women, they no longer
were targeted for both the vegetable and fishpond intervention,

4704 Economic and Political Weekly October 29, 2005

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the former, based on individual households was found to be more comes from the Girijan Cooperative Corporation (GCC), formed
successful than the latter, based on group action. This was because as part of the Andhra Pradesh Tribal Development Programme
of the lack of coordination and trust amongst group members, (APTDP), financed by IFAD between 1991 and 2001, which
and misappropriation by the group leaders, who had been trained focuses on the marketing of non-timber forest produce (NTFP),
by the NGO, whereas other members had not. Further, while the particularly gum, a major income generation activity for indig-
vegetables were generally grown on the homestead plots and enous women. While the GCC has contributed considerably to
labour inputs could be flexibly timed, the ponds were at a distance women's employment and income, it does not have a specific
from the homes and hence the women were not always able to gender dimension built into its programmes.
go there regularly. A common constraint, however, was the
public/private space dichotomy, with women not always able to Nepal: Forests and Livestock
retain control over the marketing of these products.
While fisheries, both inland (e g, Bangladesh) and coastal (e g, In its analysis of the specific outcomes of group-based devel-
Sri Lanka and India), are seen to contribute to improving nutrition opment in terms of social inclusion and the empowerment of
levels of the poor and providing a source of livelihood, there women, the Nepal Human Development Report [UNDP 2004:73]
has been much recent debate about the commercialisation and found that while most projects rate well in terms of enhancing
export-orientation of the fisheries sector and the coming in of livelihood conditions, their impact on social status is low.
large trawlers, which in fact deprive the poor of their livelihood. The main problems have been the exclusion of the ultra-poor,
Inland prawn cultivation has caused land salinity and a destruc- limitation of capacity-building to the group leaders (often the
tion of other environmental resources, and has been challenged educated elite), lack of resources for scaling up, or indeed to
legally in both eastern India and parts of south-western ensure sustainability following project withdrawal. Further, most
Bangladesh.7 While aquaculture is a readily accessible activity of these groups are concentrated in the hills (highest HDI), rather
for women, they generally participate in low-skilled and low- than the mountains or terai, and hence do not deal with geographi-
paid jobs, have marginal access to training and extension services cal exclusion. These are also mostly low absentee areas, as it
and are excluded from decision-making and control over re- is likely that in high absentee ones, women's workloads would
sources. Gains, if at all, have been adhoc and unintended, rather be higher and they would be unable to spare time for group
than planned. As Agarwal (2001: 1624) notes, participation can activities and meetings.
mean many different things from nominal involvement, activity- One of the well documented group types are the community
specific participation to playing much more active roles in decision- forestry user groups (CFUGs), registered with the department
making. A gender-responsive policy would focus on ensuring of forests. In Sindhupalchowk district, for instance, 76 per cent
shifts in their socio-economic status as well, and not just involv- membership of the groups was male (only 663 out of 13,125
ing women and enhancing their workloads [AIT 2000]. groups are female groups). In the executive committee, female
membership was lower at 20 per cent. While these groups may
have led to the fulfilment of environmental goals, they have not
India: Land and Poverty Reduction
necessarily led to an improvement in gender relations. Inferiority
In line with the new understanding of poverty and the focus based on illiteracy, gender or caste status, vulnerability and the
on local institutions, 40 per cent of World Bank aided projects lack of transparency in functioning facilitates elite dominance
in India now depend on local organisations and user groups for in these groups [Biggs et al 2004]. The growing realisation of
their implementation. A study of three such projects (Sodic Lands this male bias, has now led to moves to change membership
Reclamation Project, UP; Forestry Project, MP; and the irrigation guidelines to include all adults and reserve 33 per cent of executive
component of the Economic Restructuring Programme, AP) in positions for women.8
2000 sought to understand the levels of inclusiveness and ef- Given the general scarcity of land, livestock has emerged as
fectiveness of groups in these projects in terms of achievement a major asset, particularly for women. Livestock development
and functioning indicators. While it is often assumed that user programmes, which did not simultaneously focus on fodder
groups would foster inclusion of the disadvantaged in decision- development, such as the Nepal Small Farmer Development
making, equitable distribution of the resource in question and Project, however, failed to meet their goals. In the later Nepal
democratic governance and accountability, (apart from being Hill Leasehold Forestry and Forage Development Project
cost-effective delivery mechanisms), this is not necessarily the (HLFFDP, 1993-2003), livestock and fodder development were
case [Alsop et al 2002]. Participation appears to be highest jointly undertaken, while also specifically targeting the landless,
amongst those already well connected and generally low amongst women-headed households and disadvantaged indigenous
women, though this does not necessarily mean that they do not groups. Unlike the community forestry programmes, the lease-
receive immediate benefits. While two-thirds of those inter- hold forestry programme involved a redistribution of assets to
viewed gave a good rating to the achievement of formal objec-the poor by leasing degraded sites to specifically targeted groups
of resource-poor households, identified jointly by NGO partners
tives, whether distribution of inputs, forest protection or main-
tenance of the irrigation system, asset creation and equitable
and supportive government officials. The objective was to enable
distribution got lower ranks. Transparency was limited forestand rehabilitation while also increasing the supply of fodder
members were not aware of how funds were managed or decisionsand forage for livestock that would provide incomes to these
households.
made, and in the event of any conflict, external backstops were
needed to resolve it (ibid). The evaluation of HLFFDP [IFAD 2003] found the poverty
What these experiences reveal is that poverty targeting and impact to be uneven, varying with location, dynamism of groups
and potential of the plots, yet there was a significant increase
equitable distribution of short-term benefits can be achieved even
without higher levels of inclusion. Another good example of thisin the ownership of goats, rather than milch animals, due to

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improved access to forage. While two-thirds of the targeted of both single and married women are actualised. It is also
households earned some income from goats, the impact of other important to clarify rights to common property such as forests
income generating activities was insignificant. Women's collec- and village grazing lands, as these are key resources for certain
tion time for fuel and fodder was also reduced substantially. groups such as tribes and nomadic pastoralists.
While usufruct leases on these forest lands have been granted (ii) Mechanisms for implementation of laws and policies too need
to them for 40 years, it is important now to clarify the condi- to be clarified. Societies are governed by plural systems of rules
tionalities and secure the tenures. that influence behaviour and interactions at different levels. Land,
Despite the fact that both forest and small livestock activitiesin particular, given its links to kinship and lineage name, is
are essentially in women's domain, it is interesting to note thatsubjected to community norms, resulting in problems in the
only 27 per cent of group members were women and 11 per centprocess of implementing legal rights awarded to women. It is
of leasehold groups were all-women groups, with others partici-important therefore to harmonise land, marriage and inheritance
pating as wives of members [Lama 2005]. Yet the appointmentlaws to ensure congruence and social acceptability on the one
of 46 women group promoters and gender training for foresthand, while allowing plurality and openness in terms of mecha-
rangers is gradually leading to enhanced gender sensitivity [IFADnisms of enforcement. This would involve strengthening local
2003] and even where women are not decision-makers, they do conflict resolution mechanisms, while also making legal services
attempt to influence decisions. The leasehold forestry project haseasily accessible.
been expensive to implement, and one of the key lessons emerg-(iii) Access to "khas" land and water resources, even though
ing is to allow a bottom-up and participatory process of self-nominal in quantum, can play a symbolic if not substantive role
identification of the poorest, while also targeting a critical massin reiterating the value of women in the land sector. In India,
of households within a given area/cluster as remote locationswhile policy commitment to this agenda has been affirmed since
particularly need sustained support. Benefits will not tricklethe Sixth Plan period (1980-85), lack of monitoring information
down, hence proactive policies are needed to address the needslimits any analysis of progress, which qualitative village studies
of the disadvantaged groups, and women within them. Skills inshow to be tardy.9
livestock management, production of forage seed and livestock (iv) Focus on human capital is a key to enable women to move
improvement need to be provided specifically to wome., alongaway from low-income, low technology activities to more skilled
with market linkages, if equity goals are to be met, alongsideand better paying tasks. Related to this, it is also important to
poverty goals. Experiences from Pakistan, Bangladesh and India,identify assets and skills that are competitive in changing eco-
in similarly patriarchal settings, reveal that pursuing gendernomic contexts and strengthen women's control therein.
equality goals at all levels require policy commitment and pro- (v) Organising women appears as a key strategy for helping
grammatic leadership as "there is little built in incentive to pursuewomen gain access to assets - an essential means for building
gender objectives - in fact the reverse, since concern with gender their confidence, leadership as well as bargaining power. This
equity significantly slows implementation progress" [Mosseis because the process of claiming assets implies challenging the
1999:39]. status quo with its consequent social risks, which becomes
possible only when women have substantial common interest and
Gender Mainstreaming: Institutional Lessons social support to take such action. Higher cluster level federations
and Policy Directions become important for ensuring not just forward and backward
linkages, but also structural change.
An assessment of the gender dimensions of World Bank (vi) Livestock and fodder development should be prioritised, as
assistance in 12 countries revealed that while the bank appearsthis again is a key asset for rural women being an insurance against
to have done the right things in Bangladesh over the last decade,risk and a form of savings and capital. Rather than attempting
consistent with national policies, the gender relevance of itsto ban goats as environmentally destructive, as was tried by the
policies in Sri Lanka were at best modest [OED 2002:3]. ThisAndhra Pradesh government in India, it is much better to recognise
is perhaps because the starting points have been education andtheir value for the poor, especially women, and try to overcome
health disparities, linked to maternity (important in Bangladeshthe negative environmental effects through provision of fodder
though not so much in Sri Lanka), rather than labour marketand forage as done in Nepal.
interventions or a holistic analysis of gender inequality. The(vii) Infrastructure development is as important as enhancing the
evaluation of 53 project appraisal documents reveals that onlyproductivity of natural resources (land, water, forests) or devel-
a third had both a gender analysis and gender-disaggregated oping human and other assets, as it implies recognition of the
monitoring indicators, in the others, ad hoc WID componentspremium on women's time and provides appropriate support to
had been added on, predictably with mixed results. Processease their burdens. Transport to the markets or from the fields
factors particularly have rarely been addressed in most monitor-and forests are major areas that affect women's well-being, as
ing systems. also the access to water and fuel. Performing these reproductive
I summarise below some policy options for enhancing both tasks in addition to a growing burden of productive work is likely
programmatic and institutional effectiveness. to ultimately deplete women's body capital and negatively affect
(i) Women's legal entitlements to land need to be clarified to their capacity to work.' Simultaneously, there is a need to en-
provide an enabling environment for gender equality. In India, courage men to share. in reproductive work, an essential part of
the recommendations of the 174th Law Commission to remove livelihood strategies.
the clauses that disadvanttaid women in the Hindu Succession (viii) Focus on dealing with competitive markets is essential to
Act 1956 [Reddy et al 2000], have recently been approved by help women overcome the structural constraints to their equal
the Rajya Sabha (The Hindu, August 17, 2005), yet specific economic participation. While women are often engaged in a
references and incentives are needed to ensure the entitlements range of productive tasks, restrictions on mobility prevent them

4706 Economic and Political Weekly October 29, 2005

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from accessing the best markets directly, and they become targeting them, it is now recognised that a more
dependent on their male relatives for this purpose. approach is necessary [Flintan 2003]. Women's g
(ix) Monitoring and evaluation should include quality and pro- vide a forum for women to come together, share
cess factors and not just inputs and outputs. There is a need to information and develop a support network. Yet s
specifically monitor how far gender has been mainstreamed in in access to resources and benefits (linked as they
each programme component and the performance therein. sibilities for maintaining them), can only emer
(x) One needs to get away from the notion that poverty reduction support such a shift, and take on a more equal
and gender equality can be achieved on the "cheap", with "micro- productive and reproductive work. In the context
investments" and small-scale interventions. The need for ad- reform, poor men too are facing a crisis in term
equate investment of resources is a lesson that has emergedproductive
again assets, markets and income, leading
and again from a range of sectoral interventions (literacy,masculinities
for that is often reflected in growing tren
example), and is one that needs to be taken seriously. The against women. If gender equality is indeed to be a
Leasehold Forestry Project in Nepal, for instance, was seen is need
to to pay attention to the interests of wome
be expensive, yet its impact is likely to be more sustainable men
in and to shifts in gender relations occurring
the long run. contextual changes. IJT

Email: N.Rao@uea.ac.uk
Conclusion

Progress towards gender equality through developrient inter- Notes

ventions ultimately raises issues of the sustainability of gains.
Most natural resource management projects are now based on
1 The Pakistan PPA as well as the Nepal HDR reveal the growing relian
the formation of user institutions. If these groups are to sustain
on informal social safety nets due to the failure of formal ones to rea
the poorest and most vulnerable.
and meet equity and collective action objectives then it is important
2 Less than 1.6 per cent of total land in India (Agarwal, 1998).
to clarify their purpose, provide external support to build requisite
3 See also Kabeer's (2002) documentation of Nijera Kori.
capacities, form links with other local organisations 4and
See, also
for instance, the longitudinal study in Andhra Pradesh by Rao a
address gender needs in the core activities of the project.Bantilan
While (2003).
5 See,
most projects set up infrastructure or invest in resource for instance, Ramachandran, Swaminathan and Rawal's (200
deve-
study of shifts in labour patterns in a village in rural Tamil Nadu.
lopment, there is often not adequate investment in developing
6 Estudillo et al (2001) arrive at a similar conclusion from their study
grassroot institutions with the capacity and resources to manage
the Philippines.
these newly created assets. 7 See Rasanayagam (1999) for an example of such devastation in Puttal
If empowerment of women is a goal, then this needs to bedistrict,
made Sri Lanka.
explicit and the rules of engagement defined accordingly. 8 As per the Irrigation Act, 2003, in Nepal, the Water Users Associati
People
too need to reserve 33 per cent seats on their executive committees f
participate in accordance with their perception of benefits, hence
women. See also Agarwal (1997) on forest user groups.
if the focus in resource management programmes is primarily
9 Rao (2002) found that while women were included as a category in t
on physical works, as appears to be the case when one looks
land distribution monitoring formats in Dumka district till 1997-8, la
at monitoring formats, then it is no surprise that the better off
of any entry in this column has led to its disappearance from the form
would participate more actively than the landless or women, who
itself subsequently.
have less to gain [Alsop 2004; Mosse 2005]. Further, develop-
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