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SIS 636 Micro-politics of Development
Gender Analysis Assignment
April 16, 2014
Group 4: Larissa Kougblenou-Siebens & Pinky Thomas
Framework Approach to use
For this gender analysis, we will use the Social Relations Approach. The social relations
framework aims to analyze existing gender inequalities in the distribution of resources,
responsibilities and power, as well as relationships between people, their relationship to
resources and activities and how they are reworked through institutions. It explores ways of
restructuring these relationships through the social systems that dominate the state, market and
community. This social relations framework imbues a strong sense of socialist feminism. It
analyses existing gender inequalities with regards to resources and allocation of responsibilities
and raises policies and programs designed to help women voluntarily to develop.
This approach consists of 5 core conceptions
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Development: There should be benefits for humankind besides those of economic growth
and improved productivity
Social relations: Concentrates on 5 structural social relations; rules, events, resources ,
power
Analyses 4 key systems pertaining to market, community, family/relatives, and
international community
Institutionalized gender policy: Policies that are gender blind, gender- aware or gender
redistributive
Analyses on direct and underlying reasons for systems; it differentiates on a system level
among direct, indirect as well as structural factors and reveals their current, medium term
and long term results.
Using this framework is appropriate in this case because of 3 reasons:
1. The objectives of our project are poverty alleviation and community capacity Building in
the Ranyane San Community. Using the Social relations approach will help us elicit
important information to understand the status of women in the community, what can be
done to ensure that women are not adversely impacted by future changes, and how to
empower women to fully participate in the community building projects for the
improvement of their lives.
2. An overarching goal of the social relations framework is human well-being (survival,
security & autonomy) as the final goal of development. This goal aligns well with our
poverty alleviation and capacity building for the Ranyane San Community.
3. Conducting the gender analysis through the Social relations framework will entail
examining how institutions create and reproduce inequality within the state, market,
community and family/kinship, and the aetiology of these institutional interferences in
the lives of Ranyane San Community members
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Practical and Strategic Gender Needs
Practical gender needs: The needs that affect the flow of power like labor power. These needs
meet the inadequacies found in the social roles of women, and seek an immediate response to
necessities like employment, provision and so on or issues that involves matters of condition or
access.
Things to be included under practical gender needs could be identified at the individual, intrahousehold and community level. These needs would be:
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Short-term or immediate based on the site or situation
Unique to one woman or a group of women
Identified by interviewed women as basic needs
Fulfilling these needs would:
 Involve women as beneficiaries/participants
 Benefit the condition of some women
 And potently ameliorates the circumstances of some women.
 Generally not alter traditional roles and relationships
Some example of these needs are: Access to water, fuel, sanitation facilities, employment,
Income, power or responsibility, access to information and services and awareness
Strategic gender Interests: These relate to status in society, and demand equal treatment of both
women and men.
Things to be included under the strategic gender needs would be:
 Long-term needs common to all women (requiring institutional changes for realization)
that would promote agency and autonomy for women
 Needs that would be addressed by equity and empowerment of women as active agents
for changes in cultural constructs, laws, policies, and other structural issues
 Needs that would improve the position of all women
 Interests with transformatory potential: with the potential to transform and fundamentally
change one or more aspects of women’s lives.
Some example of these needs are: equal wages for equal work of equal value, women ability to
participate in traditionally male tasks, control over assets, resources, Control over personal health
decision making and mobility, Equal power between men and women
Work plan for conducting a Gender Analysis of the Ranyane San community
Included in the plan should be an outline of how you plan to gather the information for
each step of the analysis.
Throughout the analysis, we will investigate the Five dimensions of institutional social
relationships:
 Rules, or how things get done; do they enable or constrain? Rules may be written or
unwritten, formal or informal
 Activities, or who does what, who gets what, and who can claim what. Activities may be
productive, regulative, or distributive
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Resources, & Access and Control of Resources or what is used and what is produced,
including human (labor, education), material (food, assets, capital), or intangible
resources (goodwill, information, networks)
People, or who is in, who is out and who does what. Institutions are selective in the way
they include or exclude people, assign them resources and responsibilities, and position
them in the hierarchy
Power, or who decides, and whose interests are served.
⇒ Information Gathering Technique: Generally our Information Gathering Techniques would
be as follows:
 Search for and read recent gender assessments or sectoral gender analyses that organizations
such as USAID have conducted for Botswana, or the SAN community, research papers on
the San Community
 Consult with gender experts at non‐governmental organizations, donors, and other
organizations who may be able to outline key gender issues in Botswana
 Obtain this information via a stakeholder analysis, focus groups, and in depth personal
Interviews: Consult with women and men in the countries and/or communities where the
project will be implemented. Solicit their perceptions of whether the project will result in
equal outcomes for men and women and also identify gender issues that may not have
been considered in the initial stages of project design
We would devise questions to investigate based on the Six Domains of Gender Analysis
Framework (as outlined in the USAID Tips for Gender Analysis) which covers the following
areas
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Access: This domain refers to a person’s ability to use the necessary resources to be a fully
active and productive participant (socially, economically, and politically) in society, and in
the project. It includes access to resources, income, services, employment, information, and
benefits.
Knowledge, Beliefs, and Perception: This domain refers to the types of knowledge that men
and women possess; the beliefs that shape gender identities and behavior, and the different
perceptions that guide people’s understanding of their lives, depending upon their gender
identity.
Practices and Participation: This domain refers to peoples’ behaviors and actions in life –
what they actually do – and how this varies by gender roles and responsibilities. The
questions include not only current patterns of action, but also the ways in which men and
women may engage differently in development activities. Some of these types of action
include attendance at meetings and training courses, and accepting or seeking out services.
Participation can be both active and passive.
Time and Space: This domain recognizes gender differences in the availability and allocation
of time and the locations in which time is spent. It considers the division of both productive
and reproductive labor; the identification of how time is spent during the day (week, month,
or year, and in different seasons); and determines how men and women each contribute to the
welfare of the family, community, and society. The objective of this domain is to determine
how men and women spend their time and what implications their time commitments have on
their availability for program activities.
Legal Rights and Status: This domain involves assessing how people are regarded and
treated by customary legal codes, formal legal codes, and judicial systems. The domain
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encompasses legal documentation such as identification cards, voter registration, and
property titles.
Additionally, the domain includes the right to inheritance, employment, atonement of
wrongs, and legal representation.
Power and Decision Making: This domain pertains to the ability of people to decide,
influence, control, and enforce personal and governmental power. It refers to one’s capacity
to make decisions freely, and to exercise power over one’s body, within an individual’s
household, community, municipality, and state. This domain also details the capacity of
adults to make household and individual economic decisions including the use of household
and individual economic resources, income, and their choice of employment. Additionally,
this domain describes the decision to vote, run for office, enter into legal contracts, etc.
We would also poll different stakeholders to develop/identify some indicators to monitor
Positive changes in Women’s Condition, and position
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Community Customized Indicators to monitor for Positive changes in Women’s
Condition
Increased acceptance by women and men of women as community decision-makers
Greater personal and economic independence and self-confidence for women
Increased women’s involvement in personal, family or community development
New, more visible, and more effective women’s organizations
More women in education and training programmes
Improved health of women and children
Community Customized Indicators to monitor for Positive changes in Women’s Position
 Improvements in women’s legal status
 A decline in violence against women
 Increased women’s control over their fertility
 Reduced institutional discrimination and bias against women
 Increased public awareness of women’s issues
We could obtain Gender Indicators from NGOs, UN, World Bank and Household Survey
Indicators. Types of Indicators to obtain:
 Sex disaggregated statistics: which give numbers of males and females the SAN
population
 Gender Statistics: which indicate the need for a policy intervention, but not what the
intervention should be (eg: % of women experiencing domestic violence, % of women
experiencing non-domestic violence , % of women educated…)
 Gender-sensitive indicators: which provide direct evidence of the status of women,
relative to some agreed normative standard or explicit reference group (eg: % of women
literate in SAN community, compared to % women in other communities…)