Jessie Krafft, Jennifer Mellett, Diana Dau, Robert
Patterson
SIS-636-001
The Micropolitics of Development
April 16, 2014
Gender Analysis
The framework that would be most useful in this gender analysis is the Social Relations
Framework. This approach analyses existing gender inequalities and how resources are
distributed, in order to design policies that will enable women to be the actors in their own
development. The Moser Framework tends to be criticized for focusing only on the women’s
strategic needs, without much analysis on what the men need, and the Harvard Framework is
more focused on efficiency than equity. It tries to make programs more efficient instead of
addressing unequal gender relations. As a result, the Social Relations framework seems to be the
most useful since it reveals the interacting and cross cutting inequalities of concepts such as
gender, class and race. It focuses on structural analysis, material poverty, and the process of
powerlessness and marginalization, while enabling links between macro and micro analysis.
This approach is ideal because it (1) identifies the realities of gender inequalities and power
struggles within the society, (2) it focuses on the relationships between people within the society,
allowing for a more fluid change, and (3) it does not remove women from the location of the
problem; instead, it builds a sustainable solution by giving women the ability to make change for
themselves.
The emphasis of this framework rests with the following aspects of a given society: development
of human well-being, concept of social relations, and institutional analysis. This breakdown
allows for a set of goals to be made.
- First, it identifies the goal of development as human well-being. This allows for
differences in cultures and traditions between the San and the rest of the Botswana
people. A woman of the San may believe that her well-being is shaped by a certain list of
abilities, while a Botswana woman might feel differently. This generalized definition of
“human well-being” allows for the development project to help all women in Botswana
move forward.
- Second, it is based on the pre-existing social relations in the society: how are women
positioned in the society in relation to resources? A developer should not further alienate
the group that they are trying to help by helping them to separate themselves from the rest
of the society and break the social order. Instead, the marginalized or vulnerable
population should be helped to change their own circumstances within the society, so that
they can improve their own well-being without becoming the enemy to that society or
marginalized further.
- Last, this framework allows for the inclusion of institutions in the development process.
Institutions include family, state, marketplace, and international community. Inequalities
exist at every level and layer of a society: it is not enough to focus on just one. Instead,
the goal should be increased well-being across all institutions. This also allows for more
sustainable change: while institutions will likely be difficult to change and will take years
to mold, the change will likely be more permanent than temporary.
Practical Gender Needs:
1. Since they became more sedentary, San women have begun to have more children,
leaving shorter intervals of time between pregnancies, and there have been more
instances of HIV. In order to address this immediate, practical need, medical attention to
each woman and questions about their desire to have children, how many children they
already have, etc. would help identify needs specific to each woman in this area.
2. In order to assess individual, short term needs for San, household surveys and interviews
with individual women should occur. What is learned in these analyses may eventually
lead to the identification of more strategic needs of the general population of San, but it
may lead to the identification of household specific needs that could be addressed.
3. Practical, specific inputs that may be helpful to many in this context would be access to
contraceptives, access to medical attention, access to education and training so that they
can contribute to the household on a basic subsistence level as they did in the past before
they shifted to a sedentary lifestyle.
4. Food subsidies and agricultural inputs would be a practical need that may assist
impoverished women to better provide for their families.
5. Women still have to travel long distances to collect water. Water supply services need to
be improved to provide reliable access to clean, potable water for basic needs that can
also be used for productive purposes. Water supply services need to be improved to
provide reliable access to clean, potable water for basic needs that can also be used for
productive purposes. This will significantly reduce the amount of time used by women to
collect/ fetch water and it will increase the amount of time spent with the family.
6. There needs to be public awareness exercises on the simple benefits of drinking adequate
amounts of water, especially during hot conditions. Other neglected areas include basic
hygiene to prevent infections such as ringworms on children, dehydration and other
water-related infections such as cholera, which are often fatal.
7. The clinics need to be equipped with specialist doctors to avoid the need to travel long
distances to get specialist healthcare, and particularly to improve access to AIDS
medication.
8. Subsidized provision of mosquito nets (coupled with public awareness) to every
household is required in order to reduce the infection of Malaria especially by children
(some with HIV) who do not fully understand the importance of protecting themselves
against mosquito bites. Women are the caregivers in a household and this would impact
women the most.
9. Programmes targeted at raising awareness among men to encourage testing for and
seeking treatment for HIV/AIDS would help reduce the number of cases where women
are infected, or re-infected by their partners. Programs on domestic violence on women
should be encouraged.
Strategic Gender Needs:
1. Since the San were relocated and taken away from their traditional livelihoods, the equal
status the women once received alongside the men has been taken away. Their equal
status was largely seen as derivative of their foraging contributions to the livelihoods of
their people. A strategic need that should be studied and considered is how to integrate
these marginalized San women into the economy with positions and wage-earning
potential that might allow them to regain their equal status. Some examples include
economically productive activities such as basket weaving and commercial fishing.
Programs geared at training and capacity building in all areas of business (such as
marketing and bookkeeping) as well as the development of the skills of those interested
in learning weaving and fishing skills is needed. Development of reliable markets for
local produce would go a long way in making local economic activities such as fishing
and basket making economically viable. Support for women’s groups to share
experiences and exchange lessons in what they engage in should also be promoted.
2. Gender-based violence has become an issue for the San women. In the long term, gender
analysis on this strategic need would focus on researching the underlying root causes and
reasons for this gender-based violence in order to determine what might be able to be
done in order to combat it.
3. Another strategic need would be taking steps to further involve San (especially women)
in the politics of Botswana and their communities. This would lead to their further
empowerment and advocacy for their rights in the long run throughout their society.
4. There are higher school dropout rates among San women than San men, but both are a
problem. This is seen as having to do with the “boarding school” style education system
where women are exposed to potential abuses outside of the protection of their homes.
Researching another education model or a way to prevent these abuses would be of
strategic importance to improving the education and literacy levels of the San.
5. Those living in rural areas have lower educational levels than rural men hampering their
access to information and know-how which could complement and optimize their own
knowledge. Illiteracy, which is generally higher among women than among men, reduces
their possibilities for gaining wage employment, which could be an important source of
alternative income.
In summary, here are the basic practical needs and strategic interests that we will focus on:
Practical Needs
Strategic Interests
Basic necessities, such as food, water, - Protection from violence and
clothing, reliable housing, mosquito nets
discrimination based on gender
(in high malaria areas)
- Basic equality rights – ability to find
- Access to medical care and
contraceptives
-- Access to information and education
about common preventable diseases HIV/AIDS, malaria, etc.come brought
home by another member or the
opportunity to seek employment)
- Concrete inputs, as they pertain to each
individual (these may include credit,
employment, seeds or livestock,
transportation to a job, technical training –
anything that would immediately increase
the economic well being of the woman in
her situation)
- For mothers and pregnant women –
necessary medical attention, child
care/school for children (especially if she
needs to work)
work, be an active participant in Botswana
society, obtain, own property
- Involve San in their own development –
allow them to play an active role in their
empowerment
- Better educational opportunities for San
- Are there any wealthy or other
influential figures that would support this
cause?
Transformatory potential: these changes
have the potential to make San more active
in Botswana society and to give them a
voice to emphasize their needs
Work Plan for the Gender Analysis:
In order for this analysis to be successful, we need to identify the following:
1. What my definition of well-being would be for the development project
2. How San in Botswana are positioned in relation to resources and how they are
positioned in relation to both resources within their own communities and within the
Botswana society as a whole
3. What institutions have influence over the San’s access to resources and how they can
be influenced
Through this, we will be able to determine where inequalities exist and what kinds of barriers
they cause for finding a solution to the problem. The following describes the how this will be
done in greater detail:
I. Stakeholder Identification: We plan to work with individuals, households and institutions in
order to hash through the practical and strategic gender needs at these levels.
a. Individuals (women and men) at the household level
b. Institutions:
1. Health care organizations
2. Local businesses and employers
3. Community organizations: NGOs, village organizations
4. Government Organizations
II. Recruitment of Participants:
a. We will develop a brief questionnaire that will help us to determine who should be
involved in the in-depth interviews as well as the focus groups.
b. We will fully disclose to the chosen participants the types of questions we will be
asking and how the information will be used.
c. Based on the participants selected, we will work with local actors to determine whether
there are any hierarchies that need to be considered in this analysis or any potential biases that
may come from the analysis.
II. Planning the Analysis
a. Tools we will use:
1. Focus Groups (to determine strategic gender needs)
2. In-depth Interviews (to determine practical gender needs)
b. Location: Once we know which participants have been selected, we will determine what the
most neutral location for the focus group sessions would be.
c. Planning the questions for both in-depth interviews and focus groups:
1. These will all be based on the Social Relations Framework and the types of
information that framework hopes to learn through a gender analysis.
2. The questions will focus on the areas of individual well-being, social relations between
people, and an institutional analysis.
3. Will focus on these questions in reference to the relationships between men, women,
communities, and institutions.
III. Potential impact:
1. San greater access to basic resources (food, water, medical care, etc.)
2. San having greater access to education and, subsequently, to jobs as well
3. San having the opportunity to pursue other goals while children are in school
4. Increased economic prosperity – greater likelihood that a San could pull themselves out of
poverty
5. An increased voice for San in the Botswana government and increased agency of San to
change their own situation