Revisiting Gender Issues in Development

It is often women who take care of sick family members including taking children for regularl clinics

A seminar on “Gender and Empowerment in the 21st century in Africa” was held in Nairobi to deliberate the development challenges that African women still face. These challenges include: bearing a disproportionate burden of the HIV/AIDS pandemic; suffering more gender-based violence; having limited access to productive resources especially land; and, bearing huge health and reproductive health burdens given the sustained high fertility, among others.

The seminar, held on August 24-25, 2009, was convened by the IUSSP (International Union for the Scientific Study of Population) Scientific Panel on Gender in collaboration with the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), with funding from the Dutch Foreign Affairs Ministry.

The seminar brought together researchers, policymakers, program managers, and other development partners to share experiences on innovative policies and programs that have pushed the region forward in promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment in some countries, as well as highlight experiences that have undermined such efforts in other countries.

Regarding policy issues, the seminar argued that women’s work, such as care-giving, should be valued and

evaluated in economic terms in order to help policymakers to understand the contribution women are making. Further, the seminar urged decision-makers to formulate policies targeted at improving women’s human capital to improve the quality of their participation in the labour force.

In regard to programs, the seminar said that there was need to define ways that men can be involved in projects to empower women to stem men’s sense of powerlessness in the face of women’s empowerment.

And finally, regarding research, the seminar called on researchers to adopt mixed methodologies in gender research and also link gender research to larger socio-economic issues.

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Tags: IUSSP; International Union for the Scientific Study of Population;

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