Power, Gender and Social Change in AfricaGender plays a hugely significant and too often under-considered role in predicting how accessible resources such as education, wage-based employment, physical and mental health care, adequate nutrition and housing will be to an individual or community. According to a 2001 World Bank report titled Engendering Development—Through Gender Equality in Rights, Resources, and Voice, enormous disparities exist between men and women in terms of basic rights and the power to determine the future, both in Africa and around the globe. A better understanding of the links between gender, public policy and development outcomes would allow for more effective policy formulation and implementation at many levels. This book, through its discussion of the challenges, achievements and lessons learned in efforts to attain gender equality, sheds light on these important issues. The book contains chapters from an interdisciplinary group of scholars, including sociologists, economists, political scientists, scholars of law, anthropologists, historians and others. The work includes analysis of strategic gender initiatives, case studies, research, and policies as well as conceptual and theoretical pieces. With its format of ideas, resources and recorded experiences as well as theoretical models and best practices, the book is an important contribution to academic and political discourse on the intricate links between gender, power, and social change in Africa and around the world. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 56
Chapters eleven and twelve examine gender, human rights, customary law and the impact of traditional values on gender relations. Women face some of the greatest challenges in the labor and production sectors.
... put in place following the 1992 political transition, for its impact on women MPs and women's representation (Morna 2004b, 60). In east Africa the mechanisms used to gender parliaments have differed from those in southern Africa.
... at the local level, and were considered more likely to represent “women in particular.” In Tanzania and Uganda there is a concern about the impact of reserved seats on women's chances of winning directly elected constituency seats.
Moreover, an increasingly authoritarian political climate in Rwanda is further restricting the impact of women legislators. Finally, Longman charges that the lack of political freedom at all levels of government in Rwanda limits the ...
It seemed still that pressures to achieve measurable changes within the funding periods risked distorting the approaches or sacrificing longer-term, more sustainable impacts for short term results. Women's organizations might be ...