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
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“Until the Rwandan government shows greater tolerance for human rights in general,” Longman concludes, “the impressive representation of women in Rwanda's parliament and other government institutions will have only a limited impact on ...
... may also squander limited resources and generate negative reactions, thereby preventing greater progress toward the goal of worldwide gender equality. Out of concern about the existing paradigms, this author proposes two hypotheses: ...
Third, and most importantly, because the two groups spoke somewhat different languages using somewhat different concepts, there seemed to be limited penetration of thinking (more talking at or past one another)—and therefore a missed ...
To the extent that this is the case, advocacy-related training, technical assistance and practice may have only limited impacts. Worse, there are opportunity costs of investing human and financial resources in those approaches rather ...
Yet recalling the Law and Development concepts, such foci are limited. First, the programs assume that stateenacted laws are of central importance in people's lives. They put the State in the center and expect, even when legal systems ...