The assumption here and the potential risk is that "we" the researchers and development practitioners set women up to fail, i.e. either ignore them or bring them into the conversation only to see them abandoned and at the mercy of entrenched power dynamics. This is indeed a risk and one I can admit to being guilty of myself when insisting women are represented on local community committees (e.g. water - health - education "committees" introduced by the agency from the North!) only further marginalising the one woman representative from groups within her community and reinforcing existing patterns of decision making. Similarly, there are many examples of good intentioned approaches but potential traps when working towards children and youth effective participation in decision effective their lives.
This doesn't have to be the case!
The learning (much documented): inclusive effective participation leading to development impact requires time for change to occur, knowledge and leadership. It requires bringing all groups to the table in an aim to avoid further division, making information accessible and recognising that gender refers to men and women, boys and girls. And, as integral to a rights based approach, the exclusion of women (and other marginalised groups) from accessing information as well as decision making processes must also be rectified through State policy, mechanisms and practice - where the State at all levels has a clear responsibility to ensure rights to information, decision making (water, education, health, etc) are fulfilled.
And we do have some examples...
As researchers tempted by a rights based approach and seeking to go beyond ticking the gender box how far can we go to demonstrating that applying RBA to Agriculture R4D does really bring development outcomes of benefit to the poorest and most marginalized?
The assumption here and the potential risk is that "we" the researchers and development practitioners set women up to fail, i.e. either ignore them or bring them into the conversation only to see them abandoned and at the mercy of entrenched power dynamics. This is indeed a risk and one I can admit to being guilty of myself when insisting women are represented on local community committees (e.g. water - health - education "committees" introduced by the agency from the North!) only further marginalising the one woman representative from groups within her community and reinforcing existing patterns of decision making. Similarly, there are many examples of good intentioned approaches but potential traps when working towards children and youth effective participation in decision effective their lives.
This doesn't have to be the case!
The learning (much documented): inclusive effective participation leading to development impact requires time for change to occur, knowledge and leadership. It requires bringing all groups to the table in an aim to avoid further division, making information accessible and recognising that gender refers to men and women, boys and girls. And, as integral to a rights based approach, the exclusion of women (and other marginalised groups) from accessing information as well as decision making processes must also be rectified through State policy, mechanisms and practice - where the State at all levels has a clear responsibility to ensure rights to information, decision making (water, education, health, etc) are fulfilled.
And we do have some examples...
As researchers tempted by a rights based approach and seeking to go beyond ticking the gender box how far can we go to demonstrating that applying RBA to Agriculture R4D does really bring development outcomes of benefit to the poorest and most marginalized?