In
the article “Women in
Development: A Framework for Project Analysis”, Overholt, Anderson, Cloud and Austin (1985) presented a project
framework to assist planners in their development projects involving women’s
issues. Overholt et al. (1985) further ascertained that women constitutes the
highest population in the economy yet most development projects implemented ignore
the contributions of women and the effects these projects pose on women. It is
further argued in the article that projects inform governments and other
international agencies to effect development in an economy and one of the
problems development planners face is the absence of an analytical framework
for development planning.
The authors presented the framework in four
phases. The first phase is the ‘Activity Profile’ which
focuses on the gender division of labour among population and the time each
person spends at work. The second phase is the ‘Access and Control Profile’ which
gives an opportunity to individuals to command what resources they will need
for their activities and its benefits to them. The third phase which is the ‘Analysis
of Factors Influencing Activities, Access, and Control’ identify factors that
differentiate the works that women and men perform and the last phase ‘Project
Cycle Analysis’ is the monitoring and evaluation stage to examine the project
and the progress of it. (Overholt
et al., 1985, p.4-5). According to the authors, this framework will assist
development planners to have an activity log to help undertake projects
systematically and to include women in the process
The authors made valuable
contributions in developing a framework to assist development planning in
devising projects related to women’s issues. From the article, women are being marginalized in
development process even though women are the key actors in the economic
system. The authors further focused on the need to incorporate women in the
development planning process to ensure gender equality and social justice
within the economy in 1985, which is something women still fight for now. Further,
the framework presented provided a clear structure for planning development
effectively to benefit both men and women and the growth of the economy. The
framework focused on how gender roles are supposed to be divided among men and
women, ignoring the power relations between men and women in society or the
patriarchal nature of some societies which compels women to remain
marginalized. This will end up increasing the burden of women in society to
perform ‘double day’ labour.
In
conclusion, the authors have been successful in raising arguments against gender
inequality and development planners on the subordination of women in
development projects. Additionally, the authors gave valuable ideas on how
women can be involved in development projects with the framework presented which
can be built upon and implemented in a better way for development to occur
holistically. Hence, women will not be left at the bottom of development or
seen as just recipients of development projects.
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