Gender and the environment: recent initiatives to improve sustainable development policy, planning and practice.

Abstract

This article describes the conceptual transition between a women, environment, and development (WED) approach to planning and policy development and a gender, environment, and sustainable development (GED) approach. The article explains different initiatives to include gender within environment-related development policies and programs and new participatory approaches to natural resource management. Most development aid is allocated for large-scale infrastructure development programs, which pay little attention to gender or environmental issues. Moser (1993) argues that the existing planning methodology needs to be revised in order to change power relations between men and women through gender development planning. Levy (1992) points out that when gender and environment are "tacked on" to other tasks of foreign aid bureaucracies, the result is understaffed, underfunded, and marginal units. Levy proposes that the alternative is to begin with a working definition of sustainable development and implementation at the local level. Programs would secure nondegradation of the environment, support of local livelihoods, and nonexploitative use of natural resources by institutions and organizations at all levels. People must appreciate that gender and environment are socially constructed notions. Gender and environment are context-specific; they change over time and are dynamic processes; and their relations represent a particular set of power relations that are reflected in institutional settings. Sectoral changes in traditional gender and environment planning requires action in the political, technical, organizational, and research spheres. There is a need for complementary actions and holistic analysis at all levels, within scientific procedures, between governments, within civil society, and within historical, economic, political, legal, and social dimensions.