Gender, large-scale development, and food insecurity in Lesotho: an analysis of the impact of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project

Abstract

This article investigates the effects of development policy on gender and food security. It analyses how one policy instituted by a large-scale multi-dam development project, the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP), affected women's food security in the rural highlands of Lesotho, southern Africa. This was a mitigation policy, aiming to ensure that the LHWP did not negatively impact on the people living in the area where the dams were constructed. However, ethnographic research suggests that the policy itself reinforced and exacerbated gender inequalities that affected women's ability to secure food, and put women at risk of food insecurity within their households. Once again we see that gender issues must be central to the constitution and implementation of development projects.