Strategic Engagements: Exploring Instrumentalist Approaches to Engendering Development

Abstract

ABSTRACT The introduction of a gender perspective within development has been done with the aim of enhancing the understanding of the situation of women and men, and boys and girls in the development process and bringing forth a transformational politics. In the endeavour to make gender a constitutive element of development, gender lobbies have often had to resort to instrumental forms of advocacy and implementation. The feminist critique of development has consistently highlighted the fact that for the most part, gender has been incorporated not as an end in and of itself but only as a means to other, broader development objectives. This paper discusses the debate surrounding instrumentalist approaches to mainstreaming gender and focuses on the strong nexus that has emerged within development practice between gender and poverty. In discussing how gender issues have entered the mainstream, the paper draws attention to some of the challenges that have arisen as a result of tackling gender issues through the poverty platform—specifically in the context of microcredit initiatives. The discussion highlights the implications for the transformative aspects of the gender project of the merger of gender and poverty agendas, as well as the strategic advantages emerging from such instrumentalist approaches. The paper concludes by underscoring and justifying the need for strategic engagements with development agencies in the struggle for gender-redistributive change.