ENGENDERING DEVELOPMENT:Acknowledging the Integral Role of Women in the Third World"Without progress in the situation of women, there can be no true socialdevelopment. Human rights are not worthy of the name if they exclude thefemale half of humanity. The struggle for women's equality is part of the strugglefor a better world and for all human beings and all societies."-Boutros Boutros-GhaliTara ChandlerChelsea GarhamJenny JaimeMonica NunezUrban Studies 350Professor Vasishth2 ENGENDERING DEVELOPMENT:ASSESSING THE NEED FOR GENDER EQUALITY IN DEVELOPMENTDespite many notable advances in the situation of women in developingsocieties, there remains an undeniable gap between women and men regarding theirpolitical, economic, and social conditions and contributions. As half of theirpopulation, society had much to gain by effectively incorporating women into theirdevelopment process. The United Nations Development Programme’s 1997 HumanDevelopment Report states, “A creative commitment to gender equality willstrengthen every area of action to reduce poverty—because women can bring newenergy, new insights, and a new basis for organization. If development is notengendered, it is endangered”.In no region of the developing world are women equal to men in legal, social,and economic rights. One of the main findings of the Arab Human DevelopmentReport 2002 is that the low empowerment of women is one of three deficits whichhave seriously hampered human development in the region over the last threedecades. Countries that do not capitalize on the full potential of one half of theirsocieties are misallocating their human resources and undermining their competitivepotential. In order to effectively and efficiently make strides toward development,countries must integrate women into the development process through measures toincrease social, economic, and political equity, and broader access to fundamentalhuman rights, improvements in nutrition, basic health, and education. In his openingspeech at the 49th session of the Commission on the Status of Women, UnitedNation’s Secretary General Kofi Annan addressed the importance of theadvancement and empowerment of women as he stated, “gender equality is criticalto the development and peace of every nation”.3ENGENDERING DEVELOPMENT:THE POLITICAL FRONTGENDER MAINSTREAMINGGender mainstreaming refers to the application of gender perspectives toall legal and social norms and standards, to all policy development, research,planning, advocacy, development, implementation, and monitoring as mandatoryfor all participatory entities, making gender central to the practice of development(Zahidi). In the United Nation’s Development Programme’s report Men,Masculinities and Development: Broadening our work towards gender equality,Alan Greig, Michael Kimmel, and James Lang suggest that “Gendermainstreaming requires that gender be brought into the center of discussionsabout development, and not marginalized as a ‘woman’s issue’”. Byimplementing gender neutral policy, and including women in all aspects of itsgeneration, gender mainstreaming will permeate all levels of society. The mainoutcome of women’s empowerment through gender mainstreaming will be ahuge amount of progress toward a society’s overall development.GENDER BUDGETSGender budget analysis provides a way to hold governments accountablefor their commitments to gender equality and women’s human rights by linkingthese commitments to the distribution, use, and generation of public resources.According to UNIFEM, mounting evidence shows that gender inequality leads tomajor losses in economic efficiency and human development—genderresponsive budget policies can go far to reconcile the objectives of gender4equality, human development, and economic efficiency. UNIFEM argues that ifwomen themselves have more control over resources there will be gains forsociety as a whole; but if gender inequality persists, there will be continuinglosses for society as a whole.POLITICAL PARTICIPATION OF WOMENThe absence of women from structures of governance inevitably meansthat national, regional, and local priorities are typically defined without meaningfulinput from women, whose life experience gives them a different awareness of thecommunity’s needs, concerns, and interests from that of men (Zahidi). Women’spolitical participation is a fundamental prerequisite for gender equality andgenuine democracy. In 2004 women represented 16% of parliamentariansworldwide, compared with 9% in 1987. Without representation at this level, it isdifficult for women to influence policy (The World Bank).In a recent study of the political affairs of women in 43 countries found thatin no country did women have political status, access or influence equal to that ofmen. Though women constitute nearly half of the global population, theirparticipation in political affairs is quite disproportionate to their population. Tenparliaments in the world do not have even a single woman parliamentarian. Whilethere are 33,981 men parliamentarians in the world, the number of women is only4,512 (13.28%). Further, only 7.7 per cent of the parliamentary group leaders,and only nine per cent of party spokespersons are women (Sooryarmoorthy).5Women’s activism is a central force in the political advancement ofwomen. Women's groups have constituted a significant part of civil society andof the opposition to the status quo in many developing countries. The article“Gender,Change and Society: Women and the State” states that althoughwomen have led the struggle for social and political change in many countries,once a new dispensation has been achieved, women and their issues have oftenbeen relegated to second class status…at the global level, women continue to beabused, exploited, and marginalized (Maturo).WOMEN AND PEACEKEEPINGAs a leading group in support of the advancement and empowerment ofwomen, UNIFEM highlights the important contribution of women inpeacekeeping. Despite the fact that women have often been on the frontlines ofurging the end to conflict, they have mostly remained on the periphery of formalpeace and reconstruction processes. Women’s perspectives and experiencesare critical to stability.In 2000, the UN Security Council reaffirmed the essential role that womenplay in peace keeping in its historic Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, andSecurity. Security Council Resolution 1325 was passed unanimously on