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Boundaries of development

Hannah Marsden
Extremely poor women and girls face diverse experiences of extreme poverty in terms of health, mobility, decision making, and income, land and asset ownership. These multiple factors are interrelated.***
EXTREMELY poor women and girls throughout Bangladesh are surviving on the absolute minimum, facing multiple constraints to making their lives better in a way that might be meaningful and lasting. What to eat, where to work, how and where to travel, how to stay healthy, who to ask for help, are all experiences shaped specifically by being extremely poor and female. To meet their diverse needs, the boundaries within which we are working for them need to be pushed.
Progresshow far?
There's no doubt that Bangladesh has made significant progress in improving the position and raising the voice of women and girls.
The micro-finance movement, for example, and various activities of NGOs focusing on women have highlighted that when women are given opportunities for economic empowerment, significant benefits to other household members can also accrue. Positive trends towards female (secondary) education and maternal health goals on an international level have also been made.
Further, women's large contribution to paid (in both agriculture and other sectors) and unpaid work (through household domestic tasks and childcare) has been more widely recognised. The prime minister recently committed to creating an environment conducive to empowerment by increasing education opportunities and access to knowledge.
But where is there room for improvement? Who is left behind? We must ask, what is the position of the poorest women in the country? The extreme poor are those at “the bottom of the ladder” (25% of the population live below the lower poverty line as of2005). Given that many extremely poor women remain outside the reach of micro-finance and government and NGO programmes, how can the country's overall move towards progress in this area both continue and be extended to reach the poorest members of society?
Extremely poor women: A picture
Extremely poor women are disadvantaged across the board: they fare worse in terms of a variety of indicators (such as health, education and empowerment). Findings from the Economic Empowerment of the Poorest (EEP) /shiree baseline survey (in March 2010) show that women are coming into projects from an extremely low starting point and require a different and holistic approach. What's the overall picture? The employment opportunities open to the extreme poor are limited and often rely on seasonal labour and local (often unequal) relationships. Within this, women are more likely to be in jobs which are more open to exploitation and abuse, for example mainly as domestic maids (31.8%), day labourers (24.2%) and beggars (14.6%).
Also, more children and adolescents were found to be working in female-headed households. This is limiting children's schooling and holds damaging consequences for the next generation.
Female-headed households are distinctly vulnerable from being widowed, divorced or abandoned. They are less likely to own a house, more likely to live alone, and have fewer people to rely on. Further, 1 in 3 male heads had attended school compared with only 1 in 9 female heads. Female-headed households were also significantly more likely to eat smaller portions of food, fewer times a day, and suffer from chronic energy deficiency or anaemia than male-headed households.
The situation is further compounded when looking at land ownership. Land ownership among the extreme poor is low anyway, limiting the income-generating possibilities, making households more reliant on others for work, and shaping food availability. Of the entire March sample, just 1 in 6 households owned some homestead land compared with the national figure of over 50%. But women's position is made more challenging by the patchy access to inheritance, worsened by abandonment by husbands or sons. Within this, more male-headed households owned land (20.7%) than female-headed households (9.9%).
Further, they have fewer productive assets (again low among the extreme poor anyway) and fewer household belongings. They were also more likely to report having no cash income.
In comparison to women, men are more confident in deciding how incomes and loans would be spent in households, and in general about their abilities to plan for the future.
Research also confirms that dowry and pressure to marry early push more families into extreme poverty (e.g. see a previous article by Christopher Tomlinson: 'Dowry and Extreme Poverty' on 19.10.10 — DS).
Extremely poor women and girls face diverse experiences of extreme poverty in terms of health, mobility, decision making, and income, land and asset ownership. These multiple factors are interrelated and suggest that despite Bangladesh's progress in gender equality, the situation of those who are extremely poor still demands attention and increased action.
Where now?
In the context of movements around mainstreaming gender and empowerment, how can we actively push the boundaries to ensure a meaningful and holistic change to women and girls lives? There is talk of equality, discrimination and changing relationships, whether at the government or the household level. How far can talk of equality go? Doesn't everybody "do gender" these days? Can we avoid getting "gender fatigue?" Rather than simply "adding gender and stirring," can the boundaries at which we are comfortable at working with the extreme poor, and women and girls, be pushed further? This might involve not only increased funds but also creatively integrating gender sensitive and transformational programming.
Actions need to be more then piecemeal or implicit. For example, some poverty reduction approaches may rest on gender assumptions, or work in isolation from other key areas. How can projects improve the lives of women and girls without adding to the already heavy productive and domestic burdens they face? Can more work with men and boys be done to try to change attitudes and reduce discrimination? How can we actively tackle the issues which keep women poor (e.g. initiating collectives around local wage rates or advocating on inheritance rights)? Can we encourage a questioning of the patterns of behaviour which are accepted but which worsen the poverty situation of women and girls (e.g. eating last)?
The writer is working as Research Focal Point at the shiree/ EEP programme.
E-mail: hannah@shiree.org.