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Many developing countries are undergoing rapid socio-economic changes that impact on health and its social distribution. These changes can occur so rapidly that there is a resulting co-existence of diseases of affluence and diseases of poverty. Priority setting for nutritional programmes has focused on the alleviation of undernutrition in low income settings. However, evidence shows that in many Low-and-Middle Income Countries the prevalence of obesity among women is increasing and can coexist with childhood stunting. …

This paper focuses on processes involved in the Obasanjo administration’s appropriation of feminist language and meanings in its economic empowerment and development strategy, NEEDS. This appropriation of progressive ideas takes apparently gender neutral forms, through the presentation of the government’s economic and development agenda as partitioned from political practice, as well as forms that are more specifically oriented to the terms ‘gender’ and ‘empowerment’. On both tracks, appropriation involves the erasure of power in the production of altered meanings. I argue that NEEDS works ideologically to manufacture hegemony and the illegitimacy of dissent with regard to the government’s reform programme. …

The paper will examine some of the critical issues raised by the women's movement in India on the violence experienced by women both within the family and through modes of development initiated by the state in India and the manner in which the state has sought to both counter feminist critiques as well as co-opt them through state initiated policies. It will particularly examine literacy and micro-credit programmes to argue that the rhetoric of empowerment functions as a new 'mantra' which does little to even dent the violence of women's everyday lives especially when they are poor and located on the social margins. …

This paper proposes a framework for how empowerment can be conceptually understood and operationally explored. It makes recommendations for forthcoming areas of work within the POVNET Work Programme on empowering poor women and men to participate in, contribute to, and benefit from growth. …

Women’s paid work has featured in the development literature for two main reasons. The instrumental reason relates to its potential to contribute to make a variety of development goals, from poverty reduction to human development to economic growth. The intrinsic reason is its potential to transform the lives of women and girls by addressing gender inequalities on a wide variety of fronts. However in both cases, paid work is most likely to achieve this potential if it empowers women; since it is women’s capacity to exercise voice and influence in the key arenas of their lives that provides the impetus for change. …

Women’s paid work has featured in the development literature for two main reasons. The instrumental reason relates to its potential to contribute to make a variety of development goals, from poverty reduction to human development to economic growth. The intrinsic reason is its potential to transform the lives of women and girls by addressing gender inequalities on a wide variety of fronts. …

Why is the extent of women’s work in Bangladesh under-reported? In Bangladesh women are engaged in a variety of economic activities from homestead-based expenditure saving activities to outside paid work. However, women’s work generally remains under-reported by official statistics, especially women’s non-market homestead-based economic activities, and even tends to be overlooked by women themselves. Non-recognition of women’s economic activity leads to undervaluation of women’s economic contribution and is also seen as a reason for their lower status in society relative to men. The consequences for women are immense, especially poor women, in terms of their own self-esteem, the value accorded them by their family and community and even in terms of their identity as citizens of Bangladesh. …

Social protection is the right to survive. It is the right to a basic income, shelter, health, food and information, all of which enables people to survive, support their dependents and find a way out of need and destitution. The right to social protection exists for all people, regardless of age, sex or ethnicity. The existence of this right should give people a sense of security even when they are not claiming it. …

In this reflection on ‘empowerment’, Taylor looks at how development proponents have instrumentalised women’s role in development and poverty reduction, arguing that development should be about access to rights and freedoms. She points out that empowerment as a concept needs to be rethought – that real change needs to start with a democracy and human rights culture, a foundation of equal access to all the amenities of public life. Women’s visibility in work and politics is good, but is not the structural change that is needed because it doesn’t address power. She looks at human development as a valuable approach for women’s empowerment, and argues that the realization of women’s human rights into reality is necessary for empowerment. …

The Egyptian Conditional Cash Transfer Pilot Programme (CCT) is a social policy programme implemented by the Ministry of Social Solidarity (MoSS). The Egyptian CCT is designed as a pro-women cash transfer intervention, focusing specifically on aiding women’s well-being. The reason women are put at the centre of the social policy design is the unequal burden of poverty that they, married or not, carry in the context of Egypt’s urban and rural settings. The CCT is part of a raft of positive programme reforms and capacity development of social units (the smallest department of MoSS at the community level) to become community service centres, linking citizens to service providers, be it public, private or NGO. …

Social protection is the right to survive. It is the right to a basic income, shelter, health, food and information, all of which enables people to survive, support their dependents and find a way out of need and destitution. The right to social protection exists for all people, regardless of age, sex or ethnicity. The existence of this right should give people a sense of security even when they are not claiming it. …

The Social Research Center (SRC) hosted a workshop entitled “Introducing Empowering Conditional Cash Transfers to Egypt,” aimed at garnering the insights and experiences of colleagues, both local and international, pertaining to the design and future implementation of a conditional cash transfer (CCT) pilot in Egypt. Experts were asked to facilitate discussion about current CCT programmes and how they can best be adapted to the Egyptian social, political, and economic landscape. …

Deevia Bhana explores young women’s expressions of sexuality in post-apartheid South Africa, in a township context marked by historical inequalities, violence and vulnerability to HIV. Bhana shows that whilst the women’s understandings of sexuality are not entirely centred on poverty, violence and disease, their perspectives are nevertheless embedded in social and economic relations of power. …

In this article, Al-Sharmani highlights the international measures that are in place to combat violence against refugee and displaced women, and then summarizes in detail the UNHCR policies that address this violence. It is argued that, while the existence of these policies and measures is important, they need to do more to address the structural forms of violence against refugee and displaced women. Al-Sharmani notes that currently, structural causes are not adequately dealt with. The article raises the question of how to translate refugee and displaced women’s different experiences of violence into meaningful language and adequate policy measures that meet the needs of all women and protect their human rights. …

In focusing on Ain el-Sira, a low-income neighbourhood of Cairo, this article challenges development theorists' ideas that civil society as a development partner is best able to promote women's empowerment, community development and justice. This article contests that development can avoid the machinations of the state or ignore the power imbalances that litter the relationships between state, civil society, citizens and donors! In Egypt, where the state relegates its development duties to civil society, women in Ain el-Sira experience service initiatives which are duplicated, microcredit loans they often cannot afford to repay, and benefit criteria which are strict and limiting. Programmes remain unchanged for years and long-term plans to relieve the burdens of disempowerment and destitution are non-existent. To achieve real gendered justice which provides women with the assets and capabilities to make choices requires citizenship rights. …