POVERTY REDUCTION STRATEGIES

Poverty Reduction Strategies

Incorporating Gender into poverty reduction Strategies

Answer

Introduction

Although women and men share numerous of the burdens of poverty, they frequently experience poverty distinctly, have distinct poverty reduction main concerns and are affected distinctly by development interventions. These gender dissimilarities are insufficiently apprehended in conventional poverty analyses, concepts and monitoring systems. This deficiency dwindles the possibilities of achievement of poverty reduction interventions.

Addressing the gender dimensions of poverty and creating gender responsive interventions enhances the likelihood of achievement of poverty reduction strategy efforts. Thus PRSPs must be engendered to effectively reduction poverty. PRSPs must be also be engendered because research compellingly correlates greater gender equality with greater poverty reduction and economic growth . Although women's status has improved in most countries in the last half century, gender disparities persist everywhere and remain most acute in the poorest countries.

Across and within countries, gender disparities in education, mortality rates, health and other social and economic indicators are greatest within poorer income groups. Gender inequalities impose large costs on the well-being and health of the poor, diminishing productivity and the potential to reduce poverty and ensure economic growth. In most societies women have more limited opportunities to improve economic conditions and access services than do men. Usually women and young women accept the brunt of gender inequalities. Identifying and redressing these inequalities tends to have high economic and financial returns. Nevertheless, as this paper demonstrates, PRSPs have hardly acknowledged gender inequalities.

Poverty is skilled differently by men and women. A full understanding of the gender dimensions of poverty can significantly change the definition of priority policy and program interventions supported by the Poverty Reduction Strategies (PRS). There are strong evidences that gender-sensitive development strategies contribute significantly to economic growth as well as to equity objectives by ensuring that all groups of the poor share in program benefits. So far differences between men's and women's needs are often not fully recognized in poverty analysis and participatory planning and are frequently not taken into consideration in the selection and design of PRSs. It is absolutely vital, then, to integrate gender analysis into poverty diagnosis and to double-check that participatory discussion and designing processes are expressly designed to give voice to all parts of society—women and men as well as distinct age, ethnic, and heritage groups. This essay is mainly based upon the Gender for Poverty Reduction Strategies. So, this essay may be considered as a review on gender into poverty reduction strategies.

One of the messages of the Bamberger et al (2001) is that conventional poverty research and analysis tools can address most gender issues, and when this is not the case, the problem lies mainly in a lack of recognition by policymakers and planners of the importance of gender as a key development issue. If the right questions are asked, conventional poverty research tools can provide most of the gender-related answers; but, as is often the case, if the right questions are not asked, poverty analysis will frequently ignore many of the important ...