By Daniela Mata Ruiz

Originally written as a paper for the Future of Africa class at Yonsei GSIS.

Image by erinbetzk from Pixabay

In the current state of sustainable development efforts and work, there are certain ideas that have recently generated interest and gained importance for new strategies and fields of work. Nonetheless, it is important to recognize that concepts like gender equality, participatory development, empowerment, and intersectionality are relevant beyond becoming buzzwords; they are important elements to consider in order to achieve Sustainable Development for all.

            First, what this paper defines as sustainable development means must be determined. It is the process that “addresses intergenerational equity through the conservation of resources for the benefit of future generations” (Panta, 2019, p.182). This process comprises three dimensions, or pillars, in an interconnected manner: environmental, social, and economic sustainability. Secondly, participatory development refers to a process by which stakeholders influence and share control over development initiatives and the decisions and resources that affect them. In specific, participatory development has become a recurrent concept and method of work in the development field, as it provides new approaches and strategies that prove to be more effective in reaching the goals established internationally as part of the Sustainable Development agenda.

            Closely linked to the former terms, empowerment is another concept that greatly affects how development efforts are implemented today, and it has proven to be an essential element of participation and positive change in general. Empowerment can be defined as “a multidimensional and interdependent process involving social, political, economic, and legal changes that will enable people living in poverty and marginalization to participate meaningfully in shaping their own future” (Pettit, 2012, p. 2).

            All these concepts and ideas are intertwined or lead to each other in a way that allows for sustainable development efforts to become more efficient and achieve better results. Specifically, when analyzing how women are included in participatory development in Africa, it is necessary to understand how these concepts are relevant, the way they are linked to each other, and how they unfold in the current scenario of Development in Africa. Considering the former, the working statement of this paper is that participatory development should encompass all levels and all categories and include women to create true empowerment, which will, in turn, generate ownership over development, leading to overall better results. This statement will be evaluated by exploring the current situation of women and development in Africa, making a distinction between North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa, and analyzing some cases of programs in both regions and their results, issues, challenges, and limitations.

The complexity of participatory development

As mentioned before, participatory development is a comprehensive term, thus when referring to participation, it is necessary to analyze what is considered within its boundaries. Although participation alludes to active action, the reality of participation, and in turn, participatory development, is that it can range from passive listening by a few selected stakeholders to the active designing and implementation of projects and policies by a variety of actors.

            Bass, Dalal-Clayton and Pretty (1995) approach this problem by analyzing the different definitions and reaches of participation. They present various pieces of evidence behind how the type of participation can impact the results of development efforts. In specific, they mention a study of 230 rural development institutions employing some 30,000 staff in 41 countries in Africa that showed how participation for local people was mostly passive, with simple discussions or providing information to external agencies that allowed very limited local involvement in decisions or management. On the contrary, another study of 121 rural water supply projects in 49 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America claimed that the most significant factor in project effectiveness was participation (p.23).

            These examples serve to exhibit the importance of participation in overall development effectiveness as well as the issue of what is considered participation and how its limitations can negatively impact any development efforts. In this sense, participation must evolve into proper participatory development, in which all actors involved have influence and control over the activities and how they are affected by them.

            Therefore, participation must include certain characteristics. It must be active in the sense that all the people involved can freely be involved in all its processes; it must be realistic to the capabilities of the actors and the context of the activities related; it must be owned by the people that the development work plans to impact and not only by external actors; there must be space for these same people to create this participation; and finally, it must be adequate to the work done and the goals aimed at.

            Considering the complexity of the concept of participation and the diverse ways it can be categorized or defined, it is important to establish the context that refers to participatory development. Thus, we can establish three categories for participation based on the framework proposed by Stephen Jones and Andrew Kardan (2013), in which development is a cycle where the first phase is Design, Policymaking, Budgeting, and Planning; the second is Implementation; and the last is Monitoring and Evaluation.

            The first category is focused on seeking to influence policy decisions through the advice, advocacy, lobbying, and activism of political parties, media, and organizations of diverse nature, as well as the process of program design through local committees, hearings, and planning. Implementation refers to participation in campaigns, raising awareness, volunteering, sharing information, and getting involved in the programs or policies activities. The last category encompasses social monitoring, citizen approvals, monitoring inside communities, oversight committees, feedback, and assessments from diverse actors (Jones and Kardan, 2013, p. 14)

            In summary, participatory development as the process where stakeholders influence and have control over their development must be recognized beyond this definition and established on a specific framework such as the one presented before. In this sense, participatory development comprises involvement at different levels and tasks within development efforts, making it as active, self-created, and owned as possible.

Examining empowerment and what it means for women

Closely related to the concept of participation is empowerment. On the one hand, active participation is necessary for empowerment to be created, yet empowerment can also be the reason why people are able to participate. Therefore, “empowerment and participation are deeply complementary and can be considered both means and ends, process and outcomes” (Pettit, 2012, p.2), meaning that both concepts cannot be separated if the goal is to achieve positive results in development efforts.

            Additionally, when talking about empowerment and participation, Jethro Pettit (2012) remarks on the importance of power and how it can be reflected in agency, through the capabilities of individuals, communities, or groups to act, and through a pre-existing structure in society that often limits the power of these actors. Therefore, acquiring empowerment requires a shift in both agency and structure that allows the stakeholders involved in the development process to participate and become empowered.

            Furthermore, demanding a shift in social structure means that there is a demand for a multidimensional process requiring changes in diverse areas. Applying this notion to the pillars of sustainable development, Jethro Pettit (2012) presents and outlines the argument that this shift comprises economic, social, and environmental alterations that can also be applied specifically to women’s empowerment.

            Economic empowerment refers to women’s capacity to contribute to and benefit from economic activities in a dignified and fair way, as well as changing the structures that limit women’s economic participation, such as institutions, social customs, or political norms. Environmental empowerment relies on understanding women’s contributions and importance to environmental protection and development activities as a product of socio-cultural structures that have historically set women as the caretakers of nature, allowing women to participate in environmental sustainability on their own terms and not as a feature of their womanhood. Social empowerment demands a change in society’s gender norms to allow, recognize, and respect women’s place in it, consequently creating a sense of autonomy and self-value that would allow women to participate in all areas of society and receive all benefits from them. Closely related is political empowerment, which focuses on the equity of representation in political institutions to enhance the voices of women so that they are able to engage in decision-making processes.

            This argument is important because it details how empowerment works as a multidimensional process, and for women specifically, there are certain barriers and challenges to overcome if tangible empowerment is to be achieved. And accordingly, obtaining empowerment allows women to be more likely to be part of participatory development, which in turn can lead to better development results, as stated in the statement of this paper.

            Beyond achieving the structural change that allows empowerment, the most efficient way women can be included in participatory development is by ensuring their involvement in the three categories of development presented before: Design, policymaking, budgeting, and planning; Implementation; and Monitoring and evaluation. If women participate in all levels of development work, they are able to truly influence and have control over their development, which will in turn generate ownership.

This is not a new notion; there has been research and dialogue regarding the need for women’s participation in development for the last few decades. The United Nations recognizes the importance of linking gender issues with sustainable development and states that there is increasing evidence that gender equality is connected to all sustainability pillars (UN Women, 2014, p.10).

            When examining this last statement and bearing in mind what has been presented previously, it is easy to arrive at the conclusion that development requires comprehensive participation, and in turn, this participation can create empowerment and ownership, but this participatory development absolutely requires women’s inclusion. If women are not included, any development effort would exclude half the population and half the knowledge, human capabilities, and potential to face and overcome Sustainable Development issues. Moreover, if development requires people’s ownership to create better and more efficient results, it cannot be achieved if certain groups are excluded, not only women but other minorities and marginalized groups.

            Women’s inclusion in participatory development is not only to benefit women; it is to benefit development as an overall process and goal. Similarly, the shift in agency and structures needed to ensure women’s empowerment and participatory development also means a change in the structures that affect men, allowing them to achieve new perceptions and positive changes that can also contribute to overcoming the limitations and challenges of development.

            However, the difficulties of women’s inclusion in development must also be recognized as a major long-term challenge. Inclusion is more than inviting people to participate or being involved in one specific program, project, or policy; it means creating long-lasting empowerment and capabilities for women and other marginalized groups, that will allow them to obtain the much sought-after ownership over their development. Equally, this long-lasting empowerment must be an end goal to achieve regardless of gender for every actor in development.

            This means that development efforts must move from being for people to embracing proper participatory development that turns development into a process with and by people. Especially for women, who are still excluded from many areas and activities in several countries, development requires them to be part of the process all the way through, meaning that the challenge of development must also be dealt with by women in order to achieve the best results possible.

The situation of Gender and Development in Africa

Nowadays, development is mainly evaluated and examined through the Millennium Goals and subsequent Sustainable Development Goals; thus, when analyzing the current situation of women and development in Africa, it is done through that framework and criteria. According to the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations (n.d.), the MDG Report 2015 states that Africa made great progress in many areas, especially health and education. While Sub-Saharan Africa was the fastest to advance among all developing regions, North Africa also met many of the targets on poverty, hunger reduction, primary education, sanitation, and children’s and mothers’ health.

            Nevertheless, many goals and particular targets have yet to be met; hence, they are being addressed in the current Sustainable Development Goals. In general, the biggest challenges all of Africa faces in the present are regarding education, sanitation, health, and gender inequality. The situation of women in particular is a difficult task as gender inequality remains high and progress towards gender parity has not improved in significant ways. This lack of improvement means that development efforts are not producing the desired results, and growth remains a challenge on the continent.

            As discussed previously, limited development can be to some extent attributed to a lack of participatory development that generates empowerment and ownership. Such limitations in the broad sense can be addressed as an issue for all people in Africa, but the Mckinsey Global Institute MGI gives special importance to the power of parity and women’s equality as vital factors in achieving growth by stating that the region cannot achieve its full potential unless parity is achieved, which in turn will lead to substantial economic growth. For example, research from the Institute finds that “accelerating progress toward parity could boost African economies by the equivalent of 10 percent of their collective GDP by 2025” (Moodley et al., 2019).

            Accordingly, it is relevant to recognize some of the facts and data that exhibit the current situation of Africa and the differences between Sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa. The Global Gender Gap Report 2022 from the World Economic Forum (2022) and the report on Gender Equality in the 2030 Agenda from UN Women (2018) offer some figures that describe the state of gender equality in Sub-Saharan Africa:

• The performance on the overall bridging of the gender gap has improved gradually with positive changes in countries like Nigeria, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Kenya.
• Women hold 23.8% of parliamentary seats, with Rwanda leading the list with 61.3% of parliamentary seats held by women. Additionally, 15 countries in sub-Saharan Africa have female representation in national parliaments that exceeds the global average.
• In Ethiopia, Mali, and Mauritius, women spend on average 20.3% of their day on unpaid domestic and care work, while men spend on average 5.3% on the same work.
• 22.3% of women and girls aged 15 to 49 reported experiencing physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner within a 12-month period.
• The region ranks lowest in educational attainment, with a gender gap of 12.1%.
• The gender gap in economic participation and opportunity reached a score of 68.4% in 2022.

The same reports from the World Economic Forum (2022) and UN Women (2028), alongside another report from UN Women regarding the progress of the world’s women (2015), offer some insights into the panorama of the North Africa region in contrast.

• Overall, there are persistent gender gaps in labor force participation and pay across the region.
• The unemployment rate is higher for women. For example, in Yemen, for females in 2013, it was 38%, compared to males at 9.9%. In Egypt in 2012, 58% of women were in ‘unprotected’ employment, compared to 40% of men.
• There are discriminatory gender norms, such as unpaid care work, that limit women’s access to economic opportunities.
• Women’s economic rights continue to be limited due to discriminatory laws. For example, only Algeria and Morocco had laws mandating equal remuneration for work of equal value in 2014, and only the Moroccan law guaranteed nondiscrimination based on gender in hiring.
• Practices like Female Genital Mutilation remain prevalent in the region, especially in Sudan and Egypt (86% and 82%, respectively).

Through this data, it is clear that there are several points of improvement in gender equality in relation to regions’ development. Nevertheless, Africa lags overall behind other regions in regard to gender equality due to several factors. As stated when discussing empowerment, a multidimensional change in the social structure is necessary; however, such a change is not easy to achieve, and Africa currently faces difficulties in attaining some elements that would facilitate or support the structural shift. In specific, the MGI states how Africa has generally very low indicators in three elements it considers indispensable to progress: “essential services and enablers of economic opportunity, legal protection and political voice, and physical security and autonomy” (Moodley et al., 2019).

Achieving development in Africa? Two case studies

Taking into consideration the data presented before and the challenges of the regions, as well as the former concerns regarding participatory development, empowerment, and ownership, the next section of the paper will delve into analyzing two Sustainable Development projects in Sub-Saharan Africa and in North Africa, respectively. The first is the Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) approach, which was introduced in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2005 and expanded further from 2007 onwards. This project was focused on a community approach that involved a variety of local and external actors who participated together in workshops, information sessions, and other activities with the goal of building long-term sustainability through participation and the creation of institutional capacity (Hickling and Bevan, 2010, p.52).

            Sophie Hickling and Jane Bevan (2010) suggested that there were specific factors that influenced the positive results of this approach: policy and ownership, champions as seen through traditional and non-traditional leaders, flexibility and learning, cultural appropriateness, and Certification and monitoring. This was reflected in a study that “found that districts with the highest success rates in each country seemed to correlate with a very high level of local ownership” (Hickling and Bevan, 2010, p.54).

            Additionally, when analyzing the role of women in this project, Tettje Van Daleen (2014) highlights the essential role of women in CLTS by affirming their natural leadership, their work as volunteer health workers, their involvement in the construction of toilets, and their overall role in improving hygiene behavior. The author presents examples exhibiting how different women were crucial to the success of the CLTS in their communities in different ways: one by becoming a champion for promoting sanitation and becoming a leader amongst a male majority; and another by the participation of various women in the Sanitation Action Group that oversaw the project progress and evaluations.

            Despite the overwhelmingly positive results of CLTS so far, there are several challenges ahead to maintain such outcomes. Ensuring follow-up for sustainability, achieving a balance between speed and quality of the project, reaching co-existence with other subsidized projects or programs (Hickling and Bevan, 2010), guaranteeing these subsidized programs continue, making the government have clear responsibility for water and sanitation, and obtaining the proper financial support (Rukuni, 2020)

            Taking into consideration all of the information on the CLTS as well as the notions of participatory development and empowerment presented initially, it is possible to support the argument that an essential element of its success was the empowerment of the people and the ownership of the development through a participatory approach by allowing people to be involved to different extents in the three categories of development, planning, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation. In addition, such results were further aided by women’s involvement in diverse areas of the project, and simply by the notion that the CLTS required a change of mindset for the people regarding hygiene and sanitation, therefore making women’s participation and ownership of the program a natural part of the process towards achieving this mindset in the communities as a whole.

            The second program analyzed was Towards Inclusive and Open Governments: Promoting Women’s Participation in Parliaments and Policy-making project in Tunisia, Egypt, and Morocco, all parts of North Africa. This project was implemented by the Middle East and North Africa Transition Fund, established and financed by the OECD. The project was implemented separately in each country between 2015 and 2019, and it was aimed to promote women’s participation in parliaments, local elected councils, and policy-making through three main components: “making legislatures and local elected councils more transparent, equitable, and gender-sensitive; empowering and strengthening the capacity and skills of women electoral candidates at the national and local levels; and improving the public consultation capacity of parliaments, local elected councils, and women’s CSOs in law-making processes” (MENA Transition Fund, 2019, p. 29).

            In the case of this program for all three countries, the implementation and monitoring were completed by the Project Implementation team from the OECD in collaboration with a regional government office. The final reports from all countries reported satisfactory results from all three components and their indicators; however, when analyzing the implementation tactics and the elements evaluated, the program’s reach and depth appear limited in their inclusiveness and sustainability.

            The beneficiaries of this project had limited participation in the planning, designing, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation, meaning that it failed to achieve participatory development, therefore compromising the empowerment and ownership gained by the women post-project. Moreover, it was a project targeted at women who were already in the political sphere; there was no inclusion of other women, therefore most likely ignoring marginalized or minority groups and thus failing at recognizing the intersectionality of gender. In summary, this program falls into the trap of being a program done for women, not with or by women.

            Examining both programs side by side can provide an important lesson on how participatory development matters, why empowerment and ownership are important, and how women’s inclusion can be a determining factor for failure or success, further strengthening the initial statement of this paper.

Issues and challenges of participatory development and women’s inclusion

Another lesson we can learn from this analysis is regarding the general issues of participatory development in Africa, which also impact development efforts. Allan Hoben, Pauline Peters and Dianne Rocheleau (1996) explore some of these issues by first analyzing the diverse approaches to participation and then examining the shift in participatory practices before and after colonization in Africa. They denounce the current situation as unfavorable for people to dare take ownership of the resources around them, to participate in decisions made by governments or foreign actors, or to defy programs or policies implemented on them (1996, p. 2).

            These issues have been recognized by development planners, and consequently, two ideas for improvement have become popular in participatory development efforts. The first one is the creation of community-based projects, which in theory would meet the characteristics of competent participatory development. However, some issues arise when realizing that these projects are organized around a convenient local administrative unit that can easily have conflicting interests and present an issue of power balance; besides, the concept of community can be loosely used and defined in a way that excludes certain groups, such as women or other minorities (Hobe, Peters and Rocheleau, 1996, pp.3-4).

            The second idea is the strengthening of participation through NGOs, which has been heavily supported in efforts to promote stakeholder participation by allowing local organizations to have control over the programs or projects. Unfortunately, evidence shows that NGOs do not necessarily improve stakeholder participation, and they can face issues such as a lack of capacity and incentive to implement a truly participatory approach. On the other hand, the huge assistance funds tend to free them from the need to search for local involvement. Furthermore, the lack of communication and cooperation between NGOs can often lead to situations where the communities are affected or become apathetic to becoming involved in the projects (Hobe, Peters and Rocheleau, 1996, pp.4-5).

            In accordance with the issues addressed, Hobe, Peters and Rocheleau, (1996, p. 5) propose some suggestions to improve participatory development: first, by clearly recognizing participation that strengthens civil societies and institutions; second, by focusing on increasing the capacity of local people to assert their interests and interact with other actors of development; and finally, by understanding the local context and carefully choosing to support the appropriate NGOs and local organizations. Adding to these three proposals, with the knowledge of the complexity of participatory development, another crucial suggestion is to guarantee participation in all three categories of development by all stakeholders involved, whether local or international, men or women, minority group or not. This would be the best way to ensure that participatory development would create the necessary empowerment and ownership to obtain better development results.

            Beyond these issues and recommendations on participatory development, there are some specific challenges ahead for women’s inclusion in participatory development. As mentioned before, women’s participation in the three categories of development is crucial; the problem is how to properly achieve this inclusion. It could be argued that it is possible only with a shift in economic, social, and political structures towards inclusivity and support for women’s empowerment, but similarly, such structural shifts are difficult to achieve simultaneously or in a swift manner due to the contradicting values on the role and value of women that permeate societies today. Moreover, even if women are able to achieve empowerment and ownership over their development, these run the danger of becoming conditional or temporary instead of lasting and sustainable. In addition, a common mistake when talking about development in Africa is treating the continent as a single unit while ignoring regional and local diversity. Similarly, when discussing women’s development and participation, it is essential to avoid the idea of them as one indistinguishable entity and instead recognize the intersectionality of women and what that means for their inclusion in development.

Conclusion

Despite great progress in areas of gender equality, the situation of women and girls in Africa remains largely unfavorable. Participatory development, encapsulating the three categories of development, is an essential way to create the empowerment necessary for women to assume ownership of development. And vice versa, the empowerment and ownership of development on the women’s side allow for true participatory development.

            The analysis of the two case studies portrays how this idea applies in reality and the importance of achieving proper women’s inclusion in participatory development in order to obtain better results in development programs, projects, or even policies.

            Nonetheless, there are still challenges to overcome that lead to important questions in the pursuit of sustainable development, such as how to create meaningful structural shifts to achieve women’s inclusion and what that inclusion entails, what is considered true participatory development, and how to achieve it. Examining these questions will allow for future development efforts and women’s participation to accomplish overall better results.

            There is still more to be studied on this matter; hence, future research could dive deeper into the topic of women’s inclusion with a regional approach and an intersectionality mindset, which could provide more particular tools and knowledge on how to achieve sustainable development in a local area, expanding into larger regions and spheres.

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