Village economic diversification and HIV in rural villages in Karnataka, India

DevelopmentForum Canadian Association

for the Study ofInternational Development

Reassessing the Millenium Development GoalsSix years & counting down

Spring 2009, Volume 2, Issue 1

CASID EXECUTIVE BOARD, 2008-2009President

Ann WestonThe North-South Institute

[email protected]

Henry VeltmeyerSaint Maryʼs University

[email protected]

Julie DroletThompson Rivers University

[email protected] President

Jorge NefUniversity of South Florida

[email protected] Coordinator

Charmain Lé[email protected]

MEMBERS AT LARGEWimal Rankaduwa

University of Prince Edward [email protected]

Alain BoutetUniversité de Montréal

[email protected] Schafer

University of [email protected]

Fiona MacPhailUniversity of Northern British Columbia

[email protected]

DEVELOPMENT FORUMEditor: James Gaede

Graphic Designer: Meaghen SimmsPhotos by: Mehreen Khalfan and

Meaghen Simms

Correspondence:Tel: 613-241-3535 ext 200

Fax: 613-241-7435Email: [email protected]

In This Issue:A Foreward by the PresidentAnn Weston ......................................................................2

A Critical Evaluation of theThird Millenium Development GoalJane Parpart ......................................................................3

Gender Equality and the Millennium DevelopmentGoals in BangladeshShirley Thompson and Farzana Quddus ..........................5

Millennium Development Goals and World Hunger:The Need to Move fromFood Security to Food SovereigntyVanmala Hiranandani ........................................................7

Reducing inequality is Essential to Reducing PovertyMark Fried ........................................................................9

The Macroeconomics of theMillennium Development Goals: Why Gender MattersA. Haroon Akram-Lodhi ..................................................12

Village Economic Diversification and HIVTransmission in Rural Villages of Karnataka, IndiaJavier Mignone & Brenda Wilson ....................................14

Canadian Association for the Study of International Development

1

When world leaders met at the Summit of 2000 to approve the MillenniumDeclaration they laid the basis for the Millennium Development Goals. Someobservers were skeptical about the scope and ambition of the MDGs.Nonetheless in the following years they became a useful means to measureglobal progress in tackling poverty in its various dimensions, to motivate peopleto get involved, and to hold governments and international organizations toaccount. The mid-term reports in 2007 suggested that there had beenconsiderable achievements in some parts of the world and towards meetingsome goals by 2015, though there were major concerns with the lack of progressin key areas such as maternal mortality and HIV/AIDS reduction.

Events in the last year, however, underline how fragile has been this progresstowards the MDGs, raising fundamental questions about what can be achievedby 2015 and whether we are on the right track. In 2008 the sharp rise in food andfuel prices pushed some 150 million people back into poverty especially in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. This reversal has been seriously compounded bythe financial crisis and the first drop in world trade for almost 30 years. In early2009 the World Bank warned that child mortality rates were likely to soar, andestimated that another 100 million people would fall below the poverty line. Morerecent projections suggest that the situation for many poor people will be evenmore severe.

Against this backdrop of deep concern about the mounting challenges of theMDGs, the six articles in this issue of Development Forum contribute many ideasas to how they might be reached. Jane Parpart, Shirley Thomson and FarzanaQuddus, and Haroon Akram-Lodhi provide a gender analysis of the MDGs,focusing respectively on MDG 3, Bangladesh and the macroeconomicframework. Mark Fried and Vanmala Hiranandani consider MDG 1 – theeradication of extreme poverty and hunger – with Mark arguing that inequalitymust be addressed if poverty is to be reduced, while Vanmala suggests that foodsovereignty is key to eradicating hunger. Finally, Javier Mignone and BrendaWilson examine ways that local economic development may reduce HIV/AIDS(MDG 6) by decreasing villagers’ need to migrate.

Ann WestonCASID President

Development Forum

2

A Foreward by the President

A Critical Evaluation of theThird Millennium Development GoalJane Parpart, Centre for Gender and Development Studies, University of West Indies

A t the dawn of the new century, the internationaldevelopment community, spearheaded by theUnited Nations, reflecting on its successes and

failures concluded that development to date had notbrought the promised improvement in equality around theworld. In 2000 member states of the United Nations made acommitment to a set of Millenium Development Goals(MDGs) that promised to produce a more equitable,tolerant world by 2015. The eight goals have beenpresented as “a blueprint for tacking the most pressingissues facing developing countries – poverty, hunger,inadequate education, gender inequality, child and maternalmortality, HIV/AIDS and environmental degradation.”Moreover, each goal has been defined in a specific manner,with key targets and sub-targets. These concrete time-bound targets for action have been seen as offering “aglimmer of hope for change.”i

The third goal focuses on promoting gender equalityand the empowerment of women. More specifically, it callsfor the elimination of gender disparity in primary andsecondary education, preferably by 2005, and at all levelsby 2015. Unlike the other goals, this one was framed in thelanguage of gender equality and empowerment so prevalentin development policies regarding women and gender.Indeed, the achievement of educational parity is seen as aprime means for enhancing women’s economic and politicalparticipation and their ability to defend their sexual andreproductive rights, their inheritance rights and to combatdomestic violence and gender based violence in conflict andpost-conflict situations.ii

However, despite the ambitious and lofty discourse, thecarefully crafted policies and the generous commitments ofmoney and institutional support, the third MDG has beendisappointing, both in the scope of its aims and theachievements of its goals. The Caribbean is a particularlyappropriate place to evaluate the assumptions embedded inthe third MDG. Female students outnumber and outperformmale students at all levels of education in the Caribbean.Yet parity or better in education has “hardly been sufficientto ensure the full participation of women in the political andeconomic lives of their countries.”iii The quality and nature ofeducation, including career guidance goals, often steer girlsand women into “feminized” fields with limited employmentand income potential. Even the more highly educatedwomen often receive less pay for the same job as a man –note the case of Belize, where the more educated femaleworkforce has a higher unemployment rate and fewer well-

paying jobs than their male counterparts.iv In Jamaica,despite women’s increasing presence on universitycampuses, gender biases against women are still intact.Despite enormous advances, and considerably increasedeconomic and political participation, women generally haveto be more qualified to get the same jobs as men and evenhighly educated and skilled women often have difficultyentering middle management.v Moreover, despite greaterfemale participation in parliament, laws outlawing the rightto reproductive choice or alternative sexualities arewidespread in the region. In addition, women’s presence inparliament has not been able to stop the dramatic rise indomestic violence and gender based violence in theregion.vi

Criticisms of the third MDG are beginning to surface inscholarly writings and to a lesser extent in the developmentliterature. Naila Kabeer (2005)vii acknowledges the power ofpatriarchal structures and ideologies for impeding women’sempowerment and gender transformation. For her, theanswer lies in the mobilization of women, especially poorwomen, who have the analytical capacity and courage toquestion and challenge gender inequality. Noeleen Heyseralso calls for making connections between the MDGs andglobal gender agreements such as the Convention on theElimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Womenand more finance for women’s organizations pushing forgender equality and women’s empowerment.viii RobertJohnson points out that women’s educational triumphs havenot translated into a gender equitable society, nor to equalityin economic and political spheres. Indeed, he points out thatno society treats its women as well as it treats its men andthat economic success is not a guarantee of genderequality. He concludes that while gender equality ineducation may be a necessary basis for tackling genderinequality, it is not sufficient for doing so. He calls forexplicitly addressing the systemic barriers to gender equity,arguing that the MDGs avoid discussing “the systemicchanges in global or national economic and political powerrelationships necessary to enabling real advances in genderequity.”ix

Attention to women’s voices and organizations as wellas systemic barriers to gender transformation are clearlyneeded if the third MDG is to make a difference. However,attention also has to be paid to how systemic blockages togender equality and women’s empowerment operate and

Continued on


3

MDG3: amplifying voices and overcoming barriers

maintain their grip on power. Nor do they investigate theresilience of the “common sense” equation between certaintypes of hegemonic masculinity and power, particularly inpolitical and economic realms. Consequently educatingwomen and marginalized men so they can enter the innercircles of power, at all levels, is often seen as a solution togender inequality. Yet this “solution” has all too oftenmerely reinforced the status quo, in households,communities and institutions. A deeper analysis of themasculinist operations of power reveals a need to movebeyond the body count, to interrogating the way the “rulesof the game” allow certain outsiders into the circle of thepowerful without challenging masculinist assumptions – aslong as they “play by the rules.” It is this detachment ofgendered assumptions about masculinities and femininitiesand their link to power that provides the flexibility andresilience to masculinist power. This fragile and yetconstantly reinforced and disciplined equation is at theheart of gender inequality and until this is recognized,bringing women and marginalized men into the centre ofeconomic and political power will do little to destabilize thecommon sense belief that feminine traits/emasculation areantithetical to power.x The third MDG is a good beginning,but it will remain mere window dressing if its proponentsignore the operations of deeply held, intractable oppositionto gender equality.

Jane L. Parpart is Professor Emeritus in InternationalDevelopment Studies at Dalhousie University andVisiting Professor at the University of West Indies in theCentre for Gender and Development Studies.

Referencesi United Nations Economic Council for Latin America and the

Caribbean (UNECLAC) (2005) “Gender Dialogue.” Santiago,Chile: UNECLAC; United Nations (2007) The MillenniumDevelopment Goals Report 2007. New York: United Nations.

ii UNECLAC (2005).iii UNECLAC (2005).iv Johnson, Robert (2005) “Not a Sufficient Condition: the limited

relevance of the gender MDG to women’s progress,” Genderand Development, 13, 1: 56-66, p. 61.

v Figuero, Mark (2004) “Male Privileging and Male “AcademicUnderperformance” in Jamaica,” in Rhoda Reddock, ed.,Interrogating Caribbean Masculinities (Kingston: UWI Press),p. 145; UNECLAC (2005a) The Millennium DevelopmentGoals: a Latin American and Caribbean Perspective. Santiago,Chile: UNECLAC.

vi United Nations Research Institute for Social Development(UNRISD) (2005) Gender Equality: Striving for justice in anunequal world. New York: United Nations.

vii Kabeer, Naila (2005) “Gender Equality and Women’sEmpowerment: a critical analysis of the third MillenniumDevelopment Goal,” Gender and Development, 13, 4: 13-55.

viii Heyser, Noeleen (2005) “Making the Links: women’s rights andempowerment are key to achieving the MillenniumDevelopment Goals,” Gender and Development, 13, 4: 9-12, p.11.

ix Johnson, Robert (2005) “Not a Sufficient Condition: the limitedrelevance of the gender MDG to women’s progress,” Genderand Development, 13, 1: 56-66, p. 64.

x Zalewski, M. and J. Parpart (2008) “Introduction: rethinking theman question,” in J. Parpart and M. Zalewski (eds) Rethinkingthe Man Question: sex, gender and violence in internationalrelations. London: Zed Books.

Continued from Page 3

Development Forum

CASID Congress 2009Capital Connections – Nation, Terroir, TerritoireCarleton University, May 27 - 29, 2009

This yearʼs conference will explore a range of issues including poverty, inequality, food security,migration, sustainable development, humanitarian aid, conflict, cooperation and developmentalternatives. The Conference aims to bring together those IDS theoreticians and practitioners with aninterest in these issues from different disciplines and sub disciplines – rural development studies,political science, international political economy, environmental studies, public policy, geography,economics, womenʼs studies, anthropology and sociology. See www.casid-acedi.ca for more details.

4

Gender Equality and the MillenniumDevelopment Goals in BangladeshShirley Thompson and Farzana Quddus, Natural Resources Institute, University of Manitoba

W orld leaders came together at the UnitedNations Headquarters in New York toadopt the United Nations Millennium

Declaration in September, 2000. A new globalpartnership was formed towards the eightMillennium Development Goals (MDGs), whichinclude reducing extreme poverty, preventing thespread of HIV/AIDS, gender equality, providinguniversal primary education, etc. by 2015. Accordingto the Millennium Development Report of 2008,progress has been made in achieving MDGs. Theoverarching goal of reducing absolute poverty byhalf is within reach for the world as a whole but is farbehind in countries like Bangladesh; in all but tworegions, primary school enrolment is at least 90percent and the gender parity index in primaryeducation is 95 per cent or higher in six of the 10regions. This article will discuss the role of genderequity in education and poverty reduction inreaching the MDGs, as well as the impact of non-government organizations (NGOs) and development fundingon the promotion of gender equality and reaching the MDGs.

Bangladesh is committed to reaching the MDGs by2015 yet poverty and hunger remain widespread, meaningthe basic needs of the most vulnerable are still not beingmet. The proportion of people living on less than US $1 aday has declined only about 9%, from 58.8% in 1990 to49.6% in 2005.i The percentage of children under five thatare underweight remains above half (51%), down from 67%in 1990.

A growing empirical literature suggests that genderequity in education promotes economic growth, decreasesfertility, reduces child mortality, and prevents under-nutrition. Abu-Ghaida and Klassen (2004)ii predicted thatby 2005, the countries that are off track on gender equalitywill suffer 0.1 to 0.3 percentage points lower per capitagrowth rates as a result, will have 0.1 to 0.4 more childrenper woman, and, by 2015, an average of 15 per 1,000higher rates of under five mortality, and 2.5 percentagepoints higher prevalence of underweight children underfive. Although primary education became compulsory in1993 in Bangladesh, girls, children living in rural areas andurban slums, and children from socio-economicallydisadvantaged families and ethnic minorities often do notattend schools. In this patriarchal society, girls’ educationoften depends on how education is valued in the marriagemarket; some parents limit their daughters’ education

because they are concerned that they will not be able topay dowry for an educated groom.

The Education for All Assessments revealed startlinggender inequalities with regards to achievement incountries with high rates of enrolment like Bangladesh.iiiAlthough Bangladesh’s MDG goals were reached forgender equality in primary and secondary education by2005, they were not reached for tertiary education (36%women, 64% men) or for literacy rates (55% for womencompared to 71% for men). While gender equality hasoften been seen as an issue with regard to access, theMDGs recognize that gender inequality results in differentlearning outcomes in school. Since 1998, 2.6 million girls(75% of all girls enrolled at the secondary level) havebenefited from the Female Stipend Program. As well, theFood-for-Education Program provides a food ration toabout 20% of poor primary school children in rural areas,so that these children do not have to participate in thelabour market to feed themselves and their families. TheBangladesh Rural Advancement Committee’s (BRAC) Non-Formal Schools Program increased participant children’s’basic competency in reading, writing, and arithmetic from12% in 1992 to 24% in 1995.

Non-government organizations provide extensivesupport for reaching the MDGs in Bangladesh, by providingmicrocredit programs, primary education, reproductive

Continued on

Photo by Meaghen Simms


5

The MDGs and microenterprise in Bangladesh

healthcare, child immunizations, and portable waterprovisioning, diarrheal dehydration programs, prevention ofenvironmental degradation, rural road construction, andvoter education. NGO activities began in Bangladeshshortly after the war of independence in 1971, with efforts toprovide war relief and rehabilitation. Of the 13,000operational NGOs in Bangladesh, 549 (4.22% of total) areworking directly with women.iv The most famous NGOs inBangladesh are the Grameen Bank and the BRAC. WhileNGOs in Bangladesh offer employment projects andsizeable loans to men as well, the microenterpriseprograms that provide microloans without collateral areaimed almost exclusively at poor women.

This focus on women for microenterprise was more astrategic decision than an altruistic one to empower women;women, more so than men in a patriarchal society, are easilypressured to repay and comply with training and otherrequirements, such as voter turnout.v For example, BRACrequires that women recite each week the BRAC principles ofhealthy living when they pay their interests on their loan, butdo not require this of men who receive larger loans. Thisrecital text involves committing to treat their son and daughterequally, planting around their house, drinking only safe waterand many other things. Women take out loans and comply asthey have few other employment or livelihood opportunities,particularly in rural areas, and no other access to credit.

Despite the high interest rates, indebtedness, NGOmanipulation and husbands often controlling the microcreditexpenditures, microcredit programs for women have hadpositive results. A recent study shows that women involvedwith BRAC microenterprise programs for more than fouryears increased household expenses by 28% and assets by112%.vi Also, health outcomes and awareness for womenand children are significantly better for participants in NGO-sponsored programs. Similarly, women in microenterpriseprojects with the Grameen Bank also enjoy 28% higherincome than members of the control group who did notparticipate in similar activities. Women in microenterprisebusinesses also actively participated in the electoral processof the country: in the 1997 union council elections, 44,138NGO-sponsored women contested for 12,894 seats, and outof these, 12,822 women were elected.vii

As women educational attainment lowers fertility ratesand an educated mother increases her children’s educationand health outcomes, education for women is key toattaining the MDG goals. Progress is being made in genderequality in education but more has to be done to ensuregirls have better quality education and opportunities toattain literacy and tertiary education. However, a genderanalysis of poverty reduction has not been undertaken.Development projects in Bangladesh are typically geared to

benefit men, in terms of increasing their livelihoods andemploying men on projects. Poverty reduction of womendoes not seem to be a priority, although it is the key toachieving MDG goals. Few opportunities are available towomen other than microenterprise projects, which areincome generating for NGOs.

Microenterprise is providing some gains for women,which leads to better health and education outcomes forthe entire family, but also result in women becomingindebted, subject to high interest rates, manipulation byNGOs and husbands often controlling how women’s loansare invested. The unequal focus on women of developmentprojects requires reconsideration and further investment inwomen. As well, governments and the United Nationsshould consider collecting statistics on the genderdistribution of poverty and of development dollars foremployment. As well, other projects that improvelivelihoods, in addition to microenterprise, should beavailable to women to move towards the MDGs.

Shirley Thompson is an assistant professor at the NaturalResources Institute, University of Manitoba. She iscurrently involved in a five year CIDA project on CapacityBuilding on Environmental Governance in Bangladesh. Shehas also recently edited a gender and development book.

Farzana Quddus is a graduate of a Master of Education atUniversity of Manitoba.

Referencesi Government of Bangladesh (GOB). 2005. Millenium Development

Goals: Progress Report. Dhaka: Government of Bangladesh andthe United Nations Country Team in Bangladesh.

ii Abu-Ghaida, D. and S. Klasen. (2004). The Costs of Missingthe Millennium Development Goal on Gender Equity.WorldDevelopment, Vol. 32, No. 7, pp. 1075–1107.

iii Unterhalter, E. (2005). Global inequality, capabilities, socialjustice: The millennium development goal for gender equality ineducation. International Journal of Educational Development,Vol. 25 (1) 111–122.

iv Karim, L. (2004). Democratizing Bangladesh: State, NGOs,and Militant Islam. Cultural Dynamics, Vol. 16, 291 -311.

v Rahman, A. (1999). Micro-credit Initiatives for Equitable andSustainable Development: Who Pays?World Development,Vol. 27(1), 67-82.

vi Littlefield, E., Murdoch, J., and Hashemi, S. (2003). IsMicrofinance an Effective Strategy to Reach the MillenniumDevelopment Goals? Retrieved July, 2008 fromhttp://ifmr.ac.in/cmf/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/mf-mdgs-morduch.pdf.

vii Karim (2004).



6

Development Forum

Millennium Development Goalsand World HungerThe need to move from food security to food sovereigntyVanmala Hiranandani, School of Social Work and Department of International Development Studies, Dalhousie University

The prevalence of hunger and malnutrition aroundthe globe continues to threaten the attainment ofthe Millennium Development Goal to halve,

between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whosuffer from hunger. Already, the number of hungry peoplehas increased from 800 million in mid-1990s to 830 millionin 2004. Additionally, the recent global food crisis isestimated to further increase the number of the hungry bymore than 100 million, according to the United NationsHigh-Level Task Force on the Global Food Crisis. Foodsecurity is clearly central to the realization of the MDGs:malnutrition remains the world’s most serious healthproblem and the single biggest contributor to child mortalityand maternal mortality. However, several decades ofresearch and efforts to attain food security have beenunsuccessful in finding practical solutions to the problem ofhunger around the globe. Since the continued reality ofhunger around the globe remains an obstacle to the

achievement of MDGs, it is essential to reconsider theproblem of food insecurity. This paper points to thelimitations of the concept of food security as it has beenunderstood and instead calls for moving towards theparadigm of food sovereignty, if the MDGs are to addressthe full scope of the problem of hunger.

The concept of food securityFood security, as defined at the 1996 World FoodSummit, is said to exist “when all people at all times havephysical and economic access to sufficient, safe andnutritious food to meet their dietary needs and foodpreferences for an active and healthy life”. However, foodsecurity is silent about the politics of food production anddistribution regimes: it does not talk about who producesfood, how and under what socio-economic conditions. AsRaj Patel surmises in his book Stuffed and Starved, theconcept of food security is congruent, for instance, with a

market-oriented economy inwhich everyone eats McDonald’sburgers, while the fast food chainextinguishes the livelihoods ofsmall-scale farmers and ravagesthe planet by its ecologicalfootprint. The paradigm ofmarket economics views food asa commodity rather than a right.Millions of people are excludedfrom consuming this ‘commodity’simply because they lack thepurchasing power to buy it.Consequently, most existingresearch views hunger to bestrongly correlated with poverty –we are told poverty is the maincause of food insecurity, whilehunger leads to poverty. Yet,structural causes of poverty andhunger have receivedinadequate attention within theMDG discourse.

Moreover, proponents of

Continued on

Photo by Mehreen KhalfanSmall-holder farmers ready tobacco seeds for planting in Tanzania.

7


Food Sovereignty: a new depth of understanding

international trade argue that the best way for poorcountries to attain food security is to import cheap foodfrom other countries, instead of producing it locally. Asbarriers to trade in agricultural produce have beendismantled by trade agreements, cheap and subsidizedfood products have flooded international markets, making itimpossible for small-scale farmers to compete. Peasantfarmers are, thereby, forced to leave their lands andmigrate into already overcrowded cities in such of work.Food security, merely understood in terms of access tofood, thereby, contributes to more poverty, hunger anddeprivation.

It is imperative to note that the eradication of hunger indeveloping countries is closely associated with the state ofagriculture. The pivotal importance of agriculture in the fightagainst hunger and poverty lies in the fact that around 2.5billion people in developing countries are engaged inagricultural production - most of them as small-scalesubsistence farmers. Agriculture employs 70% of thelabour force and contributes 34% of GDP in low-incomecountries. Since agricultural resources play anindispensable role for the livelihoods of the majority indeveloping countries, any changes in agricultural policiescan trigger an impact on rural livelihoods and food prices.In recent years, liberalization of trade in agriculture and thewithdrawal of the state from intervention in domesticmarkets have led to forced migration, abject poverty andagrarian crises in many developing countries.

Moving Beyond Food Security:Towards Food SovereigntyIn 1996, Via Campesina, the largest internationalfarmers’ association, put forth the concept of foodsovereignty in response to the increasing (mis)use of theterm ‘food security.’ Via Campesina argues that cross-border trade in food and agricultural products onlycontributes to more poverty, marginalization and hunger.Food sovereignty asserts that hunger is not a problem ofmeans, but of rights. Food sovereignty has been definedas the right of peoples, communities, and countries todefine their own agricultural, pastoral, labor, fishing, foodand land policies, which are ecologically, socially,economically and culturally appropriate to their uniquecircumstances. It includes the true right to food and toproduce food. Food sovereignty insists on agriculturewhose central concern is human beings and recognizesthe vital role of women and indigenous people in foodproduction. Food sovereignty also asserts that nationalgovernments have a primary responsibility to feedpeople: access to food should not be a form of handout,but a basic right. Food sovereignty focuses on local

autonomy, local markets and community action. ViaCampesina insists that family farmers in the globalSouth and North do not need access to global markets;all they need is access to their local markets. To thisend, the most important step to attaining foodsovereignty is to protect farmers against dumping thatbenefits only agribusinesses that control free tradeagreements. Food sovereignty advocates an alternativetrade model where national trade policies enablefarmers to access their own local markets and to tradeonly the surplus produce, rather than producing primarilyfor export. It calls upon governments to orientagricultural policy in support of family farmers and toprotect the access of peasants and landless people toland, water, seeds, and credit. Via Campesina does notconceptualize land reform narrowly as re-distribution ofprivate property; rather it calls for recognizing farmers as‘guardians of the land’. It insists on agriculture whosecentral concern is the human right to food, rather thanprofit. Thus, food sovereignty is a much neededalternative to the current mainstream thinking on foodproduction and food security.

Concluding remarksWhile food security is vital to achieve the MDGs, this paperhas contended that a limited focus on food security, interms of economic access to food, is inadequate. Povertyand hunger are inherently political issues. Foodsovereignty interrogates the political economy of foodproduction, distribution and consumption – it scrutinizeshow local livelihoods, food consumption, and health statusare influenced by national and global policies, institutionsand processes that shape agri-food systems. Making foodsovereignty an integral component of the MDG agenda forthe second half of the way to the 2015 goals, and for allpost-2015 strategies, is both necessary and desirable.Food sovereignty addresses the structural causes ofhunger and poverty. Until systemic causes of deprivationare addressed, genuine progress towards the MDGsremains a pipedream.

Vanmala Hiranandani, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, School ofSocial Work and Department of InternationalDevelopment Studies, Dalhousie University,6414 CoburgRoad, Halifax, NS B3H 2A7 Tel: 902-494-2094 Fax: 902-494-6709 Email: [email protected]

ReferencesWorld Trade Organization (2001, January 15). Negotiations onWTO Agreement on Agriculture. Retrieved August 28, 2008, fromwww.wto.org/english/tratop_e/agric_e/ngw102_e.doc.


8

Development Forum

Oxfam and other NGOs have long highlighted themoral repugnance of the world’s yawning socialand economic divides. There is something deeply

unjust about a system that allows 800 million people to gohungry, while an epidemic of obesity blights millions oflives in rich countries.

Extreme inequality provokes outrage andcondemnation, because it violates the widely held notionthat all people, wherever they are, enjoy certain basicrights. Addressing inequality is essential if countries are tolive up to their obligations under the international humanrights framework established by the UN.

Yet inequality and redistribution have been out offashion with rich country decision-makers for many yearsand warrant barely a mention in the MillenniumDevelopment Goals (MDGs), which emerged during thecourse of the 1990s. In sway to the Washington Consensusview that ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’, rich country leadersbelieved that economic growth alone would be enough toaddress poverty. By 2005, the manifest failure of thatapproach prompted a rash of high-profile publications fromthe World Bank, and the UN argued that tackling inequalityis one of the most urgent tasks of our time.

Academic literature used to stress the positivepotential for inequality to reward ‘wealth creators’ and soencourage innovation and economic growth. Noweconomists argue that it is equality that is good for growthand makes that growth more effective at reducing poverty:

Inequality wastes talent. If women are excluded fromtop jobs, half the talent of any nation is squandered.When banks refuse to lend to poor people, goodeconomic opportunities are wasted.

Inequality undermines society and its institutions. Inan unequal society, elites find it easier to ‘capture’governments and other institutions, and use them tofurther their own narrow interests, rather than the overalleconomic good.

Inequality undermines social cohesion. ‘Verticalinequality’ between individuals is linked to rises in crime,while ‘horizontal inequality’ (for example, betweendifferent ethnic groups) increases the likelihood ofconflicts that can set countries back decades.

Inequality limits the impact of economic growth onpoverty. A one-percentage point increase in growth willbenefit poor people more in an equal society than in anunequal one.

Inequality transmits poverty from one generation tothe next. Most cruelly, the poverty of a mother can blightthe entire lives of her children. Each year in developingcountries around 30 million children are born withimpaired growth due to poor nutrition during fetal

Continued on

Photo by Meaghen SimmsAs an expressway transports luxury goods from Bangkokʼs port, residents of the cityʼs largest slum, Klong Tuey,use its on-ramp for shelter.

Reducing Inequality is Essential to Reducing PovertyMark Fried, Oxfam Canada

9

Inclusive economic growth through active citizens

development. Babies born with a low birth weight aremuch more likely to die, and should they survive, aremore likely to face a lifetime of sickness and poverty.

Poverty, the human consequence of inequalityAt the sharp end of the skewed distribution of power,assets, and opportunities are the billion people who live inextreme poverty. Poverty is about much more than a lowincome, something that becomes particularly clear whenpeople living in poverty are asked to define it forthemselves. It is a sense of powerlessness, frustration,exhaustion, and exclusion from decision-making, not tomention the relative lack of access to public services, thefinancial system, and just about any other source ofofficial support.

Although a multi-dimensional view of poverty is widelyaccepted in theory, in practice, attention centres onincome poverty, most commonly defined by theinternational ‘extreme poverty’ line of US$1 a day, whichforms the basis of the first Millennium Development Goal(MDG). Anyone living below that line is judged to beunable to feed themselves properly. The $2-a-day‘poverty line’ is seen as the minimum required to providefood, clothing, and shelter.

Worldwide, some 340–470 million people constitutethe ‘chronically poor’, trapped below the poverty line withlittle immediate prospect of escape. Chronic povertyexists in all regions, but is heavily concentrated in SouthAsia and sub-Saharan Africa. Chronic poverty particularlyaffects children, older people, and people with disabilities,who face layers of social discrimination, often based onethnicity, religion, or language.

Multiple deprivations reinforce one other. Poor peopleare discriminated against, but many people are also poorbecause they suffer discrimination. Indigenous childrensent to schools that use a language foreign to them fail toacquire the education needed to find decent jobs andearn their way out of poverty, even when racial prejudicedoes not deny them equal opportunities. For thesepeople, reducing the extent of their social and politicalexclusion and their vulnerability to shocks is morepressing than economic growth (since many of them arejobless and are likely to remain so).

In recent memory, a combination of pressure frombelow and enlightened leadership from above hasproduced some remarkable exercises in redistribution. Inseveral East Asian countries, for example, elites haveembraced the long-term case for equality, to preventsocial division and to stoke a thriving economy. Taiwanand Vietnam have combined astonishing growth with high

levels of equity. Indonesia andMalaysia have managed to reduceinequality over an extended periodthrough government-ledredistribution and generation ofemployment.

In Brazil under thegovernments of FernandoHenrique Cardoso and Luiz InácioLula da Silva, popular movementshave carried business elites alongin redistributing wealth andopportunity in a hithertoappallingly unequal society. In thepast decade Brazil has managedto lower its world inequality rankfrom second to tenth, through amixture of good economicmanagement and redistributingincome to poor people throughvarious government schemes.Lula’s first term saw the poorest10 per cent of the populationincrease their incomes by 7 percent a year, while the incomes ofthe richest 10 per cent stagnated.



Continued on Photo by Meaghen Simms

Impoverished children in Southern Tibet.

10

International influence and the effectiveness of states

As a result, some five million Brazilians were lifted out ofpoverty. A similar story of progress built on popularpressure and state action could be told of South Africasince the end of apartheid.

Active citizens and effective statesOxfam’s analysis of these and other efforts finds thatinequality is best reduced through a combination of activecitizens and effective states. By active citizenship, Oxfammeans that combination of rights and obligations that linkindividuals to the state, including paying taxes andexercising the full range of political, civil, and social rights.Active citizens use these rights to improve the quality ofpolitical or civic life, through involvement in the formaleconomy or formal politics, or through the sort ofcollective action that historically has allowed poor andexcluded groups to make their voices heard.

By effective states, Oxfam means states that canguarantee security and the rule of law, and can designand implement an effective strategy to ensure inclusiveeconomic growth. History shows that no country hasprospered without a state than can actively manage thedevelopment process. The extraordinary transformationsof countries such as South Korea, Taiwan, Botswana, orMauritius have been led by states that ensure health andeducation for all, and which actively promote and managethe economy. After twenty years of erosion byderegulation, ‘structural adjustment programmes’, andinternational trade and aid agreements, many states areweak or absent. But there are no shortcuts, and neitheraid nor NGOs can take its place; the road to developmentlies through the state.

Most development practitioners acknowledge thecentrality of citizenship and the state. However, inpractice, for many NGOs development is aboutcitizenship only, while for many official donor agenciesand government ministries development is only about thestate. The former elevate active citizenship to besynonymous with progress, while the latter reduce it toperiodic elections and ‘consultation’ by government.Similarly, the latter elevate the state to the be-all-and-end-all of development, while the former eschew it as beyondtheir remit. In Oxfam’s experience, both are central to thepursuit of any development worth the name.

The focus on active citizens and effective statesunderlines the need to grapple with the central role ofpolitics in development. Too often, discussions aboutdevelopment are conducted on the basis of policiesrather than politics. Advocates adopt an ‘If I ruled theworld, I would do X’ approach, often portraying politicalleaders and movements in developing countries as

irritants or obstacles. At best, politics is reduced to thedepoliticized issue of ‘governance’. Yet it is such leadersand movements that change societies, for better orworse, and understanding and engaging with politics isessential.

The combination of citizens and state is not intendedto be a blueprint, still less an intellectual straitjacket. ButOxfam’s experience on the ground suggests that somesuch combination lies at the heart of most, if not all,attempts to build a humane and sustainable developmentpath, and is likely to play a vital role in tackling inequalityand poverty during the course of the current century.

Mark Fried is Public Policy Coordinator for Oxfam Canadaand the editor of From Poverty to Power: How active citi-zens and effective states can change the world, a newbook from Oxfam International.

Referencesi E. Anderson and T. O’Neill, ‘A New Equity Agenda?’,

ODI, March 2006.ii Gender parity in education is the only aspect of

inequality explicitly addressed in the MDGs.iii World Bank, World Development Report 2006; UNDP,Human Development Report 2005; UN Department ofEconomic and Social Affairs, Report on the WorldSocial Situation 2005.

iv Chronic Poverty Research Centre, Chronic PovertyReport 2004–5, p.21.

v Robert Chambers talks of the world being divided into‘uppers’ and ‘lowers’, a description that fits numerousaspects of poverty, whether women’s subjugation bymen, the power imbalances between ethnic groups, orthose between social classes.R. Chambers (2005)‘Whose Reality Counts?’.

vi The Millennium Development Goals were agreed by theinternational community in 2000, and set a number oftargets for improvements in areas such as health,education, and poverty. See:www.un.org/millenniumgoals.

vii Chronic Poverty Research Centre, Chronic PovertyReport 2008–09.

viii UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, ReportOn The World Social Situation 2005, p.25.

ix Such as the Bolsa Familia, which pays poor families amonthly stipend if they ensure that their children attendschool and are vaccinated F.H.G. Ferreira, P.G. Leite,and J.A. Litchfield (2005) ‘The Rise and Fall of BrazilianInequality: 1981–2004’, mimeo.

x IPEA (undated), ‘On the Recent Fall in IncomeInequality in Brazil’.



11

Development Forum

The Macroeconomics of the MillenniumDevelopment Goals: Why Gender MattersA. Haroon Akram-Lodhi, Trent University

As a rights-based approach to addressingthe profound range of human insecuritieswhich currently plague our planet, there

can be no doubt that the Millennium DevelopmentGoals (MDGs) have transformed the practice ofdevelopment in the early years of the 21st century.Within the UN system development policies andprograms reflect the concerns of the MDGs. At thesame time bilateral donors structure their aid flowsaround the consistency of such assistance withthe MDGs. National governments increasingly tryto frame policies that are MDG-consistent. Finally,and crucially, the International Monetary Fund andWorld Bank have incorporated the MDGs into thepolicy framework and monitoring arrangementsused under Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers(PRSPs), which now must be MDG-consistent. Asa consequence, the aim of global, national, andsub-national policies designed to tackle humaninsecurity, at least in the rhetoric employed byglobal political appointees, international andnational civil servants, and the array of consultantsemployed in the ‘development business’, is nowabout achieving the MDGs.

In this light, it is very disappointing that the UNSecretary-General has, in The Millennium DevelopmentGoals Report 2008, stated that ‘we are not on track to fulfillour commitments’. I suggest, though, that this is notsurprising, because the macroeconomic framework of theMDGs focuses upon the most cost-efficient way ofachieving the MDGs within the prevailing macroeconomicorthodoxy espoused by the international financialinstitutions. This macroeconomic orthodoxy has policyobjectives that replicate those that pre-dated the MDGs:macroeconomic stability based upon budgetary balance; an‘enabling’ environment for the private sector based uponinternal de-regulation and external trade liberalization; a‘realistic’ exchange rate; and export-led growth. Thus, 25years of disappointment in many countries, and in particularin sub-Saharan Africa, has not led outsiders to reconsiderthe basic macroeconomic framework used to understanddevelopment and developing countries.

I want to draw attention here to one glaring failure ofmacroeconomic orthodoxy that, in my view, helps explainwhy the MDGs are unlikely to be met on a global level: itsinability to incorporate the role of gender relations inmacroeconomic processes. Most macroeconomists usevariables that are added up across the entire economy—

variables such as consumption, investment, governmentspending, imports and exports—and the social identitiesthat reflect and affect gender relations are not considered tobe relevant in understanding macroeconomic relationshipsbetween these variables. This is incorrect, for two reasons.

First, orthodox macroeconomics assumes that thedistribution of output—who gets what—is outside thedomain of analysis. It is, in economic language, a ‘given’.This is wrong. The distribution of output is the outcome of aseries of explicit and implicit choices, and gender relationsare an extremely important factor in those choices—andhence the distribution of output. Gender, as a system ofpower, affects the division of labour in the household and,as a consequence, the division of labour between paidwork in the commodity-producing economy and unpaidwork in the household. As a result, labour markets are‘segmented’ on the basis of gender. This gender-baseddistortion is, in turn, transmitted into other macroeconomicprocesses, in that labour market segmentation affectsproduction, productivity, and incomes. Thus, gender-basedinequalities generate ‘hidden’ inefficiencies that affectproduction, investment, distribution and economic growth.Such inefficiencies are well-documented. This helps

Continued on

Photo by Meaghen SimmsA woman sells fruit beside a busy street in Ho Chi Minh City.The informal sector is an important source of income for manywomen in Vietnam.

12

The ‘missing’ MDG: women and time poverty

explain, I would suggest, macroeconomicperformance that fails to sustain across-the-board improvements in the indicators thatmake up the MDGs.

Secondly, the behaviour of individualsreflects their identity as gendered individuals.When added up across a society, this hasmacroeconomic implications: there is plenty ofevidence that shows that patterns ofconsumption, investment and savings aregender-differentiated. This too helps explainmacroeconomic performance that does notproduce the improvements necessary to meetthe MDGs. Once again, gender relations act asa structure of constraint on macroeconomicperformance.

In order to integrate gender relations intothe macroeconomic framework that underpinsthe policies and programs designed to meet theMDGs, it is necessary to accommodate threepropositions. The first is that economic institutions—international organizations, states, markets, andhouseholds—bear and transmit gender bias. The second isthat the economy must be defined so as to include theunpaid caring labour that goes into household production.The third is that gender relations, by affecting the division oflabour, the distribution of inputs, the distribution ofemployment, the distribution of income, the distribution ofoutput and the distribution of wealth, also affect production,savings, investment, net exports, and thus macroeconomicprocesses.

Considering macroeconomics from a genderperspective thus challenges the underlying macroeconomicframework of the MDGs. However, it also suggests whyachieving the MDGs is currently off-track. Simply put, themacroeconomic framework of the MDGs, by onlyrecognizing commodity-producing economic activity, fails totake account of the gendered allocation of time inhouseholds. Time is central to understanding ofmacroeconomic dynamics: there is a biologically andsocially-determined minimum of unpaid caring labour thatmust be performed before work in the commodity-producingeconomy can take place, and which thus serves as aprecondition for commodity production. This is why womenare subject to ‘time poverty’.

Time is, in this light, the most important ‘missing’ MDG,cross-cutting the goals in ways that have clear implicationsfor human security. Women supply their labour tohousehold activities at no cost, often for relational and self-fulfilling reasons of care but also for socially necessary andindeed often obligatory work. This work limits the agency of

women in activities beyond the household. The constraintupon women’s agency imposed by time poverty placesfundamental limits upon the capacity of people to takeadvantage of the opportunities provided by MDG-consistentPRSPs, and in so doing compromises the ability to achievethe MDGs in a way that enhances both human equality andsecurity.

If time is indeed the ‘missing’ MDG, targets andindicators, as well as policies and programs, should bereconsidered in light of their impact upon the genderedallocation of time. Moreover, the integration of time—andcare—into the MDG framework might lead into areconsideration of the macroeconomic reformspromulgated in the name of MDG-consistent PRSPsbecause such reforms are often not, from amacroeconomic perspective, gender-neutral. This is turnsuggests that economic governance, of which the MDGsare now clearly a part, needs to be rethought so as tointegrate unpaid work, enhance women’s agency, and in sodoing challenge the prevailing structures of power andprivilege that place women in the most insecure stratawithin society.

A. Haroon Akram-Lodhi is Professor of InternationalDevelopment Studies at Trent University in Peterborough,Canada. He is a member of the United NationsDevelopment Programme’s Expert Group on Unpaid Work,Economic Development and Human Well-Being, and is co-author of the forthcoming Introduction to Gender andEconomics: Foundations, Theories and Policies.


Development Forum

Photo by Meaghen SimmsVillage women collected water in Rajasthan, India.

13

Development Forum

S topping the spread of HIV/AIDS is one of the UnitedNations Millennium Development Goals. It is currentlyestimated that there are 3 million individuals infected

with HIV in India.i Research in rural villages of Karnataka,India has suggested that proximate factors driving theepidemic are connected to the migration of vulnerablepopulations.ii Preventive efforts to contain the epidemichave focused on a series of interventions, many of them atthe proximate level. More distal interventions, such asstrengthening the economic diversification of villages,should be the focus of new initiatives. Processes thatstabilize the economies of rural villages may decreasemigration and strengthen villagers’ livelihoods,consequently improving health in general and decreasingHIV transmission in particular.

Challenges of the poor and landless farmersAgriculture is a major economic sector in India and plays animportant role in the socioeconomic aspects of development.However, the weakening of the agricultural sector over thelast few decades is a major cause of concern for the country.The state of Karnataka has 55 million people andapproximately two-thirds reside in rural areas. Agriculture isthe mainstay of the people in the state, with cultivators andagricultural labourers’ forming 56% of the workforce.iii

There have been serious ecologically-related setbacksfor agricultural productivity throughout the last few decades.Some of Karnataka’s natural regions have faced severeagro-climatic and resource constraints. For instance,successive droughts from 2001 to 2004 have caused foodgrains production to decrease substantially, and further

exacerbated water constraints. Karnataka is one of the stateswith the lowest proportion of cropped area under irrigation.Approximately 64% of land in Karnataka is cultivated,iv butover 70% of the cultivated land is un-irrigated.v Most farmersin Karnataka are small, marginal, or landless farmers, andhave a high incidence of debt, deal with inadequate irrigationdevelopment, are environmentally unsustainable in practice,and lead in lower productivity compared to all India in pulses,oils seeds, coconut, and cashew crops.

Among agricultural labourers in Karnataka thepercentage of women overrides the percentage of men(51.89% to 41.81%).vi Although there has been someprogress in gender equality by narrowing the economic gap,women continue to confront inequality in economicopportunities including restrictions in occupational choicesand equal wages. For example, in 2004 agricultural wages,men earned 58 rupees per day, while women earned only38 rupees per day.

The poor situation of the agricultural sector has cast ashadow over farmers in Karnataka. Over the years, the netincome of farmers at constant prices has remained almostconstant, whereas the consumer price index continued toincrease. Further, it forces seasonal, periodic andpermanent migration. Temporary male migration is a majorfeature, particularly in years of failed crops, and this seemsto have an impact on HIV transmission.

In particular, the poor and landless rural farmersstruggle the most in coping with the agriculture productivitywhich has left them in a state of socio-economic distress.vii

Continued on

A sex worker waits for customers inside a beer shop. Photo by Meaghen Simms

Village economic diversification and HIVin rural villages in Karnataka, IndiaJavier Mignone & Brenda Wilson, University of Manitoba

14

Migration, HIV and high-risk sexual networks

The distress among farmers has manifested itself througha persistent number of suicides, occurrence of migration,and family instability. The increased rates of migration area cause for alarm, because it is known as a high-risk factorfor the spread of sexually-transmitted infections such asHIV/AIDS.

Role of migration in HIV transmissionMigration has been cited as an important factor in the global,

regional and local spread of HIV. In many settings mobilepopulations have shown higher HIV infection rates thanthose who do not move, independent of the HIV prevalenceat the site of migration origin or destination. Moreover,extensive migration can serve to expand HIV epidemicsgeographically by bridging high-risk sexual networks inmultiple locations. The assumption is that male migrants aremore likely than non-migrants to engage in risky sexualbehaviour because of a preponderance of predisposing



Farmer Activity

• Prevent run-off• Water retention ponds

• Candle making• Doll making• Toy making• Organic fertilizer/worm composting

• Pasta/noodle making• Clothing production• Textile design

• Village Panchayat leadership• Women self-help groups

• Reclamation of problematic soils

• Dry land agriculture (e.g., promegranates)• Encouragement of dairy activities• Home made food preparation• Organically produced goods

• Introduce farmers information centres, phone-in programs

• Transport to get goods to market

• Community warehouses• Exhibitions, field days• Removal of salt from tanks, water recharging

Investment Activity

• Increase water table• Soil health cards

• Training• Counseling• Micro-credit

• Cooperatives

• Management and leadership training

• Improved farm machineries• Crop loans• Innovative technologies (e.g., integrated pestmanagement, integrated nutrient management)

• Seed testing lab

• Citiculture facilities• Establishment of seed banks

• E-marketing• Agricultural service centres (like agri-clinics)• Market connectivity (e.g., fair trade)

• Crop insurance• Accreditation

Area of Benefit

Environment

Socialsupport/Family

Community

Governance

Farm inputs

Production

Marketing

Management

Table 1 — Policy and Programmatic Interventions

Continued on

15

Prevention by strengthening local economies

factors such as isolation from their family and socialsupports, and increased opportunities and resources to findnew commercial and non-commercial sexual partners.

Perhaps nowhere in India are the issues of mobilityof men and female sex workers more consequential forthe HIV epidemic than in the “migration corridor” ofnorthern Karnataka and southern Maharashtra.viiiEvidence based on HIV surveillance data and otherresearch suggests that the HIV epidemic is most severein this corridor, from northern Karnataka up to Pune andMumbai. The adult HIV prevalence in the northernKarnataka districts of Bijapur, Bagalkot and Belgaum isestimated to exceed 3%.ix

Policy and programmatic interventionsPreventive efforts to contain the epidemic have focused on aseries of interventions, many of them at the proximate level.While these efforts are important and may have already hada positive impact, more distal interventions, such asstrengthening the economic diversification of villages, shouldbe the focus of new initiatives. Processes that stabilize theeconomies of rural villages, thus making them lessvulnerable to natural factors such as droughts or economicfactors such as commodity prices, may decrease migrationand strengthen villagers’ livelihood, consequently improvinghealth in general and decreasing HIV transmission inparticular.

A partnership between the University of AgriculturalSciences-Dharwad, Village Panchayaths of northernKarnataka, and the University of Manitoba, is developing aprogram to enhance the economic diversification andstabilization of villages. Table I outlines the diversificationinterventions that are viable and conducive for agro-ecological regions prone to drought to be developed in thispartnership.

Javier Mignone is assistant professor with the Faculty ofHuman Ecology at The University of Manitoba. He conductsresearch on HIV prevention in India, and on Indigenoushealth in Canada and Latin America.

Brenda Wilson is a graduate student with the Natural Re-sources Institute at The University of Manitoba. Her topic ofresearch is “Sustainability in Bijapur District in Karnataka,India: A case assessment of poor and landless dry landfarmers’ future prospects.

Referencesi UNAIDS

http://data.unaids.org/pub/InformationNote/2007/070701_indiaexternal_qa_en.pdf.2007.

ii Halli SS, Blanchard J, Satihal DG, Moses S. (2007) Migrationand HIV transmission in rural South India: an ethnographicstudy. Cult Health Sex; 9:85-94.

iii Census of India, 2001.iv arnataka Human Development Report 2005 (2006) New Delhi:

Planning and Statistics Department Government of Karnataka.v Government of Karnataka (2007) Improving the Economic

Condition of Farmers (Report of the Official Group).vi Karnataka Human Development Report 2005 (2006) New Delhi:

Planning and Statistics Department Government of Karnataka.vii Hanchinal RR (2007) Socio-economic conditions of Karnataka

farmers in comparison with farmers of other regions.Symposium Lecture, Faculty of Human Ecology, University ofManitoba. November.

viii Halli SS, Blanchard J, Satihal DG, Moses S. (2007) Migrationand HIV transmission in rural South India: an ethnographicstudy. Cult Health Sex; 9:85-94.

ix Becker ML, Ramesh BM, Washington RG, Halli S, BlanchardJF, Moses S. (2007) Prevalence and determinants of HIVinfection in South India: a heterogeneous, rural epidemic. AIDS;21:739-47.


Development Forum

Canadian Journal of Development StudiesThe only Canadian scholarly journal devoted exclusively to the study ofinternational development, CJDS publishes peer-reviewed theoretical analyses,research findings, case studies, and reviews essays with significant implicationsfor development planning and policy on both sides of the North-South divide.Access past issues at www.cjds.ca.

16

Village economic diversification and HIV in rural villages in Karnataka, India

Documents

Transcript of Village economic diversification and HIV in rural villages in Karnataka, India