Rethinking gender, empowerment and development

The past two decades have seen the lives and living conditions of people in southern Africa, particularly the more vulnerable groups, undergoing rapid transformation as they strive to cope with and challenge changing traditional gender roles in a period of economic decline and social crisis. The purpose of this paper is to look at some of the conceptual issues if gender, empowerment and development. The major issues of development, social and economic crisis, the subordination if women and feminism sometimes appear to be understood within one concrete and unified framework. The paper hopes to stimulate debate in the growing collection of work that is beginning to analyze the relationships between gender, empowerment and development and to explore their meanings for those involved in policy and practical action. Our knowledge of women's experiences with poverty in the development process has brought us to a range of common understandings, despite different starting points.