Gender in poverty reduction. Critical Explorations of Norwegian Aid Policy on Gender Equality and Womens Rights

During the last decade gender equality and womens rights have become key issues in international development aid policies and a main concern in the Millennium effort to eradicate poverty. Through historical assessments of Norways gender policies in develo pment cooperation and through ethnographical studies of womens protective sexual rights in a plural legal context we aim at producing empirical and theoretical knowledge that can be drawn upon in aid policies for poverty reduction as well as contribute to the development of gender/feminist theory. Focusing on policy and policy implementation in two of the long term partner countries in Norwegian development aid (Tanzania and Ethiopia), this project will explore gender politics in development aid, with a p articular scrutiny of the dynamics in encounters between diverging notions of gender, gender equality, and womens rights. In line with recent trends in international poverty discourse this project sees poverty as a multi-dimensional phenomenon not limited to income and consumption. Such an approach views poverty in light of access to property, good health, education, dignity, self-esteem, gender-relations, empowerment and vulnerability. We argue that the inherent dynamic, complex and culturally diverging nature of gender issues is not sufficiently contextualized nor understood within international poverty and development discourse. The project is developed by a new cross disciplinary group of scholars based at the University of Bergen, Christian Michelse n Institute and Haraldsplass Deaconess University College, Norway.