Gender in the World Bank's poverty assessments: six case studies from Sub-Saharan Africa

Looks at six Poverty Asssesments (PAs) conducted by World Bank teams and the way in which gender issues are treated in them (in Ghana, Zambia, Tanzania and Uganda). This paper trys to identify the analytical frameworks behind these reports, the data sources used (both quantitative and qualitative/participatory), and the strength of the resulting policy analysis

Concludes that

• the accumulating evidence in the gender and development literature-namely that men and women experience poverty differently-has had little influence on these six case studies
• the PAs lack any substantial appreciation of the issues raised by the study of gender and poverty in Africa over the last two decades
• there is a contrast between approaches that treat poverty statically, as an analysis of categories and characteristics, with those adopting a dynamic analysis of poverty, seeing it as the relational processes of impoverishment or accumulation. The link between gender and poverty lies at the level of process, and social and economic relations
• it is impossible to integrate gender into an understanding of poverty unless the reading of evidence, analysis and policy are all based on these relational processes of impoverishment or accumulation.

[adapted from author]