Including Women? (Dis)junctures between Voice, Policy and Implementation in Integrated Development Planning

1. Including Women? (Dis)junctures between Voice, Policy and Implementation in Integrated Development Planning Alison Todes, URED, HSRC Pearl Sithole, D&G, HSRC Amanda Williamson, Architecture and Planning, Wits

2. Including Women? • Paper explores whether women have been able to have voice in local government and IDP processes • And whether this has affected municipal policy and implementation

3. Including Women? • Initiatives to incorporate women in urban development • Technocratic: • mainstreaming approach • gender targeting, special structures • But criticised for its depoliticisation of gender and development • Effectiveness questioned • Politics and access to power • Women’s access to mainstream politics • Social movements • But political inclusion doesn’t guarantee gender-awareness, particularly if focus is on representation

4. Including Women? • Literature often assumes good links between voice, gender aware policy and practice • Paper explores these links • Argues that inclusiveness with regard to gender is uneven and partial at all three levels • And there is no one-one correspondence between voice, policy and practice • Outcomes are influenced by both technocratic practice and politics in and outside of local government

5. Including Women? • Research based on 3 KZN case studies with different politics, levels of capacity and resources: eThekwini, Hibiscus Coast, Msinga • Interviews and focus groups with councillors, officials in national provincial and local government, feminist activists, NGOs, project committees and beneficiaries, • Examined: • Effects of representation of women as councillors and officials, special structures • Participatory process linked to IDP • Gender in IDPs, and whether they reflect women’s interests • Inclusion of women in projects and implementation

6. Including Women? Core Conclusions • Inclusion of women and gender in local government is partial and uneven • Significant differences between municipalities • Most inclusive in eThekwini – has gone furthest in introducing gender structures, and innovative projects benefiting women • Least inclusive in Msinga • Reflects both local politics, but also capacities and resources

7. Including Women? Core Conclusions • IDP process is imposed on pre-existing social and gender relations which shape how women’s voice is heard • Women very present in IDP participation, but local politics shapes whether they can speak and be heard • Lack of a strong women’s movement with coherent demands is a key gap • Affects pressure to engender IDP • Women councillors don’t necessarily provide this support – but their position is anyway contested and depends on party political support: affects extent to which gender is considered

8. Including Women: Core Conclusions • Although women have had voice in IDP participation, IDPs are largely silent on gender • And only some of the ‘women’s issues’ raised are addressed • Partly reflects delinking of participation from IDPs, and IDPs from implementation • But also difficult to engender IDPs in absence of ground level and sectoral analysis

9. Including Women? Core Conclusions • But women still benefit at a project level • In committees, as workers and beneficiaries • Effects of national guidelines • technocratic approach makes a difference • But its existence has depended on politics • But project managers often keen to include women • And involvement here often seen by women and communities as extension of their traditional role

10. Including Women? Core Conclusions • But women often in marginal positions in projects • Low waged labourers • In committees, not chairs • Many in survivalist projects with low returns • Outside of more lucrative flagship projects • Address practical needs, but don’t transform their position

11. Including Women? Conclusions • Women are being included to a greater extent in local politics, IDP participation, and local projects • But it doesn’t necessarily change pre-existing gender relations or address deeper gender issues • Disjunctures between voice, policy and implementation • Although technocratic processes help inclusion, nature of inclusion is limited by social relations and local politics