Introduction

In this chapter, we seek to examine the gender dimensions of New Labour's international development work as well as to focus on some of the internal and external limitations of these policies. We note that these limitations stem from a number of different factors. First, institutional factors within the Department for International Development (DfID) have placed constraints on the extent to which policies of ‘gender mainstreaming’ have really taken hold within the department. Second, a growing emphasis on partnership strategies in international development assistance often result in the sidelining of gender issues in the complex bargaining relationships between donor agencies. Third, we note a tendency for gender issues to be regarded as side-issues; as secondary to the ‘big issues’ such as fair trade and debt relief (key tenets of the Make Poverty History campaign that was endorsed by the government during 2004 and 2005). Thus while the issue of global poverty became a central policy theme for the New Labour government during 2004/05 (as seen in the launching of the Commission for Africa and Britain's hosting of the G8 summit), a recognition of the gendered nature of poverty has become increasingly lost in this agenda.

We identify two key strands of policy thought on gender and development within New Labour – what we term the ‘efficiency’ and ‘rights’ approaches. On the one hand, there is a strong tendency to conceptualise gender issues within a (neo-liberal) economic efficiency paradigm – whereby gender inequality is said to contribute to the overall inability of markets in developing states to function effectively. On the other hand, an important position has emerged that emphasises the need for women in the developing world to secure equal ‘rights’ and voice to men. This second paradigm has been especially concerned with issues of violence against women and sexual and reproductive rights. However, we also note, particularly in the discussion of the Commission for Africa in the final section of this chapter, that the language of ‘women's rights’ is often employed in a quite different manner; in terms of the role that civil and political rights and property rights can play a role in enhancing women's economic empowerment and contributing to capitalist development overall.