Development Myths in Practice: The Feminisation of Anti-Poverty Policies and International Organisations. The Cases of Brazil, The Philippines and Brazil. (F.-X. Merrien, requérant principal, Swiss Network for International Studies ; 24 mois: début: 1er janvier 2010).
Résumé:
Over the past ten years, a paradigm of the woman as the principal agent in the fight against poverty has gradually been built up and has come to stand out. Supported by broader and broader epistemic communities, the gender paradigm is now part of the core of beliefs concerning the struggle against poverty. In narratives of the World Bank, of United Nations agencies and of national development organisations, women are now in the forefront as agents of the struggle against poverty. The paradigm takes the form of exaggeratedly optimistic "stories ». In countries from the south, it is embodied in a specific series of policies, projects and programmes, supported by the major international organisations and defended by NGOs and leaders of opinion.Recent research shows to what extent this issue embraces contradictory aspects. On one hand, it characterises awareness of gender inequalities and the need to remedy this; on the other hand, it also shows the influence of the dominant ideology within international financial organisations, which manifests itself in the absolute priority accorded to efficiency at the expense of real "empowerment". These ambiguities reinforce the need for international comparative studies. The research project is based partly on an analysis of the construction of the new paradigm and on a comprehensive study of the implementation of Conditional Cash Transfers in three countries: Brazil, the Philippines and Mozambique. The central research questions are: How and in what way has this type of discourses, policy and programmes been adopted by countries in the south? What are the strategies of different kind of actors concerning the implementation of CCT programs? How these narratives are entangled with local cultures and the specific structures and gender social relations in which they are embedded? How do people from different communities react to the implementation of CCT programmes and why? Have they reinforced or not the position of women? In what conditions are these programmes efficient?
