Centre for Social Policy Studies University of Ghana, Legon

The household structures of Africa are very different to those of Western societies from which many of the 'development experts' involved in the policy making of Africa are drawn.

This web site seeks to raise awareness of the need for better charting of the gender structures of Africa in the development of more appropriate social and economic policies.

Women carry the primary responsibility for food security in Africa yet development agencies have devoted minimal resources to researching the impact of their agricultural policies and new techniques on the well being of Africa's women farmers.

The dominant focus has been on the cash crop activities of Africa's men farmers and agricultural research and investment has largely been confined to this domain. There is clear evidence that in many parts of Africa, women and men operate separate income and expenditure streams, with women carrying the primary burden for the financing of children's welfare. Whilst local practice is to separate male and female economic accounts, women and children are rarely the beneficiaries of the income generated by cash crops; their present well being is founded rather in subsistence farming.

The external expert perspective of the key development agencies, despite the abundant evidence to the contrary, continues to assume a unified household where income earned by males is shared with and distributed amongst their wife/wives and children. As a consequence, gender appropriate agricultural policies and services have failed to develop. This web site contains a paper which contrasts the evidence on local practice with the persistence of inappropriate external expert perspectives, indicate the consequences of this tension and make recommendations for new and better gendered approaches to agriculture in Africa.

On line papers and presentations:

• Gender and agriculture in Africa: the expert neglect of local practice
• Users not losers: gender representation in transport design and operation
• Managing the time: Gender participation in education and the benefits of distance education information technologies.

Links:

• Women, environmental change and economic crisis in Ghana
• Gender differences in the timing of first intercourse Data from 14 countries including Ghana

Centre for Social Policy Studies,
Faculty of Social Studies,
University of Ghana, PO Box 72, Legon, Ghana
Tel: +233 21 502217 Fax: +233 21 500949
e-mail: aptnana@hotmail.com
web site: http://www.oocities.org/csps_ghana