ENGENDERING PRSPS AND THE EFFECTS ON HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
An empirical study of the effects of gender mainstreaming PRSPs on human development in least developed countries.
Master’s thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MSc in Public Administration with a specialization in Economics and Governance
Author: Alicja Krubnik Student Number: s2489333
Thesis Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Max van Lent Second Reader: Dr. Eduard Suari Andreu
August 7th, 2020
I. ABSTRACT
There exists a gender inequality with respect to how poverty is experienced, which is especially prevalent in least developed countries. Correcting this inequality and increasing overall human development were both focuses of the Millennium Development Goals, which employed Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) as key policy devices. Similar policy devices, which will also incorporate gender aspects, are likely to be used for the Sustainable Development Goals. The aim of this thesis is to determine whether engendering PRSPs has had a positive effect on human and gender development. Thus far, studies have focused on the efficacy of PRSPs or the degree of engendering within PRSPs. This thesis combines the two areas of focus in a novel way by studying whether engendering PRSPs, specifically through the use of the Gender Mainstreaming (GM) paradigm, is impactful.
In order to quantitatively study the effects of the GM paradigm, the degree to which PRSPs adapted to it must be determined. Thus, a scoring method was developed and used in order to qualitatively assess GM within PRSPs. The Fixed Effects model was then used to quantitatively assess the effects of PRSP scores for GM on human and gender development. The main findings conclude, somewhat surprisingly, that gender mainstreaming PRSPs increases human development whilst having no significant effect on gender mainstreaming. Despite popular belief that focusing on development for women and girls only affects that half of the population, the findings show that in fact the opposite is true. These results point to a bias in the PRSP framework and the ways in which policies are implemented in actuality.
Key words: Human development, Gender development, Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, Least developed countries, Gender mainstreaming, Fixed-effects model
II. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to acknowledge the help of my thesis supervisor, Prof. Dr. van Lent, for his help throughout this thesis research and writing process. If not for his advice, insights and helpful criticisms, this thesis would not have the same level of quality. I would also like to thank him for his flexibility in encouraging freedom for me to research what I am truly interested in and passionate about. His guidance is greatly appreciated.
My sincerest thanks are also extended to Nicholas Zutt, who partook in many involved conversations with me about how to best approach this research. Countless are the number of times that he listened through one my thought processes. His astute inputs truly were invaluable throughout my entire thesis-writing process. In addition, his unwavering emotional support and belief in me, especially in times of need, kept my spirits and motivation high.
I would also like to express my sincerest gratitude to my parents, Anna and Zbigniew Krubnik, who always provided me with the greatest encouragement and support a daughter could ask for. It is largely thanks to them that I was able to and inspired to pursue my education.
Finally, I am grateful to the scholars who have answered my seemingly random questions over the past few months. While they may not have realized it, their contributions to my understanding of topics in political economy, international development, and gender studies have been very helpful to me and my ability to complete this thesis.
III. TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION AND RESEARCH QUESTION ... 1
1.1. Introduction ... 1 1.2.Research Questions ... 2 1.3.Relevance ... 3 1.3.1. Scientific Relevance. ... 3 1.3.2. Societal Relevance. ... 4 1.4.Background ... 5 1.4.1. Development Paradigms. ... 5
1.4.2. PRSPs: The Human Development Approach. ... 7
2. HYPOTHESES AND CAUSAL MECHANISMS ... 10
3. RESEARCH DESIGN ... 14 3.1.Case Selection ... 14 3.2.Operationalization ... 15 3.2.1. Dependent Variables. ... 15 3.2.2. Independent Variables. ... 18 3.2.3. Control Variables. ... 19 4. RESEARCH METHODS ... 22
4.1.QUalitative Method:ScoringPRSPS forGM ... 22
4.2.Quantitative Methods: Regression Models ... 27
4.2.1. Regression Sets A and B ... 29
4.3.Limitations ... 31
5. QUALITATIVE RESULTS ... 32
5.1.PRSP Scoring Results ... 32
6. QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS ... 34
6.1.Analysis of Scoring Results ... 34
7. QUANTITATIVE RESULTS ... 36
7.1.Regression Model Results ... 36
7.1.1. Set A Regressions. ... 36
7.1.2. Set B Regressions. ... 39
8. QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS ... 43
8.1.Analysis of Regression Results ... 43
9. CONCLUSION ... 43
10. REFERENCES ... 49
IV. LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
Figure 1: Components of the HDI ... 16
Figure 2: Components of the GDI ... 17
Figure 3: Components of the FDI ... 21
Table 1: Set B Independent Variables ... 24
Table 2: Description and Subtleties of PRSP Topics ... 25
Table 3: Criteria of Scores ... 27
Table 4: PRSP Sub-Section Scores ... 33
Table 5: Set A Regression Results ... 37
V. LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
EM-DAT . . Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters’ Emergency Events Database FDI. . . Financial Development Index FE . . . Fixed-Effects Model GAD . . . Gender and Development GDI . . . Gender Development Index GDP . . . Gross Domestic Product GM . . . Gender Mainstreaming (noun) HDA . . . Human Development Approach HDI . . . Human Development Index HIPC . . . Heavily-Indebted Poor Countries IMF . . . International Monetary Fund I-PRSP . . . Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper LDC . . . Least Developed Country MDG . . . Millennium Development Goals MPI . . . Multidimensional Poverty Index NYC . . . New York Consensus ODA . . . Official Development Aid PPP . . . Purchasing Power Parity PRS . . . Poverty Reduction Strategy PRSP . . . Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper PWC . . . Post-Washington Consensus RE . . . Random-Effects Model SFI . . . State Fragility Index UN . . . United Nations UNCDP . . . United Nation’s Committee for Development Policy UNDP . . . United Nations Development Programme USD . . . United States dollars WC . . . Washington Consensus WEO . . . World Economic Outlook WID . . . Women in Development
1. INTRODUCTION AND RESEARCH QUESTION 1.1. Introduction
Divergences between how females and males experience poverty are pronounced in least developed countries (LDCs), where poverty and gender inequality are most extreme in the world (Gaye et al., 2010). Females and males are similarly not affected equally by development interventions (Zuckerman, 2002). This inequality is not only concerning for ethical reasons, but it also restricts a country’s ability to reduce overall levels of poverty and increase opportunity. As such, engendering1 poverty reduction strategies (PRSs) has been a recommended approach from the World Bank (Manoukian et al., 2002) to aid achievement of the United Nation’s (UN’s) Millennium Development Goals (MDG). These PRSs are documented in poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs) by the national governments of developing countries, in partnership with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. As such, PRSPs became a focal tool used to help achieve the MDG. While the degree to which PRSPs were engendered has been studied, the impact of engendering PRSPs on development goals has not been.
The chief focus of this thesis is to determine the effects that engendering PRSPs has on human and gender development. With the close of the MDG, the international development community’s focus has now moved onto the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), which will be supported by nationally-owned policy devices similar to PRSPs. This is why assessing the impact of taking gender-specific development issues into account in PRSPs is particularly relevant. The main hypothesis put forward is that stronger engendering of PRSPs will have a positive outcome on not only gender development, but also human development. To study the degree of engendering in PRSPs, I have scored the documents based on their application of the dominant gender-related paradigm in development studies, which is gender mainstreaming (GM).
While gender inequalities impede human development achievements in all countries, there is significant variation in the degree to which this occurs (Gaye et al., 2010). LDCs by far have the greatest level of gender inequality, as measured by the UN’s Gender Inequality Index (GII), in comparison to the rest of the world (Gaye et al., 2010). This means that women disproportionately feel the negative effects of poverty in countries with some of the greatest amount of extreme poverty2. For this reason, I have chosen to focus on LDCs. For more specific context, LDC’s are “low-income countries confronting severe structural impediments to sustainable development” (DESA, n.d. a). This group of countries is also highly vulnerable low levels of human assets as well as external socioeconomic shocks (DESA, n.d. a). LDCs therefore face unique challenges to realizing successful development strategies. The urgency for improved development efforts and the impact that superior strategies would have in LDCs, are why they have been chosen as subjects for this research study.
If gender differences are not well reflected in poverty analyses, intervention strategies and monitoring systems, the chances for the strategies to effectively address poverty are undermined. As cited in Zuckerman, “research compellingly correlates greater gender equality with greater poverty reduction and economic growth” (2002). By providing significant focus to gender development, governments as well as national and international development partners are also 1 Throughout this text, the term ‘engendering’ will refer to the act of ‘integrating gender into’, as defined by
Zuckerman (2002).
2 As defined by the UN to include people living off of $1.90 (USD) or less per day (UNCTAD, 2017). The threshold
securing a more efficient means to achieving overall (female and male) human development (Manoukian et al., 2002). Through analyzing constraints to development and proposed PRSs based on how they meet the unique needs of women and men, human development interventions would be better targeted to achieve their intended purposes (Manoukian et al., 2002).
The connection between gender dynamics and PRSs is not as simple as firstly recognizing that women have historically been disadvantaged and secondly searching for interventions that ameliorate those disadvantages. Rather, the connection between gender and poverty reduction that would be most effective is one in which all poverty analyses of a nation and the proposed strategies to combat it are inherently gendered (Bennett, 2009). In this way, not only the largest or most obvious aspects of a society would be picked out and recognized for making the road to achieving gender equality more difficult. Instead, each individual aspect of a society that hampers human development or and any considered strategies for reducing poverty would be analyzed through a gendered-lens. That is, how do poverty-related themes uniquely affect women and men and how would the subsequent PRSs affect people of different genders? This strategy outlines the GM paradigm through which engendering practices will be analyzed.
PRSPs have been an integral tool deployed for approaching development in LDCs as a joint venture between developing countries and donor partners, namely the IMF and World Bank. Introduced to support the success of the MDG, the PRSPs outline national development to “ensure that debt relief money would go to poverty reduction, and to respond to evident weaknesses in relations between poor countries and the Bretton Woods Institutions – in particular, lack of poverty focus, and no country ownership of reforms” (BWP, 2003). The PRSP process presented an opportunity to positively influence the development of women and girls by applying GM in ways that past efforts by the Bretton Woods organisations, namely the structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), did not. The primary focus of SAPs were economic liberalization and, as a result, lacked attention to social issues related to development. PRSPs, however, presented themselves as an avenue to progress gender equity and improve human development because the MDG were intended to move away from strict economic growth strategies for development. While these documents may not be the key documents outlining strategies for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in the future, national sustainable development strategies will likely be documented in a way similar to the PRSP structure (Swanson, 2015).
By engendering PRSPs, the aim is to reduce the burden of suffering from extreme poverty and the resulting limited opportunity for everyone, including women and girls. The aim is not only a normative one of reducing inequity between genders but also a means to more effectively address poverty for all. If a gendered approach to development were to not be included in intervention strategies outlined in PRSPs, the likely result would be that gender inequalities would deepen and development for both genders would be slowed.
1.2. Research Questions
The PRSP process has generated an opportunity to incorporate gender equity as a key focus toward achieving human development. The degree to which PRSPs have been engendered is something that has been studied, albeit sparsely, by some academics (Bennett, 2009; Holvoet, 2009; Rodenberg, 2004; van Staveren, 2008; Zuckerman, 2002). The research of this thesis also analyzes the level of gender mainstreaming within PRSPs. However, it differs in that it seeks to measure the effects of gender mainstreaming on human development with a quantitative statistical
analysis. The main research question of interest guiding this thesis is: how does gender
mainstreaming PRSPs affect human development, measured by the Human Development Index (HDI), in LDCs? This question is the most interesting one, and is central to this research. It is less
straightforward to expect that gender mainstreaming a PRSP would result in higher levels of overall human development, for both women and men. Rather, it is for some an expectation that gender mainstreaming would have a positive effect on mostly just the development of women (Dworkin et al., 2012). My intention is to make the true effects of gender mainstreaming known.
A secondary research question will focus on determining what the effects of gender mainstreaming PRSPs will be on gender development. Specifically, I ask: how does gender
mainstreaming PRSPs affect gender development, measured by the Gender Development Index (GDI), in LDCs? This question is interesting in order to determine if gender mainstreaming
national policy documents to a higher degree is impactful to the actual implementation of national PRSs and, ultimately, if it reduces levels of gender inequity. However, this secondary research question has another important implication. If the effect of gender mainstreaming PRSPs on the GDI is positive while there is no effect or a negative effect on the HDI, a conclusion can be drawn that gender mainstreaming PRSPs is beneficial for female development but not for male development. This can have strong consequences for how focusing on the development of women and girls is approached in future development intervention proposals.
A tertiary research question that will be addressed in this thesis is in regard to the effectiveness of PRSPs themselves; what is the effect on both the HDI and GDI of including, in a
PRSP, topics concerning a country’s development profile? This question is raised so that I do not
blindly take the results from Elkins et al. (2018), which suggest that PRSPs are effective for poverty reduction, as fact and instead test it myself. It is particularly important to test the claim that PRSPs positively impact a country’s level of development as a hypothesis because it will have a direct effect on the primary and secondary research questions. If it is determined that the inclusion of poverty-affecting topics in PRSPs, such as education or social security, do not have a positive impact on either the HDI or the GDI, then whether or not the PRSPs are strongly gender mainstreamed will also have little impact on both indices.
1.3. Relevance
1.3.1. Scientific Relevance.
This thesis approaches the subjects of international development and gender bias in international development practices from a novel perspective. The research builds on existing studies that present research on the significance of PRSPs in achieving poverty reduction goals (Bezemer & Eggen, 2008; Elkins et al., 2018). If PRSPs are an effective tool for reducing poverty and increasing development, their components should be studied in order to understand how they can be made more effective. Elkins, Feeny, and Prentice (2018) have analyzed how the effectiveness of PRSPs depends on which development paradigm the document was written in accordance with. They did not, however, take into account how gendered development paradigms affect PRSP efficacy.
Another growing body of research connects greater levels of gender equality and a focus on uplifting the position of women and girls to better development in LDCs (Zuckerman, 2002; Manoukian et al., 2002). Manoukian et al. (2002) point out the efficiency argument for why there
is a need to focus on women and girls in development efforts; they argue that by studying how poverty uniquely affects people of different genders, poverty can be reduced more efficiently for all. This thesis builds on such research, which concludes that a focus on gender equality in development efforts enables efficient increases in development. As mentioned, there have been some studies that have analyzed the degree to which gender is taken into consideration throughout the PRSP process; namely the work of the World Bank (2001), Rodenburg (2004), Holvoet (2009), and van Staveren (2008). However, they have not quantitatively analyzed the implications of what a greater degree of gender focus in PRSPs has on country development in LDCs. This thesis is, as far as I know, the first of its kind in doing so.
By analyzing the impact that gender mainstreaming has on both the human and gender development in LDCs, this thesis further develops current research on applications of both GM and the Human Development Approach (HDA). Briefly, the HDA was introduced by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as a way of moving development strategies away from a sole focus of economic growth to a more socioeconomic approach to development of equipping people with opportunities and choices (Weeks et al., 2003). The PRSPs, intended to embody the HDA, are encouraged to be practiced together with engendering practices (Manoukian et al., 2002), of which the GM paradigm is widely accepted as the strongest. As such, both should be empirically justified as effective in practice. If they were to be deemed so, this research would add further to the confirmation of both paradigms and the applications that extend from them. If the GM and the HDA were deemed to be ineffective, this may point to the need for gender mainstreaming in international development interventions to be developed further in practice, and/or to the need for PRSP reform. Either of these two latter possibilities would suggest a flaw in the extension of either paradigm into practice.
1.3.2. Societal Relevance.
Whether the results reflect that gender mainstreaming PRSPs does or does not have a significant impact on the level of human and gender development is irrespective of this thesis’ substantive relevance. If the hypotheses are disproven, it does not necessarily point to a lack of need for gender mainstreaming. We know that focusing on gender in development results in a more holistic outlook on gender and poverty (Rodenberg, 2004) that is not only reduces inequity, but is also efficient for increasing overall human development. Rather, the hypothesis being disproven would point to a more pressing need for gender mainstreaming to be researched for its effects beyond the confines of the PRSP documentation. Additionally, there are a number of other potential constraints that could be limiting the effectiveness of gender mainstreaming PRSPs that, if the results were to show that GM scores have no effect on human and gender development, should be researched in greater detail. Examples of this, which will be discussed further later, include ownership of the PRSP document, the participation of women in poverty throughout the process, and a lack of commitment to or understanding of how to actually implement gendered strategies.
With the adoption of the new SDG, now would be the most appropriate time for international development partners and LDCs to understand what the effects of incorporating GM into all aspects of the PRSP process has. This is the initial step required to adopt a more comprehensive approach to development planning since new national development documents will be formulated for the SDG. These too will act as the cornerstones to guide development and
will serve as binding agreements that international development partners will refer to. Once the effects of both the GM paradigm and PRSPs are better understood, an effectually improved approach, one which ensures full participation and commitment from national governments, would be attainable. Thus, should the presence of strong gender mainstreaming within PRSPs not increase a country’s level of human and/or gender development, there would be an even greater pressing need to address the criticisms which hold back the process’ efficacy. This is essential so that future versions of national poverty reduction strategies, aimed toward achieving the SDG, could focus on gender development in an actually impactful way. We know from many sources, such as Cash and Sanchez (2003), that there are many areas for improvement within the PRSP process. As such, a negative result here only raises the pressure to develop better processes that are based on concrete studies, which consider any potential negative effects of development interventions. This research hopes to guide the future development of national poverty reduction strategies by uncovering the impact that gender mainstreaming has in this process and whether or not PRSPs are even an effective tool.
1.4. Background
1.4.1. Development Paradigms. Gender Development Paradigms.
In the 1970’s the development paradigm of integrating women in development (WID) as an approach to reducing gender inequality with respect to poverty dominated as the gender approach to be employed. The WID approach was centred on recognizing the inequity experienced by women and acknowledging women’s subordination, especially in regards to their economic position, and that productivity merits reward (Miller & Razavi, 1995). It did not focus on understanding the causal reasons for said subordination, which is arguably even more important. Miller and Razavi (1995) explain that “WID identified women’s lack of access to resources as the key to their subordination without raising questions about the role of gender relations in restricting women’s access in the first place”. Ultimately, gender inequity was recognized but the understanding the underpinnings that caused it, and thus the hope of addressing it and putting a halt to the perpetuation of the inequity, were not pursued as deeply. Largely, what came out of WID demands was support for small-scale employment opportunities for women designed to further their skills in nutrition and traditional handicrafts making (Miller & Razavi, 1995).
Due to minimal improvements in terms of finance and political gain, the efficiency approach of WID was replaced in the 1990’s with the gender and development (GAD) approach (Rodenberg, 2004). This strategy encourages holding decision makers accountable “to question gender-blind tools, systems and information as the basis for development planning” (Singhal, 2003). The GAD approach is premised on addressing the question of “why” women have been systematically "assigned to inferior and/or secondary roles” (Rathgeber, 1990). It, in its essence, lifts the weight of the approach before it whilst underscoring the importance of not only recognizing the subordinate position held by women in societies, but also having the understanding necessary to address the root causes. Despite the overwhelming consensus that the GAD approach is superior to that of WID, WID remains a widely used approach in many poverty alleviation strategies. One of the reasons that development interventions had not successfully implemented
the GAD approach is due to the widespread confusion regarding the difference between the WID and GAD approaches (Rodenberg, 2004).
Within conceptual approach of engendering exists an important paradigm that will be the dominant guide through which gender inclusivity will be analyzed; this paradigm is called gender mainstreaming (GM). GM encompasses a strategy used to include gender-differentiated perspectives into all aspects of policy projects and, effectively, measures (Rodenberg, 2004). Singhal eloquently describes gender mainstreaming as a “strategy for making women’s as well as men’s concerns and experiences an integral dimension of project design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes to promote equality” (2003). GM does not promote tackling poverty inequality by proposing development programmes specifically designed for women. Instead, it aims to assess all general policies for how they will affect women and men differently. This perspective, as GM outlines, should be taken during every stage of the policy planning and implementation process. In this way, it addresses women’s development challenges ex-ante ad discourages simply ex-post facto action. While recognized by aid donors in the international community as a binding principle, there are still inconsistencies with its conceptualizations and, in turn, the applications of GM in development projects (Rodenberg, 2004).
As will be outlined below in the Gender in PRSPs section, the HDA, championed by the UNDP, presented an opportunity to move away from the addressing basic needs toward addressing equity, empowerment, productivity and sustainability for development (Rodenberg, 2004). All of these factors play an important role in the consideration of poverty. The move away from retroactive economic corrections to human-centric focuses of development created an opening for gendered strategies to play a much greater role. Development, as noted by Singhal (2003), is hardly a matter of only economic development and physical well-being from having basic health resources. It is also very much a matter of opportunity that concerns other key facets of social life, be they political, cultural, intellectual, or moral. It should not exclude any groups from being provided the means that are necessary for “claiming, achieving, enjoying and utilizing equality of opportunity” (Singhal, 2003). The largest vulnerable group typically excluded from development interventions is women. The aim is to have women fully participate and for the facets of a poverty situation and the policies that follow to recognize the distinctness of women’s experiences from their male counterparts.
After the WC: PWC and NYC.
The post-Washington Consensus (PWC), a model with origins in the study of development economics, builds upon the previously dominant model of international development interventions, the Washington Consensus (WC). The WC stressed the importance of liberalized trade, macroeconomic stability and “getting prices right” in order to achieve good economic performance for economic development (Stiglitz, 2005). The WC is in essence a package of economic policy prescriptions, ten to be exact, that constitute the starting basis for economic reform intended to promote growth-based development (Williamson, 1989). The decalogue consisted of following principles to move toward: (1) fiscal discipline, (2) public expenditure re-prioritization, (3) tax reform, (4) positive real interest rates, (5) competitive exchange rates, (6) trade liberalization, (7) foreign direct investment, (8) privatization, (9) deregulation, and (10) property rights. These principles reflected a pro-market agenda (Williamson, 2009; Birdsall et al.,
2010) that largely contrasted an approach to economic development rooted in Keynesianism. The WC brought about a large amount of ideological debate in the field of international development (Williamson, 2009). A substantial proportion of the policy landscapes in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Eastern Europe nonetheless took on WC-inspired liberalization reforms (Rodrik, 2006). The criticisms were plenteous but I will be brief. WC reforms were criticized for: disregarding the need for efficient government in exchange for a focus on markets (Stiglitz, 2004), being devoid of historical causes of late development, and pushing for a universally converging approach to economic development (Gore, 2000).
The IMF, prior to 1999, determined low-interest loan eligibility and terms that were conditional on the receiving governments restructuring and rebuilding their economies in the image of the WC approaches. These IMF-backed adjustment programmes were officially referred to as the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility and have since been widely criticized as being, not only ineffective, but potentially counterproductive to development (IMF, 1999). Some of the IMF’s requirements for developing countries to retrench social provisions, in order to receive low-interest loans, directly hurt the poor populations they were intended help.
The PWC, along with the New York Consensus (NYC) that followed, were designed to provide a solution to the WC policies that failed to deliver on poverty reduction by providing a more human-centric approach to international development initiatives (Elkins et al., 2017). The PWC, in partial contrast to the WC, is centred around quality institutions, regulating institutional structures using a cautious global integration approach, and providing social safety nets (as cited in Elkins et al., 2017). However, the PWC was largely regarded as a series of expanded reforms that acted as a second generation of WC reforms (Rodrik, 2006). The NYC followed the PWC and, as posited by Elkins et al. (2017), reflects the intent of the United Nation’s Millennium Declaration; “economic growth, aid, targeted government expenditure and good governance, with the eventual aim of MDG attainment” (Elkins et al., 2017). This paradigm, as I will continue to refer to it, has become the new dominant approach for development intervention policies. However, it has not been as heavily focused on by academic researchers as the WC reforms have been (Hulme & Scott, 2010). Despite this, the NYC has been a leading force behind the MDG, and is thus highly relevant to the PRSPs.
1.4.2. PRSPs: The Human Development Approach.
PRSPs are documents borne out of the World Bank’s Comprehensive Development Framework (CDF) of 1998, not long before the MDG of the United Nations (UN) effectively began in September of 2000. Initially created by the World Bank for Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs), the PRSP strategy was adopted to include other developing countries apart from HIPCs. The purpose of the PRSPs was for developing countries to demonstrate their commitment to “macroeconomic stability, social development and poverty reduction” (Elkins et al., 2018) in order to receive access to aid support from international development partners, primarily the World Bank and IMF.
Primarily, a PRSP, as defined by the IMF, should “describe the country's macroeconomic, structural and social policies and [programmes]” (IMF, 2016). Ultimately, their purpose was to foster broad-based growth, rather than just market growth, reduce poverty, and promote needed major sources of financing (IMF, 2016). The national government of the developing country for which a PRSP was written was intended to be at the helm of the process. National governments
own these documents but worked in partnership with domestic development bodies as well as international aid donors. States received guidance from the World Bank and IMF with regard to what elements should be included. As well as content-based support, subsequent strategy implementation was also meant to be collaborative. It is ultimately the World Bank and IMF that accept national government’s plans as adequate PRSPs (BWP, 2003).
PRSPs were also intended to support the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) developed by the UNDP. As such, the UN strongly supported the use of PRSP documents as a “vehicle through which country policies, programmes, and resource requirements [were] linked to the MDGs” (Eggen & Bezemer, 2008). These documents ultimately represented the international consensus on means and ends of development throughout the MDG timeframe (Eggen & Bezemer, 2008). A notable advantage of the PRSPs is that they provided “access to a focused and public set of statements on national poverty reduction strategies, expected to influence budget allocation, and all government department programmes and projects” (Bennett, 2009). Additionally, and quite importantly, the fact that published PRSPs are internationally accepted by large development partners, namely the IMF and World Bank, contributed significantly to LDC governments committing to poverty reduction, civil society participation and donor collaboration (Driscoll & Evans, 2005).
The PRSP process is a representation of a central development strategy to the UNDP’s poverty reduction practices. In 1990, the UNDP published the Human Development Report (HDR), that solidified a new approach, the HDA, to international development efforts that moved away from solely macroeconomic dimensions of growth toward a measurement that focused on opportunities and choices for humans to achieve their aspirations (Weeks et al., 2003). This approach is considered to be a framework in which the ability for humans to achieve their aspirations becomes the updated main objective of development as opposed to previously touted unidimensional aspects of economic growth. The previous ideas behind solely economic approaches to development were that greater economic stability and comfort would enable people to live longer, healthier lives that are less full of hardship, much like the HDA. However, unlike WC reforms, the HDA highlights the fact that human development is about creating an environment in which people can “develop to their full potential and lead productive, creative lives in accord with their needs and interests” (Weeks et al, 2003).
Gender in PRSPs.
Gender mainstreaming in PRSPs goes beyond ‘engendering’, which is leveraged here in the sense of ‘integrating of gender into’, some areas of the PRSP. As mentioned, GM principles applied to the PRSP process would support gender-differentiating policy effects rather than just creating a stand-alone gender section recognizing women’s development challenges (Zuckerman, 2002). Integrating the paradigm of GM into PRSPs would firstly consist of each sub-section of the document taking into account how women and girls are affected by dimensions of poverty, such as poor education, lack of legal rights and judicial support, etc. It would also consist of each strategy outlined in the PRSP displaying its consideration of and planning for the effects on women and girls. Thus, as outlined by the theoretical perspective of GM provided by Singhal (2003); rather than considering the particular vulnerability to poverty that females have distinct sections, PRSPs are considered to be mainstreamed when each of the sections along with their targets take into account the possible effects on females and males separately. The reasoning stems from the
established fact that women and men experience poverty differently with respect to the different constraints, options, incentives, and needs that they often have. Since this is true, it is likely that the genders are also not affected in the same ways by the interventions made to address these factors that cause and perpetuate poverty (Manoukian et al., 2002). It is thus logical to presume that, because poverty is experienced differently by women and men on so many fronts, a gender mainstreamed approach to producing PRSPs, one which not only depicts the gender dimensions of poverty in a country but also proposes gendered solutions, will have the effect of improving the efficacy of poverty reduction efforts (Manoukian et al., 2002).
Past studies done by authors such as Bennett (2009), Holvoet (2009), Rodenberg (2004), and Zuckerman (2002) have sought to determine the level of gender mainstreaming that has taken place through the PRSP process. Both Holvoet and Rodenberg reference a similar study that was conducted by the World Bank in 2001 (World Bank, 2001), and updated in 2002 (World Bank, 2002), whereby the organisation developed a rating scale in order to quantify a country’s efforts to gender mainstream their PRSP3. In 2002 the World Bank published a ‘sourcebook’ to assist governments and their national development partners involved in the PRSP process to develop the contents of PRSPs. Within this sourcebook was a chapter that was aimed at guiding the PRSP process to be more gender mainstreamed so as to “identify and implement policies and [programmes] that will benefit both men and women and maximize potential benefits for poor families” (Manoukian et al., 2002). Manoukian et al. (2002) posit that the right questions should be asked so that gender differences in the ways that poverty is experienced is not overlooked. Since the closure of the MDG, and thus the PRSPs, a comprehensive gender review of the PRSPs has not been conducted. It is therefore not known whether efforts to guide gender mainstreaming have been helpful enough for PRSPs to have successfully taken a gendered approach to poverty that increased overall levels of human development.
PRSP Criticisms.
The PRSP process was developed by the World Bank and IMF in order to replace the heavily criticized development approach of SAPs, but has itself been subject to criticism. One of the key intentions of the PRSP process was to them nationally owned by the respective states. However, some of the most widely cited criticisms of the PRSP process has been that the World Bank and IMF, as well as other international donors and development partners, were still the driving forces behind the PRSs contained (Cash & Sanchez, 2003). That the PRSPs are not truly owned by the nations they represent is why PRSPs have been considered a form of “window dressing” (Elkins & Feeny, 2014; Stewart & Wang, 2003). This is in part because the contents of PRSPs reflect those of SAPs from the IMF that were deemed ineffective for combating poverty. This is a concern because it is believed largely to be a factor that reduces the ability for programmes to meet the unique poverty challenges of each LDC.
Other strands of criticisms concerning PRSPs reflect the idea that this process embodies a ‘re-morphing’ of the WC; neoliberal approaches to economic development from the 1990s that limited the extent of the participation process in their implementation (Sumner, 2006). Debating whether this is the case is out of the scope of this thesis. Instead, this research is meant to focus less on the ideological underpinnings of PRSPs and more on the outcome of how gender 3 “A first study in August 2001 analyzed 19 Interim and four Full PRSPs. The revised edition of April 2002 included a further six
mainstreaming them has affected human and gender development, which has received relatively limited attention as far as I am aware.
Additionally, some criticisms reflect that the potential negative impact of considered development intervention strategies are often overlooked, as not all poverty reduction strategies are entirely positive (Cash & Sanchez, 2003). If factors such as redistribution, for example, are not considered, or if alternative (secondary) markets are negatively affected by interventions from development partners, there could be negative ramifications that may hinder net human development. Analyses should not omit such considerations when determining strategies for poverty reduction, for the reasons outlined. However, it has been noted by authors such as Cash and Sanchez (2003) that many PRSPs do omit considerations of policy consequences. An example of development interventions that have had negative repercussions were the SAPs from the IMF and World Bank; funding was moved away from government and economic liberalization policies, which placed women in a worsened position of global production systems. Thus, many SAP reforms actually reinforced gender inequalities and were not successful in reducing poverty (van Staveren, 2008).
More criticisms pertain to the lack of full civil participation, especially by the extremely poor and vulnerable groups, throughout the PRSP process. This is a sentiment shared by multiple researchers (Elkins & Feeny, 2014; Stewart & Wang, 2003). Rushed timelines and a lack of government support as well as capacity are the central reasons for this. By not involving the most poor and vulnerable groups, the PRSP process risks misrepresenting the human development facets which people believe to be most vital to their poverty situations. This would lead to an erroneous focus on poverty factors that do not encourage the greatest degree of human development.
The framework under which PRSPs were encouraged to develop, documented in the PRSP Sourcebook (Klugman et al., 2002), has also been criticized for its bias against integrating gender as a critical component. Research developed by van Staveren (2008) has determined that there exists a common framework that places macroeconomic targets and policies at the focal point of PRSPs, reminiscent of WC strategies. This, however, has the effect of shifting prominence away from socio-economic targets and policies, assigning such topics a lower level of importance. Gender issues are one of these topics. For this reason, gender mainstreaming of PRSPs is hindered not only by confusion regarding gender development paradigms or lack of political will, but also by the very framework that development donors encourage (van Staveren, 2008).
2. HYPOTHESES AND CAUSAL MECHANISMS
The statistical testing of this thesis, I expect, will demonstrate that countries whose PRSPs exhibit a weak commitment to gender mainstreaming initiatives will experience less improvement in their development index. I expect this to be true even if their PRSPs are strong in other regards, such as in applying NYC approaches to bettering the economy and human capital. Put more directly, the main hypothesis that I present in this thesis is that higher gender mainstreaming for a country’s PRSP will result in some, likely modest, levels of improvement for that country’s human development index relative to countries with lower levels of GM present in their PRSPs. As will be outlined in the research methods section 4, the degree to which PRSPs have adapted to GM will be determined by a scoring method. The score that a PRSP can take is between 0 and 3. The hypothesis, therefore, should reflect that a section which scored a 3 should have a marginal but statistically significantly higher positive impact on the respective country’s HDI than a score of 0,
1, or 2. I specify both 0 and 1 because a score of 0 means that a country did not include a particular section, whereas a score of 1 means that a country did include a particular section but said section was not gender mainstreamed. The criteria for the scores will be expanded on further in section 4.1 (Table 3) but for now, it is important to grasp why scores of 0 and 1 are significantly different both from each other and from a maximal score of 3. A score of 2, while it indicated that there is
some effort to gender mainstream, shows either a lack of willingness or understanding to fully
implement gender mainstreaming. As determined by Zuckerman (2002) and outlined in section 1.4, a common confusion between engendering methods may be one reason for governments implementing some but not significant amounts of GM in their national policy outlines. These differences in GM applications is likely to provide variance in the scores that can be quantitatively tested.
The secondary hypothesis is that higher gender mainstreaming scores for a country’s PRSP will result in some, likely small and gradual, relative levels of improvement for said country’s gender development index level. This hypothesis is more intuitive. Focusing on gender more heavily in an internationally agreed-upon PRS should, if done well and if the PRSP process is effective, have some positive effect on the advancement of women. It is more important than this, however. If the secondary hypothesis is confirmed, it will progress the GM approach to gender equity and human development. Rejecting the null hypothesis, that gender mainstreaming a PRSP cannot confirm that it will result in higher levels of gender development, would expose a gap in the approach that needs to be addressed. Since it is known that progressing the development of women and girls increases the efficiency for overall (female and male) development (Manoukian et al., 2002), if gender mainstreaming of the PRSPs did not result in a higher level of gender development than the average of LDCs, a more promising approach would be called for.
The hypothesis regarding the tertiary research question is that the inclusion of relevant topics for development in PRSPs is associated with higher HDIs and GDIs for LDCs. How this hypothesis will be tested will be explained as a part of the research methods (section 4.2). For now, however, I want to convey that coefficients of the independent variables, which will represent GM scores, are hypothesized to be positive and significant. This hypothesis reflects the work of Elkins et al. (2018) in that it suggests that PRSPs and their relevant components are associated with reductions in poverty. Rather than focusing on a reduction in poverty and measuring poverty reduction in terms of the MDG, however, this thesis will aim to determine if the inclusions of poverty-related topics in the PRSP has increased development, which are measured by the human and gender development indices. This is a more appropriate measure given that the collection of data started before the year 2000, when the PRSP process was initiated and is thus able to look at already existing development trends in the LDCs.
Furthermore, I hypothesize that topics such as education and health, if included in sections within the PRSP, and if approached through the GM paradigm, will have the lowest positive effect on the HDI and GDI. This is because, firstly, statistical figures for such sections are collected from educational and health institutions and are better maintained than, say, civilian access to water or living conditions. Secondly, maternal health, thus women’s health, is an MDG goal. Given the connection between the MDG and PRSPs, I hypothesize that maternal health will be a focus in most documents. Thirdly, research has found that education is a topic in which policies are much less likely to be considered gender-blind (Rodenberg, 2004). For this reason, I hypothesize that strong gender mainstreaming in sections that are less common to all of the PRSPs analyzed within the PRSPs will have a larger positive effect on both the human and gender development indices. This is because such sections address the criticized aspects of the PRSP process. Sections that are
unique to a country’s own PRSP are likely to be a better reflection of the poverty challenges actually faced in said nation. Unique sections are also more likely to reflect greater national ownership of the PRSP rather than being a formulation of recommended development interventions through national development partners, namely the IMF and the World Bank. I expect strong gender mainstreaming of the participatory consultation sections to also have a larger effect on the outcome variables. The participatory consultations section is the key area of PRSPs where countries document the process of civil engagement that they have undertaken in formulating their national poverty strategies. Thus, the inclusion of such a section in PRSPs and it being strongly gender mainstreamed is likely to be a better reflection of the true poverty profile ailing civilians. This is because it is more likely to reflect their actual voices and be a better application of the HDA.
The implication of the expected hypotheses would not only confirm the importance of nationally owned and internationally accepted development strategies. They would also underscore the importance of needing to consider the gendered effects of PRSPs throughout every step of the process, so as to reduce gender inequality in how poverty is experienced and increase overall human development.
Potential Constraints.
There are a number of constraints that may affect the degree to which gender mainstreaming PRSPs would positively affect the HDI and GDI of a country. The tertiary hypothesis is that the introduction of the PRSP will have a positive effect on the countries human and gender development indices. However, if this hypothesis is rejected through the empirical testing that follows, it would of course limit the impact that applying GM to PRSPs would have.
The PRSP criticisms mentioned above in section 1.4.2 are likely reasons why the introduction of PRSPs may not strongly positively impact development, which would in turn limit the effectiveness that gender mainstreaming PRSPs has on the development indices. Non-unique focuses on what contributes to poverty and non-unique ways to address them likely stems primarily from the lack of national ownership of the PRSP process and/or window-dressing the PRSP as something other than an IMF structural adjustment programme. Another related constraint is the apparent limited participation of civilians who experience poverty in the PRSP process. Lastly, the lack of consideration for the residual effects of development interventions could also hinder PRSP effectiveness. These aforementioned PRSP faults are the reasons for which I hypothesized that the effects of gender mainstreaming PRSPs will be modest instead of large.
Even those governments that have attempted to engender their country’s PRSPs by considering more in depth how certain environments, institutional and otherwise, affect women and men differently still display gaps with respect to applying GM. Rodenberg (2004) concluded that PRSPs largely still propose poverty reduction initiatives rooted in the framework of WID as opposed to following the GAD approach to poverty reduction. This finding will be discussed further in the qualitative results (5) and analysis sections (6) below, as it echoes many of the findings I have come to in this thesis. Zuckerman (2010) has drawn the conclusion that there is widespread confusion between WID and GM approaches that is a large reason why women are still viewed as a target “vulnerable” group rather than a central consideration in each step of policy planning. This is believed to strongly hamper development intervention practices.
The inequality between men and women in organisations represented in the participation of the PRSP development process, as well as a general lack of their inclusion through the entirety of the PRSP progress are cited as some of the greater reasons that efforts to gender mainstream PRSPs have been impeded (Rodenberg, 2004). Thus, even if a country has maximally incorporated GM into the PRSP document, an unrepresentative participatory process that does not wholly include poor and vulnerable groups may not reflect true reasons for gender divisions in development. PRSPs may thus cite goals which are not well-suited to target the structural issues that hinder the development of women and girls and, as this thesis hypothesizes, the overall human development of a country. For this reason, even a maximum GM score may not be reflective of large improvements in levels of human development. The hypothesis, however, believes that even if gender mainstreaming is misplaced in its focus it will still have a small positive impact in not only gender development but also human development indices.
A study conducted by Elkins et al. (2018) provided evidence showing that PRSP implementation was more successful in reducing poverty related to education and health when the document was built in alignment with the New York Consensus paradigm. However, the scorecard which I employed does not look at this and thus uses only the main findings from this study, which support the use of PRSPs for poverty reduction interventions. Thus, another potential constraint that could explain why higher GM scores are not associated with a higher HDI and GDI is that countries with lower-than-average scores have not constructed the PRSP in alignment with the NYC paradigm. Combining an analysis that examines the degree to which the PRSPs have followed both the GM and New York Consensus paradigms is out of the scope of this thesis. However, it presents itself as a fruitful extension of this thesis.
Lastly, while the PRSP is an example of a central policy device for development, it is simply a document. It is meant to document honest strategies and outline monitoring plans for governments and donor partners to use as guidance. How well it is followed, though, cannot be guaranteed. Nor is there a guarantee that the policy strategies outlined in the PRSPs will be deemed effective in actuality. This is, I believe, the largest constraint that may have the effect of limiting PRSP and gender mainstreaming efforts.
Previously I had mentioned that I believe the effects of gender mainstreaming in PRSPs will be gradual, and should thus be analyzed over an 18-year period. It takes time to implement nation-wide reforms in developing countries with large rural populations, limited institutional infrastructure and limited capacity to undertake large-scale reforms in many societal facets. The amount of time is unclear; however, it would not be a matter of a couple of years. The PRSP approach follows the assumption that some results should be observable within a few years of its start (Bezemer & Eggen, 2008). Additionally, policy implementation outlines within the PRSPs are considered in terms of years rather than decades. However, the MDG were given a span of 15 years to be achieved. As such, I have chosen to stop the data collection in 2015, the year in which the MDG were meant to be achieved and, thus, when the PRSPs for the MDG purposes were meant to be concluded. The last progress reports were also published in 2015 and no such publications have been released by the IMF since.
3. RESEARCH DESIGN
3.1 Case Selection
Thirty-six countries considered to be least developed countries as of the year 2000 (UNCTAD, 2000) were chosen to be analyzed. While there were 48 at the time, the 36 that had successfully published PRSP documents with the IMF and World Bank were selected. These countries are: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Benin, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cabo Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Maldives, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Nepal, Niger, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Yemen, and Zambia. As briefly mentioned in the introduction, LDCs are countries in which extreme poverty is experienced by the largest majority of people in comparison to other countries; 26 of the 29 highest national poverty rates are experienced in LDCs. In 2016, the United Nations Conference of Trade and Development noted that:
“The proportion of the global poor in the 48 LDCs has more than doubled since 1990, to well over 40 percent. Their share of those without access to water has also doubled to 43.5 percent in the same period. And these countries now account for the majority (53.4 percent) of the 1.1 billion people worldwide who do not have access to electricity, an increase of two thirds” (UNCTAD, 2016).
For these reasons, the impact of development interventions should be even greater in LDCs in order to reduce the greatest number of the worst cases of poverty. Thus, I have chosen to focus my analysis on LDCs in order to empirically test applied development strategies where the need for efficacy is most pressing.
LDCs were selected not only for the reason that they experience poverty at a much greater scale, but also because gender inequality is generally much higher in countries with lower human development scores. In countries with a low HDI, a common feature of LDCs, gender inequality is persistent at high levels and in multiple dimensions (Gaye et al., 2010). The concept of HDI scores will be explained in the section below, however, it is worth noting now that LDCs have the lowest human development scores, as measured by the HDI. Gaye et al. (2010) find that low gender equity4 in a country is a key highly correlated factor to low levels of human development. It is for this reason that LDCs make for highly relevant cases when studying the effects that gender mainstreaming PRSPs has on levels of development. Given that gender inequity and inequality both contribute to low levels of human development, it is promising to focus research on whether national (and internationally accepted) PRSs that are highly attuned to gender equity and equality would have success in increasing levels of human development.
Given that the PRSP process was initialized in order to document the commitment of LDCs to the achievement of the MDGs, I have chosen to focus in on the MDG timeline. The MDG were allocated fifteen years, between 2000 and 2015, so that countries can be given sufficient time to
4 The distinction between gender inequity and gender inequality as they have to do with development is subtle. As
posited by Gaye et al., “Gender equity is an intrinsic dimension of human development. If girls and women are systematically denied freedoms and opportunities, this is not consistent with human development” (2010). Gender inequality is also highly relevant to human development because evidence shows that decreasing it is related to sustained human development (as cited in Gaye et al., 2010).
refocus their polices and reform systems to be better equipped to achieve the MDG. I have chosen to collect data from a few years prior to the initiation of the PRSP process, beginning in 1997, so as to ensure that development trends which were already happening were not being overlooked and erroneously attributed to the PRSP process.
One concern is that the countries that have published their PRSP documents earlier have had an advantage in terms of the amount of time that a national poverty strategy has been in place to guide development efforts. For example, Burkina Faso published their first PRSP (PRSP I) in the year 2000 whereas Djibouti published their PRSP I in the year of 2009. Djibouti theoretically only had 6 years to achieve the goals set out in their PRSP before their human development outcomes were measured, whereas Burkina Faso had 15. This limitation of the data is recognized. For the purposes of the statistical analysis that will be presented below, however, I will assume that all countries have had enough time to implement the strategies proposed in their PRSPs. The PRSP and MDG approaches take the assumption that some results should be observable within a few years of the process’ start (Bezemer & Eggen, 2008)5.
3.2. Operationalization
3.2.1. Dependent Variables.
This analysis, as mentioned, is interested in the changes of human development and gender development over time as a result of gender mainstreaming PRSPs. To measure the changes in human development, the UNDP-developed HDI has been utilized (UNDP, n.d.b). For measuring changes in gender-specific development, I have opted to use the closely related GDI (UNDP, n.d.a). The rationale for using both the HDI and the GDI is two-fold. Firstly, I have chosen to use the HDI in order to conclusively show that GM practices, which actively analyze women’s roles throughout the PRSP process, have a positive impact for all inhabitants, irrespective of gender. Zuckerman (2010) suggests that positioning the “virtues of gender equality in terms of poverty reduction” could be used as a tool to promote the use of GM to governments. Specifically, for governments who are unconvinced of the normative reasons for investing resources into reducing gender inequality but who are committed to reducing overall levels of poverty within their countries. Secondly, the GDI has been included to address some notions that investing in reducing gender inequality in development practices comes at the direct expense of men and boys (Dworkin et al., 2012). If the HDI were to be unchanged or to be negatively affected but the GDI were to be positively affected, a conclusion may be that the development of men and boys has decreased while that of women and girls has increased. While this would mean a more equitable distribution of development interventions, it is not the hypothesized or most ideal outcome of increased development for all, regardless of gender.
HDI.
The HDI is a measure from 0 to 1 that reflects the previously mentioned human development approach to development and poverty alleviation. The HDI is very good example of
how development measurements have progressed beyond just macroeconomic indices. The HDI was created in order to update the approach to reflect that human opportunities, and subsequent capabilities, are more important and meaningful criteria with which to assess the development of a country. Economic growth alone is not enough (UNDP, 2019). Two countries that have the same gross national income (GNI) or gross domestic product (GDP) may have very different levels of human development as reflected by their HDI score. Multiple reasons may exist for this; the country with a lower HDI level may have weaker institutions that provide social provisions, weaker labour laws, or larger populations of people living in rural regions with little access to provisions. Thus, it is important to look beyond only the economic indicators to include levels of human capacity to measure development.
The inequality-adjusted HDI (I-HDI) was considered because the interest in least developed countries is specifically due to the fact that these countries overwhelmingly experience much higher levels of income poverty, lack of human assets, and economic vulnerability (UNCTAD, 2016). The I-HDI is sensitive to the distribution of achievements in the three sections (health, education and income) within a country. It discounts the average HDI value for each dimension according to the level of inequality present. The I-HDI is without a doubt an interesting measurement. However, I have instead decided to leverage the HDI because the main interest of this thesis is the level of overall poverty reduction. The goal is not to measure the overall level of inequality reduction but to measure what effects strategies that aim to reduce gender inequality have on development. Additionally, in comparing the GDI which will be introduced below, I found it prudent to use comparable indices. Data for an inequality-adjusted GDI, while interesting to analyze, is not available. Determining the inequality of development interventions, in terms of the distribution of overall human and gender development achievements, would make for interesting further research but is out of the scope of this thesis.
Similarly, the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) was not selected because data is not available prior to 2007. Additionally, comparisons between the effects of gender mainstreaming PRSPs on female and male development would be made less clear because there is no gendered equivalent of the MPI. Analyzing the effects on the HDI and GDI separately makes for more clear conclusions to be drawn from testing with regard to who benefits from gender mainstreaming PRSPs.
The components from which the HDI is determined are shown in the Figure 1. The three core components are health, knowledge, and economic income, which indicates the standard of living one might experience with a given GNI per capita. It is interesting to note here that the decent standard of living component is calculated using the logarithm of income so as to capture the important fact that the value of income decreases as GNI increases (UNDP, 2019).
Figure 1: Components of the HDI
The HDI is a source of annually published data for the time period we are interested in. There are some gaps in the data, which make it unbalanced; Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Chad, Comoros, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, and Madagascar each have some years with missing data6. This will be addressed further in the Research Methods (4.2) section below.
GDI.
One of the first global measures that was designed in order capture gender disparities in countries was the GDI. The GDI is now considered a reliable source for monitoring gender development by not only UNDP but many other developmental partners (Gaye et al., 2010). The GDI is a measure of the gap in human development achievements made between females and males in three overall dimensions of human development: health, knowledge and living standards. These three dimensions are represented by the same indicators that are used to develop the HDI components but are separated out by gender. More formally, the GDI is the ratio of the HDIs calculated separately for females and males and is thus the female HDI as a percentage of the male HDI (UNDP, 2019).
The breakdown of the GDI variable is displayed in the Figure 2. The three core components, which are calculated for females and males separately, are longevity of life and health, knowledge, and standard of living. Much like the standard of living is determined for the HDI, so too is it calculated using the logarithm of income for the GDI (UNDP, 2019).
Figure 2: Components of the GDI
(UNDP, 2019)
The GDI outcome variable is available, for most countries, annually from 2010 up to and including 2015. However, from 1997 to 2009, the data is only available for the years 2000 and
6 The missing HDI data by country and (year) are: Bhutan 2004), Burkina Faso 1999), Cabo Verde
1999), Chad 1999), Comoros 1999), Ethiopia 1999), Guinea-Bissau 2004), Liberia (1997-1998), and Madagascar (1997-1999).
2005. Much like the HDI dependent variable, some countries have missing data points7. This set also represents unbalanced panel data which will be addressed in greater detail in section 4.2.
3.2.2. Independent Variables.
The causal variable of which I have the greatest interest in is the degree to which PRSP documents (IMF, 2016) have been engendered, specifically through following the GM paradigm. This is so that the effect of gender mainstreaming PRSPs on human and gender development could be estimated. It is prudent to underscore once more the significance of using the GM paradigm to determine the level of engendering in PRSPs. The concept of engendering has been demonstrated by strategies other than GM in the past, namely WID and GAD. These approaches, however, merely sought to recognize and understand the causes for gender inequity. GM aims to continue uncovering the reasons but differs in that it also plays a greater role in female development by taking this understanding and applying it to all future policy planning. The significance of PRSPs has also been outlined, however, it is important to reiterate that these documents were central in development planning from 2000-2015. While the SDG may not use PRSPs per say, they will employ similar policy devices that outline national sustainable development strategies.
I have opted to take the first version of the full, rather than interim, PRSP that a country has published8. Full PRSPs, hereafter referred to as PRSPs, are more complete and thorough strategy plans. They have higher median values, as scored by the World Bank in 2001, for their consideration accorded to gender aspects in the central elements, or as I will continue to refer to, topics (as cited in Rodenberg, 2004). Thus, where possible of course, I chose to use the full documents. Despite a handful of countries having published updated versions of the PRSP (PRSP II), I used the earliest version to allow for more years to be included in the data analysis. Central African Republic, Comoros, and Sudan have not published a full PRSP to date; I chose to still include these countries but use their I-PRSP instead.9
For this analysis, I considered only the first instance of a PRSP document, despite the fact that some of the 36 countries have published second phases of PRSPs. This is because unsubstantial improvements were made between the first and second phase of PRSPs (PRSP I and PRSP II, respectively) with regards to incorporating gender into each subsection of the documents (Holvoet, 2009). Doing this also allowed for a greater number of countries to be included into the analysis and also allowed for a longer time period during which a country had a PRSP document in effect. Additionally, choosing the first full PRSP provided consistency across all countries, as some have published multiple full PRSPs whereas others have published one or only an I-PRSP.
7 Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan do not have data prior 2005. Haiti and
Zambia have only data from 2010 until 2015. Additionally, there is no data for Djibouti and Guinea-Bissau.
8 I will refer to the year in which the PRSP was published by the IMF on imf.org/external/np/prsp/prsp.aspx although
this sometimes differs from the year the PRSP was created. I have done so because the IMF publishing date is the date in which this document has become more binding as an international agreement between the issuing country and international development partners, namely the IMF and World Bank.
9 Lesotho’s IPRSP was also used despite them having published a full PRSP in 2012. This was done because using
the PRSP instead of the IPRSP would leave only 3 years of dependent variable data for the analysis. The IPRSP was checked compared against the PRSP for completeness and was deemed to be sufficient for the purposes of this analysis.
