Women in development

Esther Boserup is the first person to make an important statement of the position of women in development. She criticised modernisation because the modernisation process supervised by colonial authorities had placed new technologies under the control of men. This modernisation process treated women unfairly and insignificantly by reducing their status, their power and their income. Women in development approach gave voice to women and pushed the issues of gender into the centre stage. Instead of improving women's rights and status, the development process appeared to be contributing to a deterioration of their position. Women were being left out development practice, research and policy and they were not benefiting fully and in some cases their status was made worse by development. The women in development approach argued for the integration of women in development programmes to improve women’s position in society.

Women and development

While the women in development approach argued that women should be brought into the modernisation process, the women and development perspective argued that it was precisely their link with modernisation that had made them more poor. The women and development’s main focus is on the interaction between women and development processes rather than to integrate in development like women in development. Women and development argued that the integration of women into development only made their inequality worse.

Gender and development

Gender and development aimed to bring together both the lessons and limitations learnt from WID and WAD approaches. GAD looks at the impact of development on both women and men. Gender and development argued that women were not a homogeneous group but rather divided by race, class and ethnicity. Gender and development also recognises that women may be involved in development but may not necessarily benefit from it.

The approaches that are most useful in the SA context are WAD and WID.