The Special Program of Assistance: Background and Context

1The Special Program of Assistance for low-income debt-distressed countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SPA) was launched in 19871. According to the Phase 4 document, two problems characterized Sub-Saharan Africa’s economic crisis at that time. First, poor economic policies and structural weaknesses were putting a brake on economic development. Second, this was compounded by a lack of resources to finance imports and key expenditures, especially in the light of the heavy debt burden faced by the sub-continent. The SPA was a compact between donors and countries that responded to these twin problems. Without deep economic reforms, there could be no prospect of development for Africa. Without adequate and timely support to finance a sufficient level of imports and expenditures, the crisis would worsen, and the prospects for reform would recede even further. For those countries that undertook to launch and sustain economic reform programs, the SPA donors would, in turn, undertake to make the necessary finance available through quick-disbursing mechanisms (World Bank 1997).

2The donors and supporting institutions, and the eligible beneficiary countries of the SPA, have changed over time. There are currently 21 donors and supporting institutions, and 31 eligible countries (Box 1). The eligibility criteria are few and rather straightforward: SPA countries are IDA-only, debt-distressed (initially interpreted as a debt service ratio before rescheduling in excess of 30 percent), and implementing an economic reform program supported by the World Bank and IMF. Since 1993, prominent Africans have been invited to speak about their experiences on the "front lines" of reform (Box 2). African voices, including those of NGOs, have also been heard in the various working groups that SPA has established at different times to address pressing or recurrent issues.

* Countries declared eligible between phases are shown in bold print.
** Zaire and Somalia, originally eligible under SPA-1, were declared inactive in October 1990 and have been ineligible since.
Source: World Bank 1997.

Gender in SPA: A Chronology 1993-97

3Gender has become an integral part of the work of SPA. In 1990, "adjustment" was identified as one of a number of crosscutting issues which are critical for gender-responsive development in Africa but which are insufficiently addressed in economic analysis, sector work, or in reform operations2. The donors launched the third phase of SPA in 1993 and decided to establish a Working Group on Poverty and Social Policy (WGPSP), alongside those on Public Expenditure, Economic Reform in the Context of Political Transition, and Civil Service Reform. The WGPSP held its first meeting in September 1993, in Oslo, where it defined its central objective as considering how the SPA could have a greater impact on poverty reduction and social development in Africa. The WGPSP would focus on the impact of macroeconomic and sectorial reform (adjustment) programs on poverty, and was to bring poverty and social issues into the economic reform agenda. As a member of the group, and as an initial step, the World Bank contributed a paper analyzing the links between gender and economic reform in Africa (Box 3).

4Following the PSPWG meeting in September, the October 1993 plenary meeting of SPA donors included some discussion of the linkages between gender and economic adjustment in Africa. The view was expressed by a number of delegates that women's issues had been ignored in the design and application of adjustment. The plenary concluded that a workshop should be held for SPA donors, at which these issues could be examined in more depth and an action plan could be prepared for addressing gender issues in the work of SPA. The Government of Norway agreed to host the workshop, which was co-chaired by the Bank, and was held in Oslo in March 1994.

5At its April 1994 plenary meeting, SPA donors discussed the conclusions and recommendations of the Oslo workshop, and agreed that on grounds of equity, economic efficiency, and effectiveness, gender should be recognized as an important part of the adjustment agenda. In this context, the Structural Adjustment and Gender in Africa (SAGA) initiative was launched with Canadian leadership to provide both a coordinating framework and a financing mechanism for SPA donors to address, more systematically than in the past, gender and economic issues in the activities and work programs of SPA. In support of this international effort, SAGA has helped to launch and coordinate a broad range of activities (e.g., research studies, case studies, consultations) to foster a greater understanding of the gender dimensions of economic reform. Detailed country case studies were undertaken in Zambia, Mali, and Ghana, work was launched on incorporating gender analysis into public expenditure reviews and expenditure incidence analysis, and gender issues in the design and sequencing of financial sector reforms have begun to be addressed. SPA members also agreed at the time that they would assess progress and define further actions required at a follow-up workshop in about 18 months.

6The second SPA donor workshop was held in Ottawa in October 1995. By this time, the recognition that gender is a key dimension of the structure of a country’s economy, and that economic capacities and incentives are strongly differentiated by gender, was more firmly established. Gender in SPA has moved beyond the analytical focus of "completing the picture" (a key theme in Oslo) toward the operational focus of "narrowing gender gaps" (a key theme in Ottawa). There is broad acceptance that the effective integration of gender concerns into the design and implementation of reform measures, to address systemic constraints pro-actively, can lead to improved outcomes.

The Relevance of Gender for SPA

7As noted at the Oslo workshop, supply response under adjustment has been disappointingly weak, to the point of endangering government ownership and donor sustainability. Although there are many reasons for this, one key factor, insufficiently appreciated, is that household-level response, which underpins both formal and informal sector response to adjustment measures, is critically dependent on women. Since women's household work is "invisible" in the prevailing economic paradigm, the picture of "productive" activity is incomplete and partial. This picture is composed of three principal elements.

• Some labor (predominantly female) is immobilized in activities not responsive to economic (market) signals, indicating gender-differentiated structures of economic opportunity, as well as weakness of markets and prices as instruments of policy in fully determining resource allocation.

• The "invisibility" of household work, and the non-attribution of economic value or cost to it, lead to mistaken and unrealistically optimistic assumptions by planners about increased economic production from shifts of women's time out of this work (with the mistaken assumption of a zero opportunity cost).

• Ignoring the implications of macro-economic changes for unpaid domestic labor inputs, especially when there are increased demands on women's time as both producers and household managers, is tantamount to assuming that women's capacity to undertake extra work is "infinitely elastic."

8The opportunities, constraints, incentives, and choices faced by economic agents are gender-based – gender is a central determinant of differential access to, use of, and control over economically productive resources (land, labor, technology, capital, training, information). This, in turn, has implications for the productivity, flexibility, responsiveness, and dynamism of the economy (Box 4). The gender imbalance in access to and control of economically productive resources leads to a lower response to economic incentives than would be the case if these differentials were reduced. There is considerable evidence (especially in agriculture) of this "missed" economic potential. Choices and trade-offs in time allocation are at the core of the interrelationships between sectors of activity, and reflect the interdependence between the "visible" and "invisible" economy, given the simultaneous competing claims on women's – but not men's – labor time. Women's time constraint is particularly severe, and growing, in both rural and urban areas.

9The payoffs to any improved social service delivery will prove elusive in SSA unless explicit measures are taken to ensure that women and girls benefit. There is systemic gender bias in access to basic social services, notably education, skill training, and health. Low education and poor health lead to high fertility, high maternal and child mortality, and low productivity in the economy. While this may not have much immediate impact on the level and composition of national output, in the longer run deterioration in health, education, and nutrition will have an adverse impact on output levels.

10Evidence in SSA also suggests great diversity in household structure and composition and largely separate sources and uses of income and resources between men and women. This often leads to inequality in intra-household resource allocation. For example, shifts of labor resources (and other production factors) from non-tradable production to tradable production in the context of economic adjustment can have the effect in some circumstances of tilting the balance of economic power within the household to the further detriment of women.

11While coverage and data are incomplete, and the picture is complex, enough is known to support the conclusion that men and women have different experience of the economic reform process. Gender relations have an impact on adjustment outcomes. These gender-based differential constraints and opportunities have two principal implications: women's potential to contribute to expanded economic activity permitted by successful adjustment is unlikely to be fully tapped (efficiency problem), and women share less of the benefits of successful adjustment (equity problem). Ignoring the differential constraints faced by men and women reduces the potential economic growth rates of African countries and leads to some of the critiques of adjustment on equity grounds.

Summary of Agreed Recommendations from the Gender Workshops

12The Oslo and Ottawa workshops led to specific recommendations and proposals for integrating gender into the work of SPA. These are presented in summary form below.

Oslo Workshop (March 1994) – (see annex 1)

13All the key parties (governments, donors, local country participants, and the World Bank) have a shared responsibility to address the gender dimensions in policy dialogue, analytical work, in macroeconomic and sectoral adjustment, and in sectoral and cross-sectoral investment programs. It will be vital for the World Bank, donors, and governments to help to develop African capacity to analyze gender issues and to implement policies and investments which address these issues over time.

14The critical task is to address gender issues pro-actively through policy dialogue, consultative processes, data analysis, and the full range of operational instruments. This is primarily the job of Government, but helped and supported by donors and research/training institutions. Most relevant to SPA, and to the future of Africa, is to pay explicit attention to gender-differentiated constraints and opportunities in the design and implementation of macroeconomic adjustment programs, and to utilize sector investment programs (SIPs) to address these differentials and their implications for sustainable growth and poverty reduction.

• Governments, donors, and the World Bank should take action to address gender issues in the context of adjustment and to internalize the recommendations and thinking within their own institutions and programs.

• It is important that the gender focus be "owned" by the adjusting countries and that positive policy dialogue where we can agree on action, rather than conditionality, should be emphasized.

• All key parties should develop a systematic focus on gender issues in structural adjustment missions, and identification of situations in which special inputs could facilitate a stronger adjustment response. Building local and international capacity to undertake relevant gender analysis is critical. This could include:

• • gender training for economists in government ministries of finance and planning, and in multilateral and bilateral agencies;

  • training in economics for gender specialists in governments, NGOs, and in multilateral and bilateral agencies;

  • strengthening of dialogue, exchange, and exploration of ideas between gender specialists and social scientists and economists within governments, and bilateral and multilateral agencies.

• The elements of macroeconomic and sectoral adjustment discussed at the workshop in the context of the broader development agenda, where there is a need for much more careful attention to gender differences, through gender analysis, are:

• the functioning of markets (with particular focus on labor markets) in both urban and rural environments;

• the implications of structural adjustment for human resource development (with particular focus on gender-responsive social service provision and delivery);

• sector policies: agriculture, education, health, urban;

• gender-exclusionary bias of economic and financial services, such as agricultural research and extension, and enterprise credit.

15Public Expenditure Reviews (PER) should be viewed as a critical link between the macroeconomic framework and sectoral investment programs. Public expenditure analysis provides the basis for an integrated policy and sector investment approach, complementing the agreed policy framework. PERs are a critical instrument for specifying gender-responsive investments and priorities. Where there is an appropriate macro framework and an integrated sector approach, the inclusion of gender-focused projects in the expenditure program can succeed in removing some of the constraints limiting women's response to improved policy. This is especially important in addressing human resource development issues in the context of adjustment, where the gender dimension is seen as a key factor in achieving efficiency and equity.

Ottawa Workshop (October 1995)

16• Pilots in 3 Countries to undertake the integration of gender concerns into the preparation of three structural adjustment operations.

17• Structural Policy Issues. Fuller integration of three priority issues into policy dialogue and adjustment operations in all countries, aimed at overcoming structural constraints to women’s economic empowerment:

Protection of "Core Public Expenditures". Priority reforms to maximize gender-equitable participation in economy and society would include the following: (a) re-allocate resources to primary education/literacy, and basic health/preventive care; (b) shift agricultural support priorities, especially in credit, research, and extension, to take account of women farmers needs; and (c) address market failures through improvements in infrastructure (e.g., water supply and sanitation, rural transportation, and market information systems). Increased allocations in these areas should form part of the core macro criteria for approval and tranche release of adjustment operations, and should be highlighted in public expenditure reviews, which should also consider gender-specific incidence analysis.

Girls’ Education has proven its high investment returns. This justifies giving this issue priority attention at the highest levels of policy dialogue as part of a multi-sectoral package of reforms. Commitment to equal access entails pro-actively using the full range of policy instruments relevant to economic reforms.

Legal Reform. It is now widely recognized that laws and customs impede women in their access to productive resources needed for their economic and social roles. Tackling gender disparity (e. g., in land, inheritance, and property rights, or in access to financial services), in the framework of macro dialogue and reform, would have efficiency and productivity benefits in such key areas as agriculture, enterprise development, and poverty reduction.

18• Strengthening the Process of Economic Reform and Adjustment. To improve the dialogue on gender in economic reforms, two key areas were identified:

• Women’s Voice in Economic Decision-Making. Broadening representation of African women participants in the design of economic reforms can be pursued through a combination of policy dialogue and mutually established performance benchmarks.

• "Upstream" gender analysis should be included in adjustment operations and reflected in policy dialogue, as well as in pre-design analytical work. This is in line with the proposed "top five questions" contained in the World Bank’s suggestions for higher impact adjustment operations.

Cross-Cutting Sectoral Policy and Reforms

19Priorities must be established using criteria that are simultaneously applied in three cross-cutting areas: improving women’s economic productivity, reducing their time constraint, and investing in their capacity. Key sectors for focus include:

• Financial Sector Reforms: The main objective of institutional reforms should be to incorporate "informal" sector intermediation and to provide incentives for "formal" commercial institutions to reach small-scale economic actors. Such reforms need to be vigorously pursued and targeted earlier in terms of sequencing.

• Agriculture Reform: The sector’s sheer size justifies priority attention to reforms. But reforms must reflect women’s prominent role in SSA agriculture. This requires, redirection of agricultural support programs to local food crop production, processing, and marketing, to accelerate supply response as well as sustainable productivity improvements. There is a particularly urgent need for integrated packages in these areas, including research and extension, in conjunction with appropriate financial services.

• Education: Policies to promote female participation would include affirmative education policy (e.g., financing, subsidies, differential costing, scholarships) and innovative program design to address systemic constraints (e.g., curriculum revision in schools, complementary programs for literacy/numeracy and technical skills).

Key Actions to Integrate Gender into the Work of SPA

20The process of integrating gender into SPA work involves many different tasks. Some of the principal activities are summarized below.

Gender Pilots

21At the Ottawa workshop, the Bank proposed that three gender "pilot" adjustment operations be prepared over the following twelve months. In the event, one of these did not materialize (yet), while two others have been developed. These pilots, in Mali and Mozambique, are described more fully in Annex 2. SPA is committed to undertaking, at an appropriate time, an ex-post evaluation of performance under these pilots to learn from the practical experience of efforts to integrate gender into economic reform operations. Gender-differentiated supply response in Zambia Statistics Norway conducted a pioneering study examining supply response from a gender perspective in response to adjustment in Zambian agriculture (Wold et al. 1997). The study confirmed the existence of legal gender bias, bias in family obligations, and bias in division of labor. These biases turned out to be serious constraints on the supply response capacity of women farmers. The focus of the study was not on the gender biases themselves, but on whether and how gender biases constrained women farmers in their agricultural supply response. Due to legal constraints, family obligations and work load, women farmers are less able to utilize market opportunities, and respond differently, and to a different set of marketing opportunities. The study found that small-scale women farmers did evidence the negative supply response that the gender literature predicts – but all other small and medium-scale farmers did as well. Other gender differences were highlighted. Male farmers respond more to market opportunities in the sense that: (i) they are more responsive to price changes by switching to relatively better-paid crops, even if these were traditionally considered "female crops;" and (ii) they respond to marketing opportunities, such as in-kind credit-based contract farming, and more distant-from-village, higher-price sales opportunities. Women farmers respond less to market opportunities and respond differently in the sense that: (i) they are more time-constrained and more obligated to produce for own-consumption, hence cannot vary response as much; (ii) women are more risk-averse in responding to opportunities because of their greater responsibility for household food security; (iii) because of their lower effective access to credit, women have more limited choices; and (iv) women respond more strongly than men-farmers to well-organized marketing opportunities at the community level.

Cote d'Ivoire Incidence of Public Spending on Education by Income Quintile: All Education

Incidence analysis in public expenditures.

22The two SPA gender workshops emphasized the importance of public expenditure reviews (PERs) and reform of the direction and composition of spending. One of the more promising analytical approaches has been the development of public expenditure "incidence analysis." This combines budget and administrative data, from which unit costs of services are calculated, with household survey data from which utilization patterns can be determined. Gender is an important axis of segmentation in this analysis. Outcomes are a function of (i) the patterns of government spending allocation, and (ii) household behavior (choices) in utilizing services. Analysis from Côte d’Ivoire illustrates the approach, suggesting that gender disparities persist where females receive only about 1/3 of education spending, with inequality more marked among the lower income quintiles (Figure) (Demery et al., 1995). It is interesting to note in this context how much progress is being made in South Africa to develop "women’s budgets" as a mechanism for integrating gender into public finance decision making and resource allocation (Budlender, 1996).

Gender content of strategic documents

23SPA donors have been concerned about the relative lack of attention to gender in key policy documents, notably Country Assistance Strategies (CAS) and Policy Framework Papers (PFPs), as well as in economic reform operations. There has been considerable attention focused on integration of poverty and gender issues into CASs in the SPA framework. Reviews of the poverty and gender content of CASs were undertaken in FY96 and FY96 by UK (DFID) and by the World Bank in FY97. The criteria for looking at poverty and gender used in the FY97 review drew on the Africa Region’s Guidelines for Putting Poverty at the Center of the CAS, widely disseminated within the Region in 1995, and the Regional Gender Action Plan (RGAP), which was approved by Regional management in January 1997. The key elements of the framework are summarized in Table 1.

24The RGAP identifies four key gender issues and strategic objectives in Africa (Box 5). Each of these strategic objectives has an important contribution to make to achieving the Region’s overarching goal of sustainable poverty reduction. The RGAP argues that there are important synergies and complementarities among these objectives, and that their contribution to poverty reduction can be amplified through concurrent actions addressing all of these objectives, so that multiple and mutually reinforcing benefits can be achieved (RGAP 1997). The review of gender in CASs therefore looked at the extent to which attention to gender issues is focused on each of these objectives.

25These sets of reviews are only partially comparable, in that the evaluation criteria for FY97 were more detailed than those used in previous years. Table 2 below summarizes the results of the CAS review.

26The status of attention to the three "sectoral" strategic gender issues in the CASs is as summarized in the figure. This suggests that some progress has been made in address-ing economic capacity and social services issues, but that much more needs to be done to integrate infrastructure concerns, especially if the synergies among these objectives are to be pursued to the fullest. The assistance strategies articulated in the FY97 CASs have a somewhat limited approach to gender. Most of the CASs contain actions in the areas of economic capacity and social services and six of eleven CASs include gender-responsive actions in infrastructure. However, only five of the eleven CASs contain actions in all three areas.

Comparing Analysis and Actions in Key Areas (Number of FY97 CASs)

1998 Status Report on Poverty in SSA

27The WGPSP has the task of preparing an annual status report on poverty in SSA. The status report for 1998 is to be devoted thematically to "gender and poverty" in Africa. This report provides an important opportunity to examine linkages between gender, growth, and poverty reduction.

Emerging Issues for SPA

28The SPA partners are aware of the need to respond to changing circumstances in Africa. SPA itself needs to evolve to support Africa in new ways. The SPA 4 document outlines key challenges facing African countries in the years ahead, notably that growth is recent and fragile, and that, while a marked improvement over performance in the 1980s, current growth rates are nowhere near sufficient to make a significant contribution to poverty reduction; for this, much faster growth is required. More accelerated growth and better distribution of its benefits (Box 6) requires addressing key structural problems. Sound economic management is a necessary but not sufficient condition for growth and poverty reduction. Furthermore, the climate for assistance, and for quick-disbursing assistance in particular, has deteriorated over the last few years, even while the debt burden of many countries remains unsustainably high.

29The SPA forum has already begun to address these challenges. Discussion of the reform agenda has evolved as Africa itself has evolved. The focus of SPA has broadened from coordin-ating and mobilizing financing in response to a crisis to basic concerns such as improving donor practices to enhance aid effectiveness; accelerating growth, with concern for distribution of that growth and gender equality, strengthening capacity building and public expenditure management, and introducing the concept of comprehensive sector investments (SIPs) in key areas such as human resources, agriculture, infrastructure, and private sector development. The key objectives of SPA 4, one of which is the "better integration of poverty and gender concerns in the design of economic reform programs" are outlined in Box 7.

Conclusion

30The challenges facing Africa, and the SPA as a mechanism for coordinating financial assistance, are considerable. Notwithstanding the progress made in addressing poverty and gender concerns in economic reform in Africa, poverty in Africa is growing, and a much sharper focus on poverty reduction in economic reform will be needed. More attention will need to be given to strengthening country commitment to poverty reduction and to supporting those reforms which have the greatest beneficial impact on the poor.

31As reforms are deepened and consolidated, the role of the financial sector in the reform process will be critical. Working together, African governments, donors and financial institutions must introduce early on in the reform process specific policy level and institutional changes necessary to establish and strengthen financial intermediaries which are adapted to extending financial resources to poor women and men in the informal sector. Institutions supported should be those which can do so profitably and help poor entrepreneurs move from traditional "risk minimizing" behavior subject to income, to profit maximizing behavior governed by profit opportunities and level of risk. This will require incorporating institutional reform during the financial sector stabilization process, if a strong growth response is expected in the real sector. It will also mean establishing and/or strengthening non-bank financial intermediaries (NBFIs) capable of absorbing additional risks of small-scale lending and rendering it profitable and sustainable, so that with sound credit management and good portfolio performance, small clients can ultimately become mainstreamed as bank customers (Duggleby 1995).

32SPA is an essential forum for "main-streaming" gender concerns in economic policy dialogue and analysis, especially as it evolves toward greater African participation in its deliberations and promotes greater African ownership of the reform agenda. The framework prepared by Diane Elson for integrating gender into country strategies illustrates and applies a key insight of past gender work in the WGPSP, namely that gender is a critical – indeed structural – dimension of African economies. The framework argues that different sectoral growth patterns make different demands on male and female labor time and have different implications for the gender division of income and work (Elson et al., 1997).

33Perhaps the most critical challenge for gender mainstreaming is not technical or economic in nature, but one of effectively enabling women’s voices to be heard in the reform process. Even in Mali, where one of the pilots is ongoing, gender-inclusive participation raises complex practical questions. Data on men’s and women’s representation in key public functions in Mali reveal that women remain nearly invisible in public life (Figure).

Mali - Women and Men in Public Life

34As argued in the Bank’s issues paper (Blackden and Morris Hughes, 1993), gender analysis must be an integral part of design of policies and programs aimed at promoting economic growth and alleviating poverty. This enables systematic attention to be given to the gender issues discussed here, and their implications for economic policy and design of reform measures. Gender analysis must take account of, and seek to redress, the imbalances in the gender division of labor (including rigidities in labor allocation), the diversity and asymmetry of households and intra-household relationships, gender-based differentials in incentive capacity resulting from differential access to, and especially control over economically productive resources, and the implications of the invisibility of women's work in the economic paradigm for economic choices and strategies, and for evaluation of outcomes. These factors critically define the context in which all development interventions operate, and must be better understood if reform efforts – and development programs more generally – are to achieve their intended poverty-reducing objectives.1

Annex 1. SPA Workshop on Gender and Economic Adjustment3 in Sub-Saharan Africa (Lysebu, Oslo, March 1-2, 1994) Summary Report of Workshop Conclusions

35At the October 1993 meeting of the SPA, it was agreed that a workshop of donor representatives should be held to address gender issues and adjustment. The view was expressed by a number of delegates to the October 1993 SPA meeting that women's issues had been ignored in the design and application of adjustment. The intention of the workshop was to review the evidence suggesting that adjustment processes have created different opportunities and different constraints for men and for women, and that gender is therefore an important dimension in design and implementation of adjustment measures. Considerable evidence suggests that adjustment is not as effective as it might be because of the failure to take women's potential productivity into account. Neglect of gender differentials in participation in the economy therefore reduces the economic impact of adjustment (efficiency issues) and leads to differential costs and benefits borne by men and by women in the context of adjustment (equity issues). Workshop participants noted that women need to be considered as full economic actors and change agents, not as "vulnerable groups."

36The Norwegian Government hosted the workshop and co-chaired it with the World Bank. This report is a brief summary of the major conclusions. The workshop reviewed considerable documentation and analysis representing donor experience, research findings from other sources, and participants' knowledge of the theory and practice of structural adjustment and gender programming. While coverage and data are incomplete, and the picture is complex, enough is known to support the conclusion that men and women have different experience of the structural adjustment process. Gender relations have an impact on adjustment outcomes.

Linkages between Gender and Adjustment

37Workshop participants noted the evolution in the concept of structural adjustment, that adjustment is not a short-term response to a crisis but rather an integral part of a long-term development agenda which includes human resources. The principal gender issues which have a bearing on structural adjustment programs in SSA are summarized below. The framework for addressing gender and adjustment linkages is in the Annex. Despite the limited data, the existing evidence points to important structural constraints and problems negatively affecting women that are pertinent to adjustment programs. It is this set of constraints which creates a need to place gender issues explicitly on the adjustment agenda. Gender-awareness on the critical path in design of adjustment measures contributes to more effective adjustment.

38Supply response under adjustment has been disappointingly weak, to the point of endangering government ownership and donor sustainability. Though there are many reasons for this, one key factor, insufficiently appreciated, is that household-level response, which underpins both formal and informal sector response to adjustment measures, is critically dependent on women. Since women's household work is "invisible" in the prevailing economic paradigm, the picture of "productive" activity is incomplete and partial. This picture is composed of three principal elements, which are elaborated below.

Some labor (predominantly female) is immobilized in activities not responsive to economic (market) signals, indicating gender-differentiated structures of economic opportunity, as well as weakness of markets and prices as instruments of policy in fully determining resource allocation.

The "invisibility" of household work, and the non-attribution of economic value or cost to it, leads to mistaken and unrealistically optimistic assumptions by planners about increased economic production from shifts of women's time out of this work (with the mistaken assumption of a zero opportunity cost).

Ignoring the implications of macroeconomic changes for unpaid domestic labor inputs, especially when there are increased demands on women's time as both producers and household managers, is tantamount to assuming that women's capacity to undertake extra work is "infinitely elastic."

39The capacity of people to respond to opportunities provided by adjustment measures in the productive sectors is influenced by gender-based constraints. Imbalances in the gender division of labor, and in access to and control of economically productive resources, derived from unequal rights and obligations of men and women, define men's and women's differential economic opportunities and constraints in response to adjustment. They result in labor market segmentation and rigidity, and low substitutability between male and female labor. Labor market imperfections discriminate against women (less access to wage labor). The gender imbalance in access to and control of economically productive resources (notably land, housing titles, labor, financial services, legal services, extension, transport infrastructure, urban services) leads to a lower response to economic incentives than would be the case if these differentials were reduced. There is considerable evidence (especially in agriculture) of this "missed" economic potential (Box 1). Lack of access to transport, inadequate skill-specialization, and time burdens also constitute gender-based labor supply constraints in urban areas and reduce women's productivity in urban informal sector enterprises.

40The payoffs to any improved social service delivery under adjustment will prove elusive in SSA unless explicit measures are taken to ensure that women and girls benefit. There is systemic gender bias in access to basic social services, notably education, skill training, and health. Low education and poor health lead to high fertility, high maternal and child mortality, and low productivity in the economy. While this may not have much immediate impact on the level and composition of national output, in the longer run deterioration in health, education, and nutrition will have an adverse impact on output levels.

41From the standpoint of economic analysis and policy prescription, it is not appropriate to assume that the household is a homogeneous unit that maximizes the "utility" of all its members. Evidence suggests great diversity in household structure and composition and largely separate sources and uses of income and resources between men and women within SSA households. This often leads to inequality in intra-household resource allocation. For example, shifts of labor resources (and other production factors) from non-tradable production to tradable production in the context of economic adjustment can have the effect in some circumstances of tilting the balance of economic power within the household to the further detriment of women.

42Choices and trade-offs in time allocation are at the core of the inter-relationships between sectors of activity, and reflect the interdependence between the "visible" and "invisible" economy, given the simultaneous competing claims on women's — but not men's — labor time. Women's time constraint is particularly severe, and growing, in both rural and urban areas (Box 2).

43These gender-based differential constraints and opportunities, which explain why gender must be on the critical path in successful adjustment design, have two principal implications. Women's potential to contribute to expanded economic activity permitted by successful adjustment is unlikely to be fully tapped (efficiency problem), and women share less of the benefits of successful adjustment (equity problem). It is not surprising that, in many African countries, women's groups are becoming increasingly outspoken against adjustment. Ignoring the differential constraints faced by men and women therefore reduces the economic growth rate of African countries and is leading to some of the critiques of adjustment on equity grounds.

44One of the principal weaknesses in design and implementation of adjustment programs, as recognized in the recent World Bank Operations Evaluation Department review of SAPs, is the relative lack of ownership by borrowers and the insufficient participation by stakeholders in design and implementation.4 OED concluded that ownership and effective participation by the borrower are critical elements for successful adjustment, and that the Bank must pay greater attention to the "political economy" dimensions of adjustment and its impact on various constituencies. To complete the picture, this specifically requires that the voices of both men and women must be heard as they participate in the design, implementation, and monitoring of adjustment programs.

Integrating Gender Concerns into the Adjustment Agenda

Toward a Vision at the Country Level

45The workshop concluded from the above that there is sufficient evidence to justify inclusion of gender issues in the adjustment agenda. All the key parties (governments, donors, local country participants, and the World Bank) have a shared responsibility to address the gender dimension of adjustment in policy dialogue, analytical work, in macroeconomic and sectoral adjustment, and in sectoral and cross-sectoral investment programs. It will be vital for the World Bank, donors, and governments to help to develop African capacity to analyze gender issues and to implement policies and investments which address these issues over time. This process will be time-consuming and quick changes cannot be expected.

Dialogue

46Generally, knowledge available should be assembled into a strategy at the country level of how to address gender issues systematically. The strategy should be prepared by government, and reflect the outcome of a participatory process in which both men and women are involved. Government, donors, and the Bank should provide gender-specific information and should ensure that gender analysis is systematically integrated into analytical work and policy documents. The strategy should be reflected in donor policies with respect to that country. Strategies can be developed using various instruments: government strategy documents, policy statements, and budgets, and other instruments supported by donors and the Bank, such as PFPs, Public Expenditure Reviews, Poverty Assessments, Country Strategy Papers, and Gender Issues Papers/WID Assessments.

Process and Instruments

47The strategy would set specific objectives and use specific instruments for addressing gender differentials and reducing gender gaps. This would apply both to raising the access of women to the resources, capital, markets, technology, and information required to function as productive economic agents in both rural and urban environments, and also to addressing gender imbalances in education and health, and with respect to other economic and social infrastructure.

Data

48Underpinning the increasing attention to gender issues is a critical need to improve data collection to provide sex-disaggregated data — sex-differentiated data on education, health, agriculture, labor markets, income, nutrition, industry, the water sector (sanitation, water services, waste management), the financial sector, and the informal sector — and to apply gender analysis systematically to the tools of upstream economic and sectoral policy analysis. Governments, donors, and the Bank need to incorporate efforts to collect and analyze gender-differentiated data into their adjustment and project work and in development of statistical capacity in Africa.

Toward Action in Adjustment

49The critical task is to address gender issues pro-actively through policy dialogue, consultative processes, data analysis, and the full range of operational instruments. This is primarily the job of Government, but helped and supported by donors and research/training institutions. Most relevant to SPA, and to the future of Africa, is to pay explicit attention to gender-differentiated constraints and opportunities in the design and implementation of macroeconomic adjustment programs, and to utilize the newly developing sector investment instrument to address these differentials and their implications for adjustment programs.

50Workshop participants urge governments, donors, and the World Bank to take action to address gender issues in the context of adjustment and to internalize the recommendations and thinking within their own institutions and programs.

51It is important that the gender focus is "owned" by the adjusting countries and that positive policy dialogue where we can agree on action, rather than conditionality, should be emphasized.

52All key parties should develop a systematic focus on gender issues in structural adjustment missions, and identification of situations in which special inputs could facilitate a stronger adjustment response. Building local and international capacity to undertake relevant gender analysis is critical. This could include:

gender training for economists in government ministries of finance and planning, and in multilateral and bilateral agencies; training in economics for gender specialists in governments, NGOs, and in multilateral and bilateral agencies; strengthening of dialogue, exchange, and exploration of ideas between gender specialists and social scientists and economists within governments, and bilateral and multilateral agencies.

53The elements of macroeconomic and sectoral adjustment, discussed at the workshop in the context of the broader development agenda, where there is a need for much more careful attention to gender differences through gender analysis are:

the functioning of markets (with particular focus on labor markets) in both urban and rural environments; the implications of structural adjustment for human resource development (with particular focus on gender-responsive social service provision and delivery); sector policies: agriculture, education, health, urban; gender-exclusionary bias of economic and financial services, such as agricultural research and extension, and enterprise credit.

Macroeconomic Reform

54With respect to macro-economic adjustment, in some cases reforms can be pushed up to a higher priority when they are of particular value in overcoming an important constraint to women's participation in the economy. Examples which are often of particular benefit to women and girls include public expenditure reform re-allocating resources to primary education or basic health, shifting priorities to food crop research and extension, development and adoption of domestic labor-saving technologies, and giving appropriate priority to transport infrastructure and to appropriate transport technology, and water supply and sanitation. Conditionality is useful in pushing on an open door, not a closed door, and when Government owns the program. Hence, the win-win situations of unambiguous economic improvement and social improvement (greater gender equity), such as the items listed above, should be the targets of adjustment. Poverty Assessments, with a gender content, will be important in identifying these win-win situations. Developing these win-win reforms is one of the greatest challenges facing the adjustment agenda.

Public Expenditures - The Crucial Link between Macro and Sectoral Reform

55The workshop concluded that Public Expenditure Reviews (PER) should be viewed as a critical link between the macroeconomic framework and sectoral investment programs. Public expenditure analysis provides the basis for an integrated policy and sector investment approach, complementing the agreed policy framework. PERs are a critical instrument for specifying gender-responsive investments and priorities. Where there is an appropriate macro framework and an integrated sector approach, the inclusion of gender-focussed projects in the expenditure program can succeed in removing some of the constraints limiting women's response to improved policy. This is especially important in addressing human resource development issues in the context of adjustment, where the gender dimension is seen as a key factor in achieving efficiency and equity.

Sector Reform and Sector Investment

56Many of the objectives of the strategy will be addressed most effectively by sectoral adjustment operations, principally in education, agriculture, the financial sector, and the population, health, and nutrition sectors. Reform of policies in the social sectors needs to be based on an adequate social analysis of risks faced by various stakeholders (with particular attention to gender analysis) in the process and programs to be implemented. Gender-inclusive beneficiary assessment and participatory preparation will be important instruments in the preparation of these investments. The sectoral investment strategy should involve complementary adjustment lending and investment operations. Agriculture, small scale enterprise, infrastructure, employment generation and credit projects, along with education, health, water, family planning and nutrition projects, are most amenable to this approach, though the need to address gender issues cross-sectorally presents a particular challenge.

57Whether under sectoral adjustment, hybrid, or investment operations linked to the macro framework, specific tools to enhance women's participation can be developed. For example, PERs at the sectoral level (gender impact of various public expenditure categories) will be important. In education, various approaches can be adopted: targets for primary school budget share, agreed access and persistence targets, scholarships for girls, waivers of school fees for girls, adding female teachers, schools for girls, child care (so girls can attend), and curriculum development which is less gender biased. In health, shifts in resources to family planning, nutrition and maternal health care (usually neglected) and away from curative care will benefit women. In agriculture, research and extension emphasis given to crops which provide women with income and food security, on-farm processing and storage, and tree farming, are activities which help women. Impact analysis needs to look at impact not just at the household level but differentially within the household.

Strengthening Consultation and Participation

58There needs to be a commitment to develop mechanisms through which greater participation of women in the design and implementation of adjustment programs can be strengthened. Participatory preparation, and Beneficiary Assessments, in which both men and women are consulted, should be an integral part of defining the country vision and development strategy. All key parties are urged to support development of fora and frameworks for eliciting such participation at the country level.

Workshop participants suggested that ministers in charge of overall adjustment policies (planning and finance), as well as other ministers knowledgeable about gender issues within or relating to their particular portfolio, should be invited to a future SPA meeting and asked to comment specifically on how they would structure policies to address gender bias and to ensure that adjustment policies take account of gender differences and utilize all potential actors (male and female) in the economy.

In terms of follow-up, no new SPA working group is proposed. However, it is proposed that all SPA working groups include the gender dimension in their analysis and recommendations and take steps to ensure that gender expertise is available to them to facilitate this.

The poverty and social policy working group will develop a set of gender-related questions, issues, and criteria for the working groups to address. It will also maintain a special responsibility for documenting and sharing progress of SPA donors in addressing gender equity and women's participation in the various programs (adjustment, sector, PAs, PERs) which the SPA donors coordinate. It will be assisted in this task by drawing on the consultative voice of men and women in the working group.

Workshop participants proposed that the issue of gender and adjustment be reviewed in 18 months in order to verify progress. This review should focus, inter alia, on the ways in which attention to gender-responsive reform policies specifically contribute to strengthening supply response and human resource development under adjustment.

59Workshop participants ask the SPA donors for their commitment to dealing with these gender issues using the tools discussed above, and in their discussions with governments. It is intended that there should be periodic follow-up on progress made in achieving the objectives set out here, in each of the participating donor agencies. The poverty and social policy working group will report to the SPA plenary periodically on progress.

Annex 2. SPA/Poverty and Social Policy Working Group Status of Gender Pilot Adjustment Operation (January 1998)

Mali Economic Management Operation

A. Objectives of the Credit

• improve domestic resource mobilization and reduce distortions in the existing system of direct taxation;

• improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and the poverty focus of public expenditures; and

• support measures to address gender-based constraints on access to land and credit for women

B. Gender Pilot (Policy Measures to Address Gender)

• Action Plan: Carry out a study to identify constraints which impede or restrict women’s access to credit and prepare an action plan to implement the recommendations in accordance with a timetable agreed with IDA.

• Information campaign: Carry out a media campaign aimed at sensitizing the public on legal rights for women in the context of the Action Plan for the Promotion of Women adopted in January 1996.

• Budget support: Provide under the social safety net additional financing amounting to CFAF 500 million for the Support Fund for Women’s Activities aimed at granting small credits to women involved in income generating activities.

• Land: Adopt the new decree on award of land in the Office du Niger region and put in place a system for monitoring the application of the decree.

C. Current Status

• Action Plan: Following completion of a study on access to credit for women, the government has now defined an action plan for addressing these constraints. Implementation will be linked to a financial sector reform project.

• Information campaign: This has been successfully undertaken. Information about women’s rights is on the television daily and publicized in the streets.

• Budget support: This provision was met in the 1996 budget.

• Land: The decree was adopted in 1996. The monitoring system was put in place both at the Office du Niger and in the Cabinet of the Ministry of Rural Development.

• The “gender” tranche: all conditions for release of this tranche were met as of the October 1997 supervision mission, and the tranche was released in December 1997.

D. Next Steps

• EMP Supervision Mission in April 1998. Gender issues in access to financial services will be addressed explicitly in the Financial Services Project currently under preparation. A workshop is to be held on micro-finance in February 1998.

• Bank will undertake study on long term “Growth and Equity” in Mali. Gender issues (including gender-based constraints to growth) will be addressed.

• A Country Assistance Strategy, scheduled for May 1998, will provide a further opportunity to integrate gender into the strategy and work program in Mali.

Mozambique Third Economic Recovery Credit

A. Objectives of the Credit

• macro stabilization, including financial sector reform, budget management reform, indirect subsidies to enterprises; and

• growth through supply response measures, including tariff and indirect tax rationalization, cashew liberalization, railway restructuring.

B. The Gender Pilot

60Gender component Cashew Liberalization: The Mozambican Government decided to liberalize cashew trade and prices, by gradually lowering the export tax, as one of the key components of the country's adjustment program. The World Bank has supported this policy, which aims to promote the production of cashews for export and raise the incomes of small farmers engaged in cashew farming. The operation will help put in place a system to monitor the poverty and gender impact of cashew liberalization.

• Cashew liberalization was chosen as the gender pilot for the following reasons:

• most direct impact on women;

• large number of women affected by the policy (1 million smallholder households, and women heavily involved in production and marketing);

• policy reform: gradual reduction in export tax on cashew since 1995, with objective of increasing producer prices to smallholders.

61The gender component will:

• examine the gender-differentiated effects of policy reform on rural households and on the rural economy;

• support implementation of a baseline household survey and monitoring survey, and analysis of these surveys together with existing agricultural surveys, to monitor policy impacts. Surveys include quantitative as well as qualitative components aimed at examining issues of intra-household allocation and women’s perspectives. Surveys done by/with the Ministry of Agriculture;

• establish a Gender Reference Group (including women’s NGOs, gender specialists from Ministries, academics, etc.) to influence/participate in integrating gender into design and implementation of surveys and studies and to comment and direct analysis. This will also augment dissemination and use of data and conclusions.

C. Current Status

• seminar held with Reference Group in design of baseline survey (March 1997);

• baseline survey completed (June 1997): in the survey, the gender perspective was captured through introduction of intra-household gender disaggregation in the quantitative survey questionnaire, and through adding of a qualitative part in the survey — gender training of enumerators and facilitators is emphasized;

• data entry and processing with Agriculture Ministry (Sept-Oct. 1997);

• first tranche has been disbursed and second and final tranche release expected by mid-CY98.

D. Next Steps

• progress to be monitored by ERC III Supervision mission in early 1998;

• there will be a workshop in February to get more feedback on the baseline survey, including specifically from the gender reference group;

• monitoring survey to be designed with input of Reference Group by March 1998;

• monitoring survey to begin during next cashew season and after rains (i.e., in April/May 1998). The household sample will be smaller, but more detailed and weighted in favor of qualitative analysis;

• the final analysis, including comprehensive assessment and analysis of the agricultural surveys, baseline survey, and monitoring survey, is expected to be available by July/August 1998;

62the findings will be used by the Ministry of Agriculture and existing Cashew Working Group (including inter-Ministerial representation, donors, and private sector) to address future policy in this sector under ongoing economic reform program.