Introduction

This book describes the development of gender planning as a legitimate planning tradition in its own right. The goal of gender planning is the emancipation of women from their subordination, and their achievement of equality, equity and empowerment. This will vary widely in different contexts depending on the extent to which women as a category are subordinated in status to men as a category. The knowledge base explored in recent feminist and development debates provides the conceptual rationale for several key principles. These in turn translate into tools and techniques for a gender planning process. These analytical principles relate to gender roles and gender needs, also to control over resources and decision-making in the household, civil society and state. The procedures by which gender planning is operationalized as well as the framework within which it is institutionalized also require identification and acknowledgement before this new planning tradition is to attain legitimacy. For such a new planning tradition there is still a long way to go—what follows can only be a starting point documenting the development of gender planning over the last decade.