Contents of this Issue

• Women in Development: An Incomplete Research Agenda (Shizu Upadhya)

Reviews

• The Individual, Work and Organization (Robin Fincham and Peter S. Rhodes)
• Development Studies (Donald A. Messerschmidt)
• The Lost Years of Jesus (Elizabeth Clare Prophet)
• Jailko Samjhana (Durga Ghimire)

Shizu Upadhya

Since its creation in the early 1970s following the publication of Ester Boserup's pioneering insights into the role of women in developing countries, Women in Development, or WID, has evolved into a specialized field in its own right. With statistical measures, sophisticated theoretical frameworks and even postgraduate-level degree courses to its name, the central thesis of WID, and of its more recent gender-inclined incarnations, is that project-form intervention can facilitate women's empowerment. What kinds of intervention are being advocated is less straightforward, and remains a matter of intense research both at the theoretical and practical levels of the WID sector.

Tribhuvan University's multi-volume series on The Status of Women in Nepal (1979-81) denoted a landmark in national-level WID studies. Most of the contemporary research on women in Nepal, while much less in-depth, is still traversing the terrain charted out by the original series. However, since bold print and glossy covers do not in themselves ameliorate the plight of Nepal's women, it is worth taking a closer look at the quality of contemporary WID literature, with the following in mind: in the time that it has had to evolve, to what extent has this research initiative furthered our understanding of women's situations, and, as a result, guided us to the "right" methods of intervention on their behalf?

It becomes clear that in certain respects, these kinds of women's studies are handicapped by a dearth of readily-available, gender-disaggregated, national-level statistical information. What is more, this data deficiency, identified as many as 15 years ago, largely persists to the same extent today. The 1991 census may proclaim, for instance, that a mere 40.4% of Nepal's female population of 10 years and above is "economically active". However, its definition of "economically active" is restricted to income-earning activities, thereby ruling out the majority of Nepali women's daily activities as economically insignificant. Another case in point is that, to date, little information is available on important aspects of population policy, including the relationship between household income and women's fertility. In this way, data loopholes, left unremedied, continue to inhibit both theoretical understandings and practical focii of research related to women in Nepal.

In other respects, and in spite of such data inadequacies, current WID studies exhibit a disproportionate emphasis on national-level statistics. The two statistical profiles on women in Nepal published in 1994 and 1995 (authored by Savitri Singh and Meena Acharya, respectively) might tell us, for example, that 25% of Nepal's women are literate and that the maternal mortality rate (MMR) in 1992 stood at an estimated 800 per 100,000 births. Yet statistics of this kind reveal little on the reasons why, despite a national-level expansion of primary education, the drop-out rate for girl children after completion of first grade remains so high. Or how our neighbouring countries have managed to reduce MMR, while we have hardly been able to do so. Such an understanding would, additionally, require a meticulous examination of project interventions that have worked (as well as those that have not worked). In sum, national-level statistics, while endowing women with a certain visibility for policy makers and development practitioners, cannot single-handedly further our understanding of women and the gender-based obstacles that hinder their empowerment. Similarly, statistics alone do not greatly facilitate the construction of meaningful women's projects.

The majority of publications in this field today are individual research exercises commissioned by donors and conducted by Kathmandu-based NGOs. Their questionnaires and interviews, case studies and participatory research exercises have over the years produced a tier of women-related information quite seperate from the above-discussed statistics compiled at the national level. One example is Shtrii Shakti's 1995 single volume update of the original Status of Women series, entitled Women, Development, Democracy - A Study of the Socio-Economic Changes in the Status of Women in Nepal (1981-1993). This is the most extensive of women's research initiatives of recent years. Shtrii Shakti's study is noteworthy for the extent to which it breaks down its findings along ethnic lines. As a result, we learn, as we did from its predecessor study, of the heterogeneity in women's situations across Nepal. The Baragaonle women of Mustang, for instance, constitute a different "target population", than do the Maithili women of Dhanusa, despite the fact that they are both defined as "rural" women. Not only do the former tend to be better informed both politically and legally, they are also more active in the expenditure and decision-making processes within the household. This research thereby manages to improve our understanding of Nepal's women.

It is all the less comprehensible, then, why Women, Development, Democracy makes little use of the manifold of its findings when drawing the "policy recommendations" which lie at its core. Instead, standard WID policy prescriptions are put forward on a nation-wide basis; homogeneous policies for a target population that has been identified as heterogeneous. Some recommendations simply echo those made 15 years earlier: increased access for women to appropriate technology and to micro-enterprise initiatives, for instance. Others abandon women-specific issues, in support of lofty ideals such as agricultural diversification or the termination of structural adjustment programmes. Hence, even in cases where women's research attains data sufficiency, interpretation of this information is not of the kind that produces innovative women-affirmative programmes for development intervention.

Regardless of whether it actually sells or not, contemporary women's literature of the kind reviewed here remains far from satisfactory. Overall, research on women done in Nepal has yet to live up to its self-imposed pledge of coming up with viable policy options, based on a sound comprehension of the real-life situations of women. The fault for this inability does not lie entirely with the concerned researchers. As a whole, however, and given the amount of time it has had so far, research on women should have reached a higher degree of sophistication than it has so far. Past accomplishments, such as the 1979-81 Status of Women study, need to be built on, not merely replicated. Women's research needs to interact more at the "field" level, and learn from individual women's projects. Methodologies are still overly bogged-down in basic primary data collection and dependent on inadequate secondary data for research to come closer to astute, women-centred appraisal and policy analysis. Also such scholarship has thus far isolated itself from advacements made in this field at the regional and international levels. Thus while local researchers take their time in furthering the WID agenda, the women of Nepal continue to endure some of the harshest of life conditions anywhere. Since a great deal is at stake, it is not too much to expect researchers in this field to come up with more perceptive studies that can aid interventionist development work on behalf of the women of Nepal.

(Upadhya's extensive review of contemporary women in development research in Nepal appeared in Vol 1. No.2 of the journal Studies in Nepali History and Society)