DAWN Reveals Another Vision

 By Suvendrini Kakuchi

 DAWN, a NGO network of women, scholars and activists in countries in the South, launched a new publication here yesterday that outlines alternative development frameworks to the current  debate on poverty that exist as a result of expanding markets.  The publication, called Marketization of Governance,is the result of two years of intensive research by the organisation during which hundreds of work shops were carried out by more than 230 researchers belonging to feminist organisations in DAWN in 27 countries around the world.

 “It is the most comprehensive work carried out with the aim of presenting the voices of poor women. Success stories outlined in the book confirm the need to make poor women part of the decision-making process,” explained Viviene Taylor, DAWN coordinator in South Africa.  DAWN, which stands for Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era, says their research was launched when it became disturbingly clear that, despite the momentum at the Copenhagen Social Summit five years ago ,poverty eradication was not making progress.

 “Poor women were being increasingly marginalised as a result of structural adjustment policies that were forcing governments in developing countries to privatise basic needs such as water or food, causing great harm to the livelihood of women,” explained Vanita Mukherjee, who is working on development alternatives in South Asia.  Based on the studies, DAWN researchers point out the pressing need to enact mechanisms such as new laws and other solutions such as special education programs as alternative modes to the much touted thrust for greater representation for women by the Northern institutions.  Donors and multilateral organisations have been calling for more women representatives to be elected into governments in order to bring good governance.

 But DAWN has proved it is far more effective to follow targets that educate women of their rights to determine their future. Workshops conducted by DAWN in Kerala, India, for example, produced better results in governance, says Mukerjee.

 A programme in Kerala state in India, in which local women in villages were encourage to participate in meetings that were to determine the local budget ,brought good results.  Women were educated through seminars and workshops that basically encouraged them to take decisions. Researches believe this training programs gave the women the self-confidence to attend the meetings with local officials, a process that soon saw decisions, such as where taps need to be situated, being dictated to be the women.  “By seeing actual results by their participation, the women were happy and their income improved, causing a better community because for instance, it eliminated the poverty factors such as the role of mercenary money lenders,” says Mukerjee.  She says the programme soon saw women going on to decide on the contractors that should be responsible for the projects and were also negotiating for funds to be geared for roads and bridges, projects that were not actually for their use but for the whole community, a signal of her development.  A similar project was cited in Porto Aliegre a city of 4 million in Brazil .

DAWN explains that the budget of the city was decided by women belonging to different neighbourhoods through mechanisms that ensured their participation.  Their choices indicated that social networks such as schools and hospitals, were their major concerns.  Women researchers pointed out that the reason why, elections, pushed by Northern development  organisations as a benchmark for assessing progress, do not work is that despite the increase of women parliamentarians, those elected are still not part of the decision-making process because often they are sidelined.  “Our enormous research project made us reassess the role of democracy in good governance. We raised the issue of reassessing democracy in terms of electing services to poor women in Pakistan.  DAWN says their work to push the establishment of mechanisms that ensure the participation of women in decision making in both financial institutions and their own governments, will be a priority as the process of globalisation becomes more entrenched in the South.   

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