Development and Women: A Selected Reading List

Articles on development are numerous, and can be difficult to understand. Economists often are not speaking to lay people but to other economists, for example, while policy makers often are addressing their constituencies. The social sciences have produced some of the more readable treatments of development issues, maybe because social scientists tend to place human interaction and social discourse on a par with micro- and macro-economic fluctuations. Here is a selected reading list for those who want to further explore the debate, about 'women's roles in development agendas.

· Sociology, Anthropology, and Development: An Annotated Bibliography of World Bank Publications. Michael Cernea (ed). Washington, DC: World Bank, 1994. A good resource for lay and professional audiences alike.

· Linkages Between Population, Environment, and Development: Case Studies from Costa Rica, Pakistan, and Uganda. Krishna Ghimire. Geneva: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), 1994. Easy reading and good geographically disparate case study comparisons.

· Human Development and the Arab World: The Role of Non-governmental Organizations. Beirut: Regional Meeting of Arab Non-governmental Organizations, 1995. Topical, and a good way to appreciate the link between regional concerns and U.N. conference programming.

· Putting Gender on the Agenda: A Guide to Participating in United Nations World Conferences. New York: UNIFEM, 1995. For NGOs to interact effectively with international policy makers and institutions.

· "Development Banks: An Idea Whose Time Has Gone," by Paul Roberts in Business Week, 7/11/94. Are international lending agencies addressing the needs of people, or are they promulgating outdated projects and policies?

· "Africa: Falling Off the Map?," by Tom Callaghy in Current History, January 1994. Africa may be even more marginalized from the world economy than it was during the era of colonialism, when it was perceived has having greater economic importance to Western nations.

· "Appreciating Agrodiversity," by H. Brookfield and C. Padoch in Environment, June 1994. Indigenous peoples provide an essential resource for scientists and development policy makers trying to create ecologically responsible methods of sustainable agriculture.

· "Investing in Development" in The Economist, 6/25/94. Poor maintenance, location, management problems, and state-controlled pricing often erode the value of developing countries' economic infrastructures.

· "There's More than One Way to Play Leapfrog," by P. Coy et. al. in Business Week, 11/18/94. Isolation rather than poverty may be dooming developing countries' communications advancements.

· "Optimism and Overpopulation," by Virginia Abernathy in The Atlantic, December 1994. Economic development will not control the populations of developing countries because population growth results from a perception that economic opportunities are expanding.

· Boserup, Ester. Women's Roles in Economic Development. London: Alien & Unwin, 1970. Groundbreaking work questioning the systematic exclusion of women in the resources development process.

· Merchant, Carolyn. The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution. New York: Harper & Row, 1980. A mechanistic worldview of science has promoted exploitation of nature, unbridled economic growth, and an economic model subordinating women.

· Caldecott, Leonie and Leland, Stephanie (eds.). Reclaim the Earth. London: Women's Press, 1983. Series of articles presenting a broad range of social and environmental development issues and ideas from a feminist perspective.

Women's economic roles among African nations are changing as literary rates increase

SOURCE: ICRW Report, March 199S

· Spretnak, C. (ed.). The Politics of Women's Spirituality. Garden City: Anchor Press, 1982. Historical conception of Earth as alive and female, and effect of this perspective on ethical uses of natural resources.

· "NGOs and Caribbean Development," by David Lewis in Annals of American Academy of Political and Social Science, May 1994. Caribbean NGOs have devoted most of their energy, in contrast to international NGOs, to regional political and economic priorities.

· "Population and Development: Toward a Social Justice Agenda," by Asoka Bandarage in Monthly Review, September 1994. Colonialism's economic effects have acted to decrease birth rates among imperialist countries, while increasing them among colonized countries. Only changes in social structures for both can reduce global population growth rates.

· Women and the New Trade Agenda. S. Joekes and A. Weston. New York: UNIFEM, 1994. Economic restructuring and new trade policy agendas affect women in all regions of the world. Contains hard-to-find gender perspectives among various developing nations.