Ifda dossier 47, May/June 1985

ICDA AND ISIS: WOMEN IN DEVELOPMENT - FROM THEORY TO
PRACTICE
Forty-five women from twenty-eight countries in Asia, Africa, Latin
America, Caribbean, North America, Europe and the Pacific agreed as one
that a feminist perspective must be integrated into development policies
and programmes based upon the experiences and actions of grass-roots
women's groups and organizations in the past decade. These concrete ex-
periences have brought forth a new context for planning, implementation
and evaluation of development projects.
In the workshop Women in Development - From Theory to Practice, organized
by ISIS International, Women's Information and Communication Service
and ICDA, International Coalition for Development Action in Rome,
Italy, last December, these women from all continents questioned the applicability
of the conventional development concepts, policies and projects
on behalf of women. Our experiences tell different stories. We
identified alternative strategies based on the participation and consultation
of women. These strategies include:
. developing new mechanisms to ensure greater representation and participation
of grass-roots women's organizations and groups, especially
at the policy-making level;
. strengthening networking and communication among women to facilitate
the sharing of experiences and ideas and guaranteeing women's
access to information.
The participants emphasized the importance of practice and decided to
prepare a resource kit on concrete women's development actions, or
women's groups and other NGOs. This kit is a testimony of women's initiatives
towards self-empowerment. Some participants call this a Women's
Kit that Grows because new actions will be added as they arise.
As for the Forum to be held in Nairobi, Kenya in July before the United
Nations Conference of Women, the participants of the ISIS Inter-
national-ICDA workshop are organizing a series of activities on the
themes of Development, Solidarity and Empowerment. These activities will
present the practical experiences of women worldwide in drama, games,
audiovisual presentations, non-stop exhibitions and panel discussions.
The participants divided themselves into six work groups on: women's
involvement in project identification, planning, monitoring and evalua-
tion; increasing the number and status of women working in development
associations; making women in development a central concern of develop-
ment education and action groups; making development central to the
women's movement; improving communication and coordination between women
involved in development projects and programmes; and ensuring that
training programmes stress the central role of women.
Participants ranging from grass-roots activists to staff of inter-
national development agencies and "NGOs", agreed that cooperation for
development must be based on solidarity rather than charity, and that it
is essential to view all development issues as women's issues.
(Further informat-ion: ISIS Internat io@ Via Smta Maria de 2 L 'Anina 30,
00186 Rome, Italy or ICDA, 22 PUP des Soi,Landi.:tes, B-M40 Br-ussets).