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1999: 79). Although Moser has the same concern as DAWN, as she also uses empowermentas a tool and also wants to consider the needs of the so-called `Third World feminists`, shedoes not use the perspective of the affected people, but a top-down approach. She isconvinced that an intervention of development planners is necessary to empower Southernwomen whereas DAWN absolutely disagrees. Moser sticks to the image of WID that seeswomen from developing countries as passive victims and depicts herself as the developmentexpert (Pichler 2003: 78). So while DAWN consists of the affected, poor women themselves,Moser has an outsider perspective which disregards the different power relations betweenwomen (Kerner 1999: 100).As mentioned above an essential tool of Gender Planning is the identification of practical andstrategic gender needs which consitute the theoretical framework of this thesis. The theory ofpractical and strategic gender needs was first developed by Maxine Molyneux, a sociologistwith focus on gender and development, and later on adapted by Caroline Moser. Molyneuxfirst used the categories practical and strategic gender needs in an article about the womenpolitics of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua where she distinguished between the differentinterests of female politics. Molyneux differentiates between women`s interests and genderinterests. But women`s interests cannot be generalized since all women are different and thushave different interests and needs (Kerner 1999: 87). Women are different in class, ethnicity,religion or age which is why their needs cannot be generalized. Nevertheless Molyneuxargues that there are some needs that women have in common.It is, by extension, also supposed that women have certain common interests by virtue of theirgender, and that these interests are primary for women. It follows then that transclass unityamong women is to some degree given by this commonality of interests (Molyneux 1985:231).So while women may have general interests in common, these should be called genderinterests, to distinguish them from the false homogeneity imposed by the term 'women'sinterests' (Moser/Levy 1986: 3).According to Molyneux there are common gender needs, but there is no consensus on whatexactly they are. For a theory of common needs it is necessary to acknowledge theheterogeneity of women because a cross-cultural or cross-class solidarity among womencannot be assumed (Molyneux 1985: 232;235). Also Moser acknowledges that women aredifferent due to ideological, historical, economic and cultural determinants. Nevertheless in25