INTERFACES Colloquium Series - #7

We are honoured to hear Prof. Akua O. Britwum of University of Cape Coast, Ghana, on “Gendered Tensions in Rural Livelihoods and Development Interventions”. Her presentation is based on reflections in an editorial of Volume 3, Issue  2 of Feminist Africa 2022, Revisiting gender in rural livelihoods and development interventions and will add to the debate on the conceptual and policy tensions following the slow progress in tackling the gender barriers to rural women’s livelihoods.

The presentation will draw mainly on secondary sources on the persistence of contexts compromising women’s ability to benefit from development interventions. It will begin with a brief overview of the literature that unravels the hindering factors. It will then move to those assessing women-only interventions as agents, targeting resource limitations or alternative livelihoods to end rural poverty. Issues to be addressed include the changing research focus and the divergent theoretical and conceptual framings for understanding the seemingly contradictory conclusions reached on the subject. It will discuss how bringing different lenses to understand the vexed relations between intervention access, uptake, and sustainability are even more critical for generating transformative outcomes for rural communities than the intended goals.