GOVERNANCE AND POVERTY ERADICATION: APPLYING A GENDER AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS PERSPECTIVE
| Published date | 01 October 2012 |
| Author | Nicola Jones,Elizabeth Presler‐Marshall |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.1618 |
| Date | 01 October 2012 |
GOVERNANCE AND POVERTY ERADICATION: APPLYING A GENDER
AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS PERSPECTIVE
NICOLA JONES*AND ELIZABETH PRESLER-MARSHALL
Overseas Development Institute, UK
SUMMARY
Recently, there has been growing attention to the need to include girls (and boys) more prominently in poverty reduction and
development agendas. How to do this effectively, however, remains an under-researched subject, especially in debates around
chronic poverty, that is, the experience of severe, multidimensional poverty for an extended period of time. Although the
Chronic Poverty Research Centre has spotlighted the often overlooked social and nonincome dimensions of poverty traps, in-
cluding social discrimination and limited citizenship, in general scholarship has paid relatively limited attention to the interplay
between gender, poverty reduction and governance institutions. To address this lacuna, this article draws on recent research by
the Chronic Poverty Research Centre and the Overseas Development Institute that highlights the key role context-specific social
institutions play in informing and determining the life opportunities and agency of girls and young women. To more effectively
address the governance challenges involved in tackling such deprivations, the article discusses three key measures that can sup-
port the eradication of gendered experiences of poverty: the importance of involving local community leaders, working with
men and boys to raise awareness about girls’and women’s rights, and promoting collective action and voice among girls and
young women. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
key words—gender; governance; poverty; social institutions; young women; girls
INTRODUCTION
Recently—in partbecause of the child-related focus of a number of the Millennium Development Goalsas well as the
2007 World Development Report on Youth—therehas been growing attention to the needto include girls (and boys)
more prominently in poverty reduction and development agendas. How to do this effectively, however, remains an
under-researched subject, especially in debates around chronic poverty, that is, the experience of severe and multi-
dimensional poverty for an extended period of time. The 2008 to 2009 Chronic Poverty Report spotlighted the often
overlookedsocial and nonincome dimensions of povertytraps, including social discriminationand limited citizenship,
but in general, scholarship has paid relatively limited attention to the interplay between gender, povertyreduction and
governance institutions. To address this lacuna, this article draws on recent research by the Chronic Poverty Research
Centre and the Overseas Development Institutethat highlights the key role context-specific social institutions play in
informing and determining the life opportunities and agency of girls and young women.
Girls’vulnerabilities in relation to poverty dynamics are different to those of boys as well as to those of adult
women. Childhood, adolescence and early adulthood remain for many girls and young women a period of depri-
vation, danger and vulnerability, resulting in a significant lack of agency and critical development deficits. This
is in part because of the particularities of their life stage, their relative powerlessness and lack of voice or represen-
tation in local governance structures (Jones and Sumner, 2011). Yet what happens at this critical time in their lives
can reinforce their poverty status and that of their offspring or influence their movement into or out of poverty. In
many cases, overlapping and intersecting experiences of deprivation, foregone human development opportunities
and abuse or exploitation serve to perpetuate and intensify poverty for girls and women over the life course
(Sen, 2004) (see also Table 1).
*Correspondence to: N. Jones, Overseas Development Institute, 111 Westminster Bridge Road, London, UK. E-mail: n.jones@odi.org.uk
public administration and development
Public Admin. Dev. 32, 371–384 (2012)
Published online in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pad.1618
Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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