This book presents a new perspective on the assumed links between women's literacy and development and explores current innovative approaches to research and policy around women's literacy.

Assuming that women’s empowerment would accelerate the pace of social change in rural Nepal, the World Bank urged the Nepali government to undertake a “Gender Activities Project” within an ongoing long-term water-engineering scheme. The author, an anthropologist specializing in bureaucratic organizations and gender studies, was hired to monitor the project. Analyzing her own experience as a practicing “development expert,” she demonstrates that the professed goal of “women’s empowerment” is a pretext for promoting economic organizational goals and the interests of local elites. She shows how a project intended to benefit women, through teaching them literary and agricultural skills, fails to provide them with any of the promised resources. Going beyond the conventional analysis that positions aid givers vis-à-vis powerless victimized recipients, she draws attention to the complexity of the process and the active role played by the Nepalese rural women who pursue their own interests and aspirations within this unequal world. The book makes an important contribution to the growing critique of “development” projects and of women’s development projects in particular.

Literacy and Development is a collection of case studies of literacy projects around the world. The contributors present their in-depth studies of everyday uses and meanings of literacy and of the literacy programmes that have been developed to enhance them. Arguing that ethnographic research can and should inform literacy policy in developing countries, the book extends current theory and itself contributes to policy making and programme building. A large cross-section of society is covered, with chapters on Women's literacy in Pakistan, Ghana, and Rural Mali, literacy in village Iran, and an 'Older Peoples' Literacy Project. This international collection includes case studies from: Peru, Pakistan, India, South Africa, Bangladesh, Mali, Nepal, Iran, Eritrea, Ghana.

Auteur maakt duidelijk waarom de educatie van vrouwen de laatste jaren i.t.t. die van mannen zo veel tegenslagen heeft gehad.

Contents: Role of Women in Managing Small Scale Industrial Units: A Study, Education for Indian Women: A Study on Technology Education, Marital Rape: The Legal Domestic Violence, Women Education and Development, Empowerment of Women: A Holistic Approach, Women Education: A Harbinger of Economic Development, Women Education and Development in Orissa: A Paradigm Shift, Women Education and Development, Women Education and Development, Development of Scheduled Caste Women and Education, Education to Challenge Women Oppression.

This book's concept concerns the positive correlation between literacy and women's development and empowerment in developing countries.