Gender mainstreaming or just more male-streaming?

Abstract

The Law of Popular Participation (LPP) in Bolivia can be seen as the first significant attempt by policymakers in the region to mainstream gender into a national development initiative. The LPP seeks todevolve power and resources from the national to the local level. It is the first Bolivian law to be explicitlycouched in gendered terms, and aims to increase the prominence of women in local political anddevelopment spheres. However, as I suggest in this article, in some respects the LPP has actually had theeffect of displacing women from the very site of their traditional forms of political activism, atcommunity level. As greater status, power, and resources have been devolved to politics at this level,men have become more prominent in this previously neglected, ‘feminised’ sphere. The article arguesthat, to some extent, the goal of mainstreaming gender into national development via the LPP wasmissed. Reasons include a lack of effective and systematic gendered analysis of the structural barriers towomen’s participation, and the failure to support gender mainstreaming, and women’s participation,through capacity building at all levels.