1

PREFACE

My focus on gender and environment is political and a result of

activism. As the national chair of Senegal YMCA gender committee from

1998 to 2002, I initiated and led an integrated environment program in

Yendane village, in the region of Thiès. The environment program focused

on micro-credit, planting trees, tree nurseries, and orchard management.

With the partnership of the forest service of that district, we organized

international summer tree planting camps with youth from the Gambia,

France, and later from the USA. For four years this was a real success for

greening Yendane village and surrounding villages. From the annual

summer camps I learnt the importance of natural resources for rural

people, especially for women.

My training at the Institute of Environment Sciences at Cheikh Anta

Diop University, also contributed to sharpen my interest in environmental

studies. My Masters thesis focused on gender and environment

management in Senegal looking at a specific women’s group in Keur

Moussa district located 50km from Dakar. My Ph.D. in Women’s and

Gender Studies contributed to broadening my knowledge. More

importantly the program grounded me theoretically. The courses I took

(with my committee members, Dianne Rocheleau, Barbara Thomas-Slayter,

and Kiran Asher) on International Political Ecology, Gender and

Environment, Development Theory, Third World Women and Gender in

Economic Development, and on Gender, Policy, Planning, and Analysis,

helped me to be more theoretical in my thinking and to see the

complexities and different perspectives involved in theorizing women,

gender, development, and environment. I could relate most readily to

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feminist political ecology, feminist environmentalism, and feminist post-

structuralism, post-modernism and post-development to understand the

relationship between gender and the environment. I began to think of

gender through the lens of other variables such as class, ethnicity, age, and

sex, as part of a situated and contextual knowledge. I also I began to see

rural African women differently from the mainstream Western portrayal of

them as oppressed victims and to see them as development agents and

environmental leaders.

My choice to work in Tambacounda is the result of a conversation I

had in May 2003 with Dr. Cheikh Dieng a forester and the program officer

of the Environment/Poverty-Alleviation Energy Program (SPEM/PROGEDE).

From a conversation on natural resource management and biodiversity

conservation in Senegal, I told him about my interest of linking gender and

natural resource management. He suggested that the Biodiversity Program

of PROGEDE he was leading might be an interesting place to look at

because they were working with women and they were “very well

involved”. That claim for women’s involvement in biodiversity conservation

captured my attention and I was excited to see how women were involved

in one way or another. Cheikh decided to invite me to a PROGEDE fieldtrip

in Tambacounda to visit Malidino reserve.

In June 2003, Cheikh invited me to visit the program and the reserve

in Tambacounda. We went to Dialamakhan, one of the main villages

surrounding Malidino Reserve. We went inside the reserve with some of the

village committee leaders who happened to be all men. When I asked

where were the women they responded that they were involved but were

too busy at that time to participate in the tour when the forest service

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officials were visiting. That day was very rich and informative to me in

several different ways. I know how much villagers care about resources

and how their livelihoods depend on them. I had a sense that the forest

service intervention would have an impact on people’s lives and was

creating a certain type of organizing, negotiation, and networking among

the villagers and between them and the forest service. After that trip I

decided to work in the area.

From January to May 2005 I went back to Senegal to do my pre-

dissertation fieldwork reviewing archival sources and conducting interviews

with scholars, foresters, and practitioners in Senegal who are familiar with

PROGEDE work on natural resource management. The first discovery was

that I could not talk about natural resource management in Senegal

without linking it to decentralization. Indeed, since 1996 Senegal had

embarked upon a new step in the decentralization process referred to as

regionalization. The decentralization reform law of March 16, 1996 aimed

for a transfer of power from the state to local government composed of

the Regional, Municipal, and Rural Councils. This form of decentralization

was defined as political and democratic because the power was

transferred from the state to democratically elected local government.

Nine functions were transferred to local elected officials including control

over natural resources such as forests, non-timber forest products, land, and

community-based reserves.

Not knowing much about decentralization, I began research on the

issue and talked with my Senegalese and international friends about the

politics, practice, and policies of decentralization. In April 2005, I went back

to Tambacounda to Dialakoto administrative center (chef-lieu) to meet

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with some councilors and to Dialamakhan village1 to learn about rural

councilor’s roles and their perceptions about decentralization and about

Malidino reserve. When I was in Dakar, one day I was talking to my

colleague from the Institute of Environment Sciences at Cheikh Anta Diop

University, Elhadj Sémou N’diaye2, about my new focus on gender and

decentralized natural resource management. To my surprise he was

involved in a research program “Decentralization and Democracy in

Senegal Forest Resource Management” implemented by the World

Resources Institute in partnership with the Council for the Development of

Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) and the French Agricultural

Research Centre for International Development (Centre de coopération

internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement- CIRAD) in Dakar. He

explained what this program was about and told me to contact Jesse

Ribot.

I met with Dr. Jesse Ribot one afternoon in April 2005 at CODESRIA’s

office in Dakar and he invited me to the research presentations meeting he

was having with the team of researchers. He also asked me to present my

research interests. The comments and feedback I got from the researchers

made me aware of the complexity of natural resource decentralization,

1 I was accepted by the villagers and got a sense of belonging when the Pulaar in

Dialamakhan decided to baptize me, Ramata Sow and the Mandinka in Diénoundiala, Kadiouba Fadiya instead of calling me Solange Bandiaky. Then in addition to originally belonging to the Mancagne ethnic group, I became a Pulaar and a Mandinka, which I

am proud of. I remember being on a donkey cart (one of the means of transportation in the area) from Mansadala to Diakhaba and hearing a villager from Dialamakhan yelling from his bike “Ramata, diarama” (meaning Ramata how are you in Pulaar). From that moment, I deeply felt I was accepted and I belonged to the community. 2 My friend Elhadj Sémou N’diaye died in October 21, 2005 from liver cancer. Sémou was a doctoral student in both the Sociology Department and Institute of Environment Sciences

at Cheikh Anta Diop University. Sémou was a bright young scholar who believed in research. May his soul rest in peace.

5

which is not only about transfer of power but about power relations

between local elected officials, traditional leaders, and the forest service

agents, as well as among rural councilors. In 2006, I got involved in a World

Resources Institute research program on Natural Resources and

Democracy, “Institutional Choice and Recognition: Effects on the

Formation and Consolidation of Democracy”. The comments and

feedback I got from the diverse team of researchers from Asia, Africa,

Europe, and North America helped me to better understand the rationale

and importance of making the link between gender, decentralization, and

natural resource management in Senegal. The team met in Bali in June

2006 for a conference of the International Association for the Study of

Common Property Resources (IASCP).

When I was doing my third trip to Tambacounda to do in-depth

interviews from February to May 2006, I was only interested in Malidino

reserve management as a project area. But before going to the reserve

surrounding the villages, my translator3 and facilitator in the field, Ali Bocar

Ann4, and I decided to start interviewing people in Dialakoto administrative

center. We interviewed mainly the rural councilors (men and women from

the different political parties) and the residents of the local communities.

The main findings were on the one hand, that electoral politics is the driving

3 In Dialakoto, the two main local languages are Mandinka (also called Mandingo) and Pulaar (also called Fulani). I belong to the Mancagne ethnic group from Casamance and

do not speak these two main languages in Dialakoto. Therefore, I hired a translator to better communicate with people there. 4 Ali Bocar Ann is a staff member from the Agence Régionale de Développement in charge of decentralization issues in Tambacounda region. His knowledge on the issue of decentralization and his linguistic competences in French, Mandinka, and Pulaar were very valuable to my research in area where I do not speak any of the local languages. In

addition to being polyglot, he had a good sense of interacted with local people which allowed us to build trust and got a lot of information.

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factor in natural resource management in terms of decision making,

access and use. My understanding of decentralization shifted from just

power transfer to electoral politics processes and practices. On the other

hand, while talking to women rural councilors and members of women’s

groups I started realizing their low representation in the councils and the

social, cultural, and political constraints they face in access to decision

making regarding natural resources (forests and land) and in access to and

use of all natural resources. When I went to Dialamakhan, the main village

in charge of the reserve management and where the president and main

leaders of the village committees reside, I saw the same political processes

and practices in project management. Political competition and rivalries

affected the reserve management, and women’s participation in

conservation decision making and activities were questionable. We

encountered the impacts of political factors in both the decentralized

institutional setting and in the project area with a combined institutional

pluralism of traditional leaders, local elected officials, and state officials,

which resulted from the political regime change in Senegal. These

encounters and experiences in the rural countryside, beyond the formal

data collection, have profoundly affected my interpretation of the data

and the writing of this dissertation.

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

PROBLEM STATEMENT

Why focus on the link between gender, local electoral politics, and

natural resource management in Senegal, Tambacounda, and Dialakoto?

Since 1996, natural resource management in Senegal cannot be

understood without linking it to decentralization. The 1996

decentralization/regionalization political reform and the electoral reform

brought new principles, processes, and electoral mechanisms different

from the previous decentralization reform in 1972 based on decentralizing

the administrative structures and the winner-takes-all electoral system. The

state has transferred power to Local Collectivities5 composed of Regions,

Communes, and Rural Communities. Local Collectivities have autonomy in

decision-making and in the management of local affairs are in charge of

nine functions6 including natural resource management. The 1996

decentralization reform is aimed particularly towards local democracy and

governance through a redistribution of state political power to local

elected actors with a new conception of citizenship, accountability,

responsiveness, and autonomy.

No laws prevent women’s political participation and representation

at the decision-making level; however, it is absolutely true that no laws

have promoted more equitable gendered political participation and

5 Local Collectivities represent the administrative and geographic agglomerations. The

institutions are respectively the Regional Council, the Municipal Council, and the Rural Council. 6 The nine functions are: 1- land, 2- environment and natural resources management, 3- health, population, and social action, 4- youth, sport, and leisure, 5- culture, 6- education,

literacy, promotion of national languages and professional training, 7- planning, 8- land use, 9- urbanism and habitat.

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representation in decision making. Even though there are no legal

constraints to women’s political participation in local affairs, gender is still

not acknowledged in decentralization policies. The Local Collectivities

Code (composed of 372 articles) gives power to local deliberative organs

[the councils] to “ensure good living conditions to all of the population

without discrimination”. The Code refers to women councilors only in three

laws (Articles 28, 98, and 202) about the decision-making bodies (IED, 2006).

For this dissertation I focus on the Rural Community7, the most local

level of local government in charge of natural resources such as land and

forest resources. The Rural Council8 is composed of rural councilors (men

and women) elected for five years by universal suffrage using direct party

lists and proportional representation between parties, based on the rural

ratio.

Tambacounda region covers three quarter of Senegal natural

resources; however it is one of the poorest regions in Senegal. It has a long

history of protected areas preventing the communities from having access

to resources and land inside Niokolo Koba National Park (NKNP)9. NKNP

7 According to laws 96 - 06 of March 22, 1996 bearing code of the Local Collectivities, a

Rural Community is defined as ‘an administrative agglomeration uniting many villages wich belong to the same territory and share common resources. The prerogatives and political mandate given to rural councilors have changed comparing to the 1972 administrative decentralization. The number of rural councilors per Rural Community (RC) are as follow: 20 members for RC with less than 5 000 inhabitants; 24 members for RC with 5 000 to 10 000 inhabitants; 28 members for RC with 10 000 to 15 000 inhabitants; and 32

members for RC with more than 15 000 inhabitants (Rds, 1996: laws 96 - 06 of March 22) 8 According to Law 96 -12 of the Electoral Code, the composition of a Rural Council is as follow: 20 councilors for a Rural Community (RC) with less than 5,000 inhabitants; 24 councilors for a (RC) between 5,000 to 10,000 inhabitants; 28 councilors for a RC between 10,000 to 15,000 inhabitants; and 32 councilors for a RC with more than 15,000 inhabitants. 9 Niokolo Koba National Park is surrounded by nine Rural Communities, of which Dialakoto

Rural Community, composed with 304 villages and 91.963 inhabitants. It is located in South-East Senegal, Tambacounda region, on the frontiers of three countries Mali, Guinea

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created in 1933 during the colonial period, is the largest park (913,000

hectares) in Senegal and one of the largest in West Africa. Dialakoto Rural

Community is situated in the periphery of NKNP and includes one of the first

villages to be displaced when the park was created. It is also situated in the

periphery of Diambour classified forest managed by the forest service. The

fact of being surrounded by protected areas gives Dialakoto a complex

history and situation of nature conservation. In Dialakoto, there are

different institutions involved in natural resource management: the Niokolo

Koba National Park agents, the forest service agents; donors; and the local

populations. All these stakeholders are generally in conflicting relationships

because they have different interests in the natural resources in and near

the park.

Dialakoto Rural Community is situated in Tambacounda region,

South-East of Senegal. Dialakoto has been administratively created as a

Rural Community in 1982 following the 1972 administrative reform. It has a

rural council located at the administrative center (chef-lieu) which has the

same name; in this study I refer to both as Dialakoto. Dialakoto Rural

Community is located in the arrondissement of Missirah and département

of Tambacounda. The arrondissement of Missirah is composed of three rural

communities: Dialakoto, Néttéboulou, and Missirah. Dialakoto Rural

Community has an area of 6, 202 km2, comprising 73% of the area of

Missirah arrondissement and 31% of Tambacounda département.

On March 19, 2000, Senegal experienced its first major political

change in 40 years. The Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS) for the first

Conakry, and the Gambia. Because of its location, it has a cultural diversity composed of

mainly six ethnic groups: the Pulaar, Mandinka, Sarakolé, Bassaris, and the Diakhanké.

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time won the elections against the Senegalese Socialist party (PS) in power

since the independence of Senegal in 1960. The presidential elections

ended the PS political monopoly “when the electorate chose not to re-

elect the incumbent president but instead put Abdoulaye Wade from the

PDS in office” (Amundsen, 2001: 51). This most significant political change in

forty years in Senegal brought a new majority of PDS political

representation from the Parliament to the Rural Councils, with the local

elections in May 12, 2002. The local elections confirmed the end of the

Socialist Party monopoly putting a PDS majority in rural councils nationwide

(Juul, 2001). The local elections thus changed the local political dynamic of

many Rural Councils in Senegal, including Dialakoto Rural Community

where the research for this doctoral dissertation was conducted. This

change has affected the functioning of the Rural Council and the

management of Malidino Reserve in Dialamakhan village.

In Dialakoto Rural Council, the Democratic Party won twenty one

seats out of twenty eight, while the rival Socialist Party secured only five

seats. The rural council has only three women: one from the Socialist Party

and two from the Democratic Party. This new composition of the council,

with a majority from the Senegalese Democratic Party, the presence of five

different political parties, and a very low representation of women, has

encouraged factionalism and patron-client relationships. It also created

exclusions of opposition parties’ members in decision making. Women had

difficulty in getting their voices heard and having their interests taken into

account in access to forest resources and land and in the council budget

and agenda. Multi-party democracy has created petty rivalries and

competition among the different parties while suppressing important issues

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such as gender equity (women’s empowerment and equality with men in

government practice, accountability and responsiveness).

When Malidino Biodiversity Community Reserve, located in Dialakoto

Rural Community, was created in 1998, there was only one rural councilor

from Dialamakhan, the reserve president. The 2001 local elections returned

a second candidate from the village belonging to the now ruling PDS

party. Not only did the PDS candidate rely on his party’s solid majority in the

council, but also on support of the party in power at the national level. One

would think that this would provide him with a competitive advantage in

local decision making both in terms of power and electoral legitimacy

compared to the councilor from PS.

However, while the 2000 elections deprived Gardido10’s party of

democratic legitimacy, his ‘recognition’ as reserve president by external

actors—the Forest Service and donors—provided him with alternative

sources of power. The recognition of patriarchal authority of an individual,

the president of the reserve, gave him power over the population in

matters of land tenure and resource property rights. He then proceeded to

turn the reserve into an instrument of his party and patronage, excluding

from reserve access and benefits members of the now ruling party and

their families.

Different types of exclusions emerged based on kinship, political

party affiliation, and gender (all three variables were related), a situation

that frequently led to open hostilities. The political rivalries contributed to

splitting the women along the same lines as men. The results of the local

elections deepened political cleavages, weakened gender solidarity, and

10 Fictional names are assigned in this study.

12

left women with little voice and access to decision making. The

participatory approach used by the Forest Service bestows discretionary

power on traditional leaders who are not popularly accountable and have

a poor track record of serving women’s needs and interests. The local

electoral political mechanisms and practices mixed with this participatory

approach have changed the dynamics within the village committees for

reserve management.

In Dialakoto Rural Community, as in many rural areas in Senegal,

people are affected by both “participatory” practices in the development

and environment program and by decentralization through the transfer of

power from the state to local elected officials. Their gendered inclusions in

local institutions are shaped by external agency approaches and by multi-

party competition among local elected officials.

OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The analyses in this dissertation are guided by two main questions: Do

participatory approaches promoted by external agencies lead to

improved gender equity in decision-making processes, access to natural

resources and to supplies in Malidino Reserve management? Does the 1996

decentralization reform contribute to gender equity in decision making in

Dialakoto Rural Council and to local elected officials’ accountability and

responsiveness to women’s needs and interests in access to natural

resources? The processes and structures of participatory conservation

programs and decentralization institutions significantly changed gender

relations in access to decision-making processes and natural resources.

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Taking gender as a category of analysis, I argue that both

participatory programs and local government institutions converged in a

manner that undermined women’s abilities to collectively address their

interests. While the two entities appear to be opposed to each other or in

antagonistic relationships, both have the same effects on the opportunities

for women. On the one hand, participatory approaches and processes

accepted and adopted extant cultural norms and power structures,

reproducing existing gender inequalities. On the other hand, local elected

officials, driven by party politics and electoral votes in the context of

multiparty democracy, were not accountable and responsive to women’s

constraints and interests in access to natural resources (forestry resources,

non-timber forest products, land, and community-based reserves).

This dissertation explores the relationships between gender equity,

local electoral politics, and natural resource management. This linkage is

informed by feminist political ecology and feminist environmentalist

theories. The feminist environmentalism perspective helps to understand

women’s relationship with the environment as context-based and shaped

by specific social, cultural, historical, and political factors. In this study

Dialakoto Rural Community as a unique and particular context has its own

“material realities”, which shape men’s and women’s different access to,

and use of, resources. Feminist political ecologists’ conception of gender as

a critical variable in access to and control over resources, interacting with

class, caste, culture, and ethnicity, is important in understanding local

institutions’ gendered processes and practices in natural resource

management. These two theoretical frameworks show how participation

and representation in participatory environment and development

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programs and political institutions are gendered and how they affect

women’s access to and control over resources in Senegal.

I also explain and analyze the gendered composition, participation

and representation of Dialakoto Rural Council and Malidino reserve to

show the processes by which the gender distribution of voices and

decision-making is skewed. What are the gendered outcomes in terms of

access to land, forestry resources, and benefits from the reserve? What are

the resistance and counter-power mechanisms developed by women in

local institutions to represent their collective interests and to get their fair

share of economic and environmental resources under decentralization

and participatory programs?

The study uses both qualitative and quantitative methods. The

qualitative methods are based on extensive ethnographic research, which

involved participant observation, in-depth interviews, and focus groups

using interview guides in Dialakoto administrative center and some villages

surrounding the reserve. I also conducted archival work, policy documents

analysis, and interviews with elite key informants in Tambacounda city and

Dakar. I used quantitative methods with a questionnaire survey of 100

participants (60 female and 40 male) in Dialamakhan village to measure

the gendered participation and representation in decision-making

processes regarding the reserve and in access to land and forest resources.

I also studied conservation activities and other benefits from the reserve.

The participants were chosen mainly based on their political and social

affiliations, and their inclusion or exclusion with respect to the reserve

management.

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METHODS

This study uses both quantitative and qualitative methods. The

choice of the two main sites - Dialamakhan village (the main village in

charge of Malidino reserve) and Dialakoto administrative-center - is based

on the diversity of social and political institutions and actors involved in

natural resource management. The choice of participants in villages

surrounding Malidino reserve was based on variables such as gender,

resource users, decision makers, and local institutions. The main instruments

used were participant observation, in-depth interviews, focus groups, and a

questionnaire survey of 100 people in Dialamakhan (60 female and 40

male). The analysis of the structures, processes, and practices of village

committees in charge of the reserve and the Rural Council are analyzed

through gendered parameters and indicators of decision-making

processes, access to and use of forest resources and land, and roles in the

reserve implementation processes and activities. Two main questions have

guided the methodologies. How do men and women participate and how

are they represented differently? What are the social and political factors

that shape men’s and women’s participation and representation?

Qualitative methods

The qualitative methodology is based on extensive ethnographic

research, which involved participant observation, in-depth interviews, and

focus groups using interview guides. The interviews were done in Dialakoto

administrative center and in six villages surrounding Malidino reserve. At the

village level, a total of 70 in-depth interviews were conducted with 40 men

and 30 women (Dialakoto: 22 men and 15 women; Dialamakhan: 15 men

16

and 11 women; Diénoundiala: 2 men and 3 women; and Mansadala: 1

man and 1 woman).

Ten focus groups consisted of five different focus groups with men

only and five with women only in the following villages surrounding the

reserve: Mansadala, Sounatou, Sitaouma, Kegnekegneko, Binguel, and

Diénoundiala.

I also conducted key informant interviews with state officials in the

Tambacounda region, and the forest services agents in Tambacounda and

Dakar in charge of Malidino reserve, and two officials from the World Bank

in Dakar. I did archival research as an on-going project to review the history

of natural resource management and electoral politics in Senegal. I also

collected information on the history of communities such as Dialakoto living

in the periphery of Niokolo Koba National Park created during the colonial

period. During the fieldwork, while identifying key informants, I did

participant observation and conversed with teachers and some

community members in their homes in informal social settings.

Choice of sites

Most of the interviews took place in Dialamakhan village and

Dialakoto administrative center. Dialamakhan village has been chosen by

the forestry service and the World Bank to be the village center of the

reserve because of its geographical situation, being almost equi-distant

from the other nine villages. The first persons that have been contacted by

the forestry service, the president of the reserve and the village chief, are

from Dialamakhan. All the meetings and General Assemblies among the

ten villages, the forestry service, the World Bank and the different partners

17

in the implementation process were held in Dialamakhan. All the traditional

leaders, the women’s associations, and the rural councilors of the area are

involved in the management of the reserve. In Dialamakhan there are

people in favor of the reserve and another group against the

management processes and practices, which makes the case interesting.

Dialakoto administrative center is the most populated area in the

Rural Community and the most political because the rural council

headquarters is officially located there. The decision-making processes

regarding political issues and natural resource management take place at

the rural council as the new site of decentralized government. Politics is

part of daily life. Twenty councilors out of 28 live in Dialakoto administrative

center and all the different political party representatives live there too. This

administrative center is an ideal site for an analysis of multi-party

democracy and its effects on men’s and women’s participation and

representation within the council, and their access to land and forest

resources.

Choice of participants: in-depth interviews and focus groups

Dialakoto administrative center

In Dialakoto administrative center (chef-lieu), the key informants

were traditional leaders mainly village chiefs, resource users, women’s

promotion groups (Groupements de Promotion Féminine – GPF), and the

men and women rural councilors from the different political parties.

I interviewed three village chiefs (all male) and six resource

users (three men and two women) including two traditional doctors

18

(tradipraticien), a hunter, and two women who sell forests fruits in the local

market.

Among the ten women’s groups present in the area I interviewed 10

women from the three main women’s groups. Two of the groups were

affiliated to the two Dialakoto women rural councilors and their respective

opposition political parties, and the other one was created by a former

woman PS councilor and was ethnically based. These three women’s

groups exemplified the political affiliations of social groups. The interviews

provided a better understanding of how the local political dynamics shape

women’s collective interests and abilities. In these three groups the

presidents and treasurers were interviewed as well as members. In

Dialokoto administrative center, there are three main women’s groups

headed by two women rural councilors: Loumbécoula 1, Benkaouli, and

Maréwa 1. In Loumbécoula 1 headed by a woman rural councilor from the

Socialist Party (PS), I interviewed four members. In Benkaouli headed by a

woman councilor from the Democratic Party (PDS), I interviewed two

members. In Maréwa 2 headed by a former woman PS councilor and

mainly composed of women from the Pulaar ethnic group, I interviewed

four members.

In the Rural Council I met with 18 councilors of whom three were

women. The choice of councilors interviewed was based on representation

in terms of gender, political party affiliation, and village of residence. More

than half of the councilors were consulted: the president from PDS, the first

vice president from And Jëf/African Party for Democracy and Socialism

(And Jëf/ Parti Africain pour la Démocratie et le Socialism- AJ/PADS) and

the second vice-president from PDS, four councilors the Socialist Party, one

19

councilor from the Democratic League- Movement for the Labor Party-

Senegal (Ligue Démocratique- Mouvement pour le Parti du Travail-

LD/MPT). All the political parties represented in the Rural Council were

interviewed. I also interviewed two councilors from Dialamakhan village,

and two more from Diénoundiala village. Twelve councilors out of the

eighteen interviewed belong to PDS which represent the majority. However

the perspectives of all the parties present in the council were heard. I also

had a long conversation with the officer of the Maison Familiale Rurale who

worked closely with women’s groups and who participated in the council

meetings as an observer.

Dialamakhan

In Dialamakhan village, I did in-depth interviews with 15 men and 11

women. The participants belonged to the main groups related to the

reserve management: 9 male members of the village committees in

charge of the reserve management, 6 male members from Balal Alal

group, 7 female members from Bamtare women’s group associated to the

village committees, and 4 female members from Balal Alal women’s group.

In Dialamakhan village the choice of the participants was guided by

the following criteria. First, the traditional leaders played key roles in the

organization of the village and were ex-officio members of the reserve

committees. Second, the leaders and members of the village committees

were the main decision makers for the reserve management. Third, Balal

Alal group (mixed of men and women) was created after the 2002 local

election by the newly elected PDS rural councilor who was the rival of the

reserve president, a PS rural councilor. Most of the members (men and

women) of that group were part of the reserve creation, but because of

20

political quarrels they were either excluded from the reserve management

or retreated as a form of resistance. The members of this group were also

against the management mechanisms and showed disagreement

regarding forced abandonment of crop land in the reserve area. And

fourth, the two women’s groups of the village represented different political

affiliations. One, Bamtare, was affiliated and loyal to the reserve

committees and the president, and was affiliated to the reserve president’s

political party, PS. The other, Balal Alal women’s group, was associated with

Balal Alal men’s group headed by a PDS councilor. The women of Balal

Alal followed their husbands and male family members in their decisions to

leave the reserve committees and they became affiliated to their political

party, PDS. These two women’s groups have been divided based on male

political rivalries and quarrels.

The different groups and categories of people interviewed in

Dialamakhan village represent a range of situations and provided an

understanding of the reserve management and governance from gender,

social, political, cultural, environmental, and economic perspectives.

Diénoundiala and Mansadala

In depth interviews were also conducted in two more villages in

Dialakoto Rural Community, Diénoundiala and Mansadala. In Diénoundiala

village, I interviewed five (2 men and three women) key people in the

village: the village chief, the two PDS rural councilors (man and woman),

and the two women’s groups’ presidents. Of these, one was an ex-PS

councilor (president of Lolo group) and the other a newly elected PDS

councilor from the 2002 local elections (president of Tessito group). I also

interviewed the vice-president of Lolo women’s group. The choice of this

21

village was based on the political dynamics resulting from local elections.

The two women’s groups were split based on the political affiliation of their

presidents. I also did interviews in Mansadala village, which belongs to the

Malidino reserve, with the village chief and the village women’s group

president.

Officers from the forest service in charge of reserve management

Malidino reserve is part of the biodiversity program of PROGEDE. To

get a better sense of the reserve implementation policies, processes, and

practices, it is important to meet the main program officers. In the national

office in Dakar, I met with the national coordinator and the Biodiversity

Conservation program officer. I interviewed the two focal point people at

the World Bank in Dakar who were involved in the implementation of the

program. In the regional office in Tambacounda, I interviewed the zoning

and planning officer, the person in charge of the reserve agriculture and

vegetable gardening activities, and the agent (animateur) deployed in the

field to work directly with the communities surrounding the reserve.

State offices in Tambacounda

Some administration offices in Tambacounda are in charge of forest

resources in the region as well as decentralization issues. The leaders of

these offices are valuable resource people for understanding natural

resource management and decentralization processes and practices in

the region. The following main people were interviewed: the Inspector of

the Forest Service in Tambacounda, the Environment Regional Director,

two members of the Regional Development Agency (Agence Régional de

22

Développement- ARD), and the Decentralization officer of the irrigation

project (Projet d’Appui des Périmètres Irrigés Locales- PAPIL).

Focus groups

I conducted 10 focus groups, five with men only and five with

women only. The groups were composed of five or six people. It was not

easy to get mixed focus groups because of the nature of the social

organizations in the villages that are not generally mixed. Whenever I asked

to have a focus group, the men would come without the women or vice

versa. Since I was concerned with gender representation, I had to create

balance by convening separate men’s and women’s groups. The villages

where focus groups were applied are: Mansadala, Sounatou, Sitaouma,

Kegnekegneko, Binguel, and Diénoundiala.

In Dialamakhan, the core village of the reserve management team,

it was hard to have a focus group due to political tensions and divisions

among the villagers. To avoid creating more conflicts I decided to focus on

individual interviews. In Dialakoto administrative center, it was not easy to

gather people for focus groups, because of its size, the political and social

diversity, and the many economic activities that the population and

particularly women were involved in.

Quantitative methods

I administered a questionnaire survey to 100 participants (60 female

and 40 male) in Dialamakhan village to measure: 1) the gendered

participation and representation in decision-making processes regarding

the reserve management; 2) access to land and forest resources; 3)

activities in the reserve; and 4) benefits from the reserve. The participants

23

were chosen mainly based on their political and social affiliations, as well as

their inclusion or exclusion with respect to reserve management.

Indicators

The following indicators of effectiveness and equal participation,

representation, and empowerment were used: women’s equal

participation in decision-making processes, in policy-making, and in

planning. I also collected data on equality of opportunities in economic

benefits such as food and seed distribution, and equipment provided by

the forest service and the World Bank as part of the poverty alleviation

component of the program. I documented women’s ability to participate

fully in the decisions that shape their choices and chances, and asked

whether women’s issues were ignored or recognized in various forums.

Sampling

The questionnaire was administered to people who belong to the

reserve committees composed of 38 men, to 28 women from Bamtare

women’s group affiliated to the reserve, to 28 women and 13 men from

Balal Alal mixed group created after the local elections. The total

population is of 107: 51 men and 56 women. I used systematic sampling

and questioned the entire population in these local institutions. Since the

population of these main institutions was not very large, it was worth

questioning all of them. I was able to administer the questionnaire to a

population of 100 people, of which 40 men and 60 women were available

at the time of the field survey.

24

TABLE 1.1: sample description for questionnaire survey

1. Distribution of the sample by age and sex in percentage

0-19 20-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 70 and more

Don't

Know Total

Men 2 7 10 8 5 4 3 1 40 Women 5 14 13 7 3 2 0 16 60 Total 7 21 23 15 8 6 3 17 100

The majority of the persons sampled are between 30-39 years (23%) and 20-29 years (21%)

2. Distribution of the sample by ethnicity and sex by percentage Mandinka Pulaar Total Men 9 31 40 Women 13 47 60 Total 22 78 100

3. Distribution of the sample by marital status and sex by percentage Married Divorce Single Total Men 31 1 8 40 Women 60 0 0 60 Total 91 1 8 100

MAJOR STRUCTURE

The literature review, chapter 2 of this dissertation gives an analytical

description of the concepts of participation and decentralization and

highlights the different theoretical perspectives related to the concept of

participation in participatory approaches and women’s political

participation and representation in feminist political science. It focuses on

three main theories to analyze gendered participation and representation

in institutions. First, I review the general social science critiques of

25

participatory approaches in development and environment programs that

see participation as shaped by social, cultural, political, and economic

norms. Second, I summarize feminist theories on participatory development

that use a gender perspective to analyze women’s participation. And third,

I review feminist political scientists who take a holistic approach to

women’s political participation and representation in different countries.

The literature review also covers the definition of representation and

accountability based on women’s experiences in political institutions and

touches on questions of women’s interests and how those interests should

be represented in political institutions, as presented in feminist political

science theories. Showing the limitations of each perspective, I discuss how

my research contributes to these bodies of literature. My works links gender,

local electoral politics, and natural resource management while being

informed by feminist political ecology and feminist environmentalist

theories.

Chapter 3 on the history of local government and natural resource

management in Senegal gives a historical perspective on the political

system of local governance. It describes how gender issues are taken into

account in local political representation, and provides a history of the

processes, structures, and discourses of natural resource management in

Senegal from exclusion to participation. This historical context allows for a

better understanding of the current local government in a multi-party

democracy period, where natural resources to meet local people’s needs

are no longer legally managed by the forest service but by local elected

officials.

26

Chapter 4 describes the setting of this study, Dialakoto Rural

Community, focusing on its social, cultural, environmental, and political

situations. It also highlights the institutional and political processes of

management in the Malidino reserve and its two main objectives of

biodiversity conservation and rural poverty alleviation. While

acknowledging the complex pluralism of institutions in charge of natural

resource management in Dialakoto Rural Community, this chapter shows

that this institutional pluralism has non-democratic outcomes because of

the political competition and divisions created at the local level. In

addition to giving an analytical description of the research area, this

chapter presents the methods used for data collection. It shows how the

sites and participants for this study were chosen using quantitative and

qualitative methods.

Chapter 5 demonstrates how the use of village committees to

manage natural resources in the Malidino Biodiversity Community Reserve

was inconsistent with democratic decentralization objectives. It

interrogates how participatory approaches used in the Malidino Reserve

shaped the gender distribution of outcomes in decision processes, access

to forest resources and land, incomes and economic activities, biodiversity

conservation, rural community empowerment, and social change. It also

interrogates how donor-sponsored participatory approaches might

exacerbate political party divisions, and through them, ethnic, kinship and

gender cleavages by bestowing power and authority on actors belonging

to a rival opposition party and on actors with questionable democratic

legitimacy.

27

Chapter 6 discusses the impact of decentralization and

democratization on gender equity by showing how women are trapped by

multi-party competition and rivalries in Dialakoto Rural Council. This chapter

interrogates the gendered composition of the rural council, women’s

participation and representation in decision-making, and the effects on

women’s interests and opportunities in natural resource management. It

shows that, contrary to the rhetoric, local governments do not generally

serve women’s interests. Women still do not have much voice in decision

making and in access to natural resources.

Chapter 7, the conclusion, draws the main implications from this

study. Parallel local institutions, as they relate to party and electoral politics

in local councils have served to reproduce inequality and exclusion. They

have also deepened extant social hierarchies by privileging the social and

cultural rules and codes through which power relations operate in the rural

communities surrounding the Malidino reserve. Externally-driven

interventions of governments and donors’ participatory approaches

produce uneven gendered distributions of authority and power. Social,

cultural and gender power dynamics in the context of emerging

competitive party politics have also been generally detrimental to

women’s interests. Multi-party competitions and rivalries combined with the

political patron-client relationships tied to Senegal’s local electoral system

and practices, and other locally entrenched cultural and social factors

have not yet allowed women to have their voices heard and their interests

served.

The conclusion also moves beyond the social and political

complexities in which rural women are embedded to end with a call to

28

seize, the as yet, untapped spaces and opportunities for gender equity

and equality that still may be realized within the politics of decentralization.

Decentralization as an institutional and constitutional framework can be

used to enforce gender sensitive laws that go beyond nominal

representation and, rather, aim for social change. Decentralization has

allowed women to achieve some voice in Dialakoto rural council; there are

specific examples where decentralization structures could be used to

inform policy and decision makers. The chapter shows the strategies

developed by the Senegalese government through decentralization, for

women’s effective participation and representation in politics at all levels.

29

CHAPTER 2: CONCEPTUAL AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS

The aims of this literature review chapter are: first to give an

analytical definition of the main concepts of participation,

decentralization, and accountability; second, to present how the issue of

“women’s participation” has been theorized in feminist participatory

development theories; and third to show how “women’s political

participation and representation”, and multi-party democracy have been

conceptualized within feminist political science theories. It also shows how

my research contributes to these bodies of literature by linking gender,

local electoral politics, and natural resource management while being

informed by feminist political ecology and feminist environmentalism

theories.

I differentiate the concepts of participation in feminist participatory

development theories and of representation in feminist political science

theories for two reasons. First in relation to my research, the concept of

participation as theorized in participatory development helps to better

understand the gender relations in the management of Malidino

community-based biodiversity reserve, where the forest service uses

participatory approaches to get the population to implement the

agency’s program on the ground. The concept of representation as

theorized by feminist political scientists provides a relevant framework to

analyze women rural councilors’ representation of their constituencies in

Dialakoto Rural Council.

Second, while increased participation may have democratic

characteristics – bringing a broader cross-section of the population into

30

decision making – participation is often neither representative nor binding

(Mosse, 2001; Ribot, 2005). Local elected officials are representatives and

not participants. They are elected to represent and be responsive to the

populations’ needs and interests; and when they fail to do so, they can be

subjected to sanction mechanisms, to ensure accountability. The concept

of representation is more appropriate to questioning political institutions

such as Dialakoto Rural Council’s “democratic” practices and “good

governance” with respect to gender.

DECENTRALIZATION AND PARTICIPATORY APPROACHES

Decentralization

Democratic decentralization results in efficiency and equity gains

through proximity and representation of local populations in decision

making (Mawhood, 1983; Carney, 1995; Manor, 1999; Smoke 2000; Crook

and Sverisson, 2001; Ribot, 2005) as well as marginalized groups (Smoke,

2000). Theoretically, the decision makers are accountable to the

population, enabling them to better integrate across local needs and to

match decisions and resources to local needs and aspirations (Agrawal

and Ribot, 1999; Ribot, 2004). Accountability has two dimensions: the notion

of “answerability” where power holders are obliged to explain and justify

their actions, and the notion of “enforceability”, where power holders suffer

sanctions for mistakes or illegal behavior (Schedler, 1999; Manin, Przeworski

and Stokes, 1999). Citizens can hold the politicians accountable based on

their leverage; accountability can also operate through institutional

supervision (O’Donnell, 1999).

31

Democratic decentralization theorized through a natural resources

lens (Ribot and Larson, 2004) offers a perspective for linking environment

and local politics. This shows how natural resources represent on the one

hand local populations’ livelihoods, and on the other hand, because of

their economic value, are sources of competition among the different

stakeholders. Even though in the context of decentralization local

governments have power over resources management, many institutions

are involved in natural resources management as users, owners, or

managers and with different stakes and interests. In Senegal, the main

institutions in natural resource management are the government and its

administrative bodies such as the forestry service (administrative

decentralization), local government (democratic decentralization), local

institutions (social and political networks at the local level), and

development agencies as donors (decentralized cooperation). This

diversity of actors has created institutional pluralism, which however, does

not promote local democracy. The power relations among these

categories of actors are generally of conflict, cooperation,

complementarity, or coexistence, which raises the issue of power and

gender relations (Rocheleau et al., 1996).

The way decentralization is practiced does not always follow the

way it is theoretically defined and presented in policies and institutional

settings. At the local level, decentralization has been mixed up with

participatory approaches. There are, however, based on different

democratic principles.

32

Participatory approaches

According to participatory development proponents and one of the

leading figures in the filed, Robert Chambers, people should be the center

of development and the most socially and economically disadvantaged

groups should be the focus of planning efforts. When outsiders such as state

officials and development agents work at the community level with local

people, they should not dominate the meeting but act as facilitators. One

such method of communication for planning is called Participatory Rural

Appraisal (PRA). External agencies share methods, and facilitate processes

in which local people can conduct their own appraisal, analysis, planning,

action, monitoring, and evaluation (Robert Chambers, 1997: 103; see also

Thomas-Slayter, 1995). They should also respect people’s culture and

beliefs.

Participatory a synonym for Decentralization?

Decentralization is defined by democratic decentralization theorists

as distinct from participatory approaches, because participatory

approaches usually do not involve transfers of powers to local groups, but

rather provide for their inclusion in decisions made by outside entities (Ribot,

2005). External agencies pre-specify the objectives that local people are

supposed to adopt as their own – or ‘participate in’, while creating

incentives for project managers to achieve these objectives through

specific success indicators (Baviskar, 2004).

Even though, participatory approaches in principle are not the same

as decentralization, in practice, it is hard to draw the line between them for

two main reasons. Participation can result in political co-optation and mask

33

continued centralization in the name of decentralization (Biggs and Smith,

1998; Mosse, 1994; Stirrat, 1997). External agencies often unintentionally

confound participatory approaches and decentralization in implementing

environment programs. They work at the same time with local elected

actors and traditional village leaders (village chiefs, notables, religious

leaders, and leaders of social groups and networks). Therefore, people at

the local level where environmental programs are implemented are

involved at the same time in participatory programs and decentralized

institutions. There is a combined effect of “cultural construction” and

“political action” (Sivaramakrishnan, 2000) that determine men’s and

women’s participation and representation in village committees. The

government reluctance to alienate neo-traditionalist structures of rural

local governance (i.e. the institution of chieftaincy) highlights the complex

interplay between state-enforced legal rules and socially enforced, though

contested, moral rules (Razavi, 1998: 17-18).

The role of external agencies in the institutional empowerment of

local communities engaged in natural resource management and the

choice and recognition of traditional authorities as key decision-makers

over resource management are in fact inconsistent with democratic

decentralization objectives. It also contributes to the emergence of parallel

non-representative institutions. “When governments and international

agencies empower local authorities, they are enforcing upon the members

of the groups, the particular forms of comportment of the chosen

authorities” (Ribot, 2005). According to Fraser (2000: 108-12), “insofar as the

politics of recognition displaces the politics of redistribution, it may actually

promote inequality in ignoring material inequality; it reinforces material

34

injustices. It places moral pressure on individual members to conform to a

given group culture and obscures internal cultural differences”. As stated

by (Ribot, 1999), traditional authorities in Sahelian countries are not

necessarily representative of or accountable to the populations over whom

they preside; they have poor track records in serving women’s interests and

they generally hold their positions for life. Ntsebeza (2004— following

Mamdani, 1996) argues that rural residents who are dependent on

hereditary traditional leadership are not citizens but subjects.

However, studies also reveal the poor records of local elected actors

in terms of serving women, the poor, and marginalized groups, unless it is a

requirement from the central government (Crook and Sverisson, 2001; Ribot

and Larson, 2004). In Senegal the official processes systematically under-

represent or exclude women (Ribot, 1999). Decentralization is expected to

promote “greater responsiveness to citizens, improved decision making,

and improved efficiency in service delivery” (Parry, 1997: 211). It is very

simplistic and misleading, however, to think that the transfer of power, by

itself will solve the problem (Goetz and Hassim, 2003: 20-21). “Development

officials need to be cautious about decentralization as a panacea for local

development problems. Decentralization facilitates development only if

the rules that govern local bodies can produce efficient and effective

outcomes” (Patterson, 2003: 49).

35

THEORIZING PARTICIPATION: SOCIAL SCIENCES AND GENDER PERSPECTIVES

The concept of participation and mainstream theories of

participation in the tradition of Chambers have been criticized in a massive

body of literature based on its scope and definition of the inclusion of

marginalized groups in decision making, people’s involvement as a

collectivity, and the emphasis on community participation through group

formation (Slocum et al., 1995; Agarwal, 2001). While social scientists focus

on how social, cultural, political, and economic norms combine to shape

participation, feminist environmental scholars are especially interested in

how power relations shape women’s participation within natural resource

management institutions and how their voices are heard and interests

served within decision-making processes.

Social science critics of participatory approaches

In order to make participatory approaches more truly democratic,

some scholars are now calling for greater consideration of gender

differences in interests, constraints and preferences in development and

environmental conservation and for appropriate shifts in analytical

methods. Henkel and Stirrat (2001) suggest that better tools are required for

an analysis of the whole process of “development”: its discourses,

institutions and practices, or the “anthropology of development”. To better

engage with cultural micropolitics of joint forest management,

Sivaramakrishnan (2000: 448) calls for new “ethnographies of statemaking

and political action [which] should focus on procedures that produce the

state in contexts of participatory conservation”. Krishna (2003) suggests that

there should be an analytical shift of participation downwards to the

36

village level, allowing a better understanding of the processes through

which class, ethnic and gender-based dimensions of marginalization

operate. “It is time to move beyond the analysis of what occurs during

‘participatory’ meetings and beyond the use of women’s participation in

them as an indicator of genuine involvement and empowerment.

Participation is shaped by social and cultural norms” (Cleaver, 2001).

Cook and Kothari (2001) in their edited volume, Participation: The

New Tyranny, move beyond the conceptual, political, technical, and

methodological challenges to the politics of participation discourse. They

identify three particular sets of tyrannies in participation: “the tyranny of

decision-making and control”, “the tyranny of the group”, and “the tyranny

of method”. Three main questions lead respectively to these forms of

tyranny:

“do participatory facilitators override existing legitimate decision-making processes? Do group dynamics lead to participatory decisions that reinforce the interests of the already powerful? Have participatory methods driven out others which have advantages participation cannot provide? The proponents of participatory development have generally been naïve about the complexities of power and power relations. It is the misunderstanding of power that underpins much of the participatory discourse” (Cook and Kothari, 2001: 14).

While the notion of “empowerment” has been simplified and

become a buzzword in development it is often used without knowing who

is to be empowered, and the notion of “community” has been

essentialized as inherently homogeneous and equal (Cleaver, 2001; Henkel

37

and Stirrat, 2001). According to Guijt and Shah (1999), the use of the term

‘community’ in PRA discourse, as homogeneous, static, harmonious, and

ungendered units within which people share common interests and needs,

conceals power relations and masks biases in interests and needs based

on, for example age, class, caste, ethnicity, religion and gender.

Therefore, there is a necessity for practitioners to question gender

differences, i.e. what it means to be a man or a woman in a given context

(Andrea Cornwall, 1998). The particular type of knowledge produced is

strongly shaped by local relations of power, authority and gender

(Rocheleau and Slocum, 1995; Mosse, 2001). What passes for participation

frequently serves to sustain and reinforce inequitable economic, political

and social structures – to the detriment of marginalized groups (Hildyard et

al., 2001: 56). The notion of community is frequently emphasized to the

neglect of other social groups and institutions (Murphy, 1990; Mosse, 1994;

Francis, 2001: 73).

Understanding how power relations operate in social interactions is

important in analyzing participation. “Power must be analyzed as

something which circulates, or rather as something which only functions in

the form of a chain. It is never localized here or there… power is employed

and exercised through a net-like organization” (Foucault 1980:98). He is

echoed by Kothari (2001: 141) who argues that power is everywhere, and

can be particularly analyzed through the creation of social norms or

customs that are practiced throughout society. But, as observed by Kothari,

practitioners tend to reify and normalize social norms, to accept power as

a cultural norm. By doing so, they conceal and reify inequalities and

power.

38

Although many social science critics of participatory approaches

acknowledge the importance of social and cultural norms, power relations,

and gender, many do not use gender as a category of analysis to question

participation. They also do not focus on how women participate in

development and environment institutions, and the impacts of

participatory approaches on women.

Feminist perspectives on participatory development and environmental

conservation

Engendering participatory approaches

The major feminist critique of participatory approaches and

processes is that women are the most likely to lose out in participation as

usual because their interests are marginalized and overlooked. The use of

participatory methods (such as PRA) in planning processes may be token

rather than transformative (Cornwall, 2003: 1331). A feminist approach,

however, is transformational (Connell, 1999), puts an emphasis on class and

gender, addresses inequalities and inequities, challenges power relations,

and hierarchical structures, and questions the gender equality of these

practices (Mayoux, 1995). When issues of gender, power, and difference

are ignored, existing inequalities, exclusions, or antagonisms are often

perpetuated (Lennie, 1999: 108).

In project design and implementation, relatively little attention has

been given to the unequal division of labor, power, and resources between

women and men in societies (Rocheleau and Ross, 1995) and between

different groups of women within communities (class, age, race, ability,

sexuality, ethnicity). In many project interventions, community differences

39

end up simplified, power relationships poorly understood, and gender

conflicts avoided or ignored (Guijt and Shah, 1998)—this despite the deep-

rooted divisions and widespread lack of cohesion among the various class,

gender, ethnicity, and caste groups (Thomas-Slayter, 1992; Agrawal and

Gibson, 1999; Brockington, 2003).

Intervening agencies tend to reproduce existing structures and

dynamics of gendered power and exclusion (Cornwall, 2003: 1329). These

“participatory exclusions” can unfavorably affect both equity and

institutional efficiency (Agarwal, 2000). As such, they serve to exemplify the

problem of treating communities as ungendered units and community

participation as an unambiguous step toward enhanced equality

(Agarwal, 1997: 1374). Even though participation aims for popular

involvement in the decision-making process, participation often lacks real

substance (Brainbridge et al., 2000). External agencies and governments’

“village-based” intervention strategies generally reinstitute and reaffirm

traditional authorities’ power. They usually do not question the hierarchical

social structure of villages in respect to tradition and people’s way of living,

whereas participatory approaches can reproduce patriarchal ideologies

(Rocheleau and Slocum, 1995).

Programs and projects have tended to concentrate primarily on

women in the development process as something additional to the main

thrust of development. As a result, solutions have been ad hoc or ‘add-ons’

often resulting in tokenism and marginalization of women’s long term

interests (Bainbridge et al., 2000). Women are considered a separate

category of analysis and intervention without any consideration of specific

cultural, social, historical, and economic dynamics.

40

Gendered participation

Participation in development and environment programs has been

redefined by feminists using a gender perspective. Gendered participation

has received different meanings and has been categorized in order to

understand what can make women’s participation equitable and

representative.

Generally committee-like institutions (such as community forest

groups or village committees) are associated with participation through

democratic representation and a concentration on the election/selection

of committee members (Agarwal, 2001). Women’s participation is

generally defined and analyzed in terms of nominal membership (Chopra

et al., 1990; Molinas, 1998); also in terms of a dynamic interactive process in

which the disadvantaged have voice and influence in decision-making

(Narayan, 1996; White, 1996). Participation is also analyzed through its

potential efficiency effects, its ability to enhance equity, efficiency,

empowerment, and environmental sustainability (Uphoff, 1991). However,

as suggested by Cleaver (2001), we need to question the participatory fora

of socially embedded institutions because they may uphold and

reproduce locally specific configurations of inequity and exclusion. To

better take into account marginalized groups, one needs to move beyond

the issues of sitting in committees or speaking in meetings.

Women’s effective participation should be measured through equity

and efficiency of programs and policy. Equity in community forest groups is

measured through women’s presence and voices in decision making, in

framing of forest closure rules in access to benefit sharing and funding

41

allocations. However, women’s simple presence in decision making is

insufficient to solve inequities. Efficiency of process involves a consideration

of “women’s knowledge in rule making, by allowing them to formulate rules

that are not only fairer but also perceived by them to be so” (Agarwal,

2001: 1637).

However, these analyses of participation have a narrow focus on the

institutional efficiency of process and the implications of inequitable

outcomes for the disadvantaged are hardly examined. There is a neglect

of a gender perspective on who participates, what effects this has, and

what factors constrain participation (Agarwal, 2001; Molina, 1998). There is

much to learn by looking at the outcomes of participation at the local

level. The outcomes approach makes visible the cultural and economic

constraints on women’s participation in environmental management

institutions. Participation is shaped by rules, norms, and perceptions, in

addition to the endowments and attributes of those affected. These factors

can disadvantage women, both separately and interactively. “There are

limits to what participation alone (even if interactive) can achieve in terms

of equity and efficiency, given pre-existing socioeconomic inequalities and

relations of power” (Agarwal, 2001: 1625).

Agarwal (2000) suggests that endowing women with bargaining

power in community groups may bring about changes in rules, norms, and

perceptions, and may be key to creating a critical mass of women with

stronger and more confident voices. Women “would need to move from

being absent or just nominal members to being interactive (empowered)

participants” (Agarwal, 2001: 1626). “Engineered spaces of participation”

(Williams et al., 2003: 184) become necessary venues where marginalized

42

groups can articulate local preferences and opinions. These kinds of

spaces can be used to challenge gender roles and promote women’s

views of public development needs and priorities.

Local politics: the missing link in theorizing gender and participatory

development and conservation

While sensitive to local social dynamics, democratic decentralization

theorists (Crook and Manor, 1998; Ribot, 1999; Smoke, 2000) have failed, to

date, to incorporate gender as an analytical category into their analyses.

While the diverse body of development scholarship has provided valuable

insights into the impacts of externally driven development interventions on

gender and other socio-economic relations, many studies share an

important omission, local electoral politics.

Scholars theorizing the relationship among gender and participatory

development (Connell, 1997; Cornwall, 2003; Guijt and Shah, 1999; Lennie,

1999; Mayoux, 1995; Mosse, 1994) have not addressed the gendered

impacts of local politics. Agarwal (2001) approaches decentralization as an

arena for participatory exclusion, but electoral and party politics as they

relate to other structures of potential exclusion and marginalization of

women do not receive extensive treatment in her work.

The impacts of political relationships in existing social networks as a

form of politics are also seldom discussed in the participatory development

literature (Williams et al., 2003). This is a surprising omission given the tension

between the technocratic approaches of development practitioners and

the advent of competitive politics accompanying democratization

(Sivaramakrishnan, 2000). In this context, participation can result in political

43

co-optation (Escobar, 1994; Rocheleau et al., 1995); it can also mask

continued centralization in the name of decentralization (Mosse, 1994;

Stirrat, 1997). Projects aimed at increasing public participation or

‘decentralizing power’ may end up excluding ‘target populations’ and

strengthening elites and local power relationships that the planners may

not even know exist (Hildyard et al., 2001).

However, this omission can be justified partially if one considers the

political context of many African countries based on single party states in

the 1980s and early 90s. Much of the gender and development and

gender and environment work were done during that period.

Democratic decentralization theorists recognize electoral

representation as the basis for democracy because it makes elected

actors more accountable. Even though they focus on issues of equity,

accountability, and representation in local government; they have failed

to analyze how local government structures and processes might shape

women’s political representation. Neither have they used gender to

analyze democratic principles of equity, accountability, and

representation. Therefore, for a gender analysis of local politics, one needs

to look at the field of feminist political science. Feminist political scientists in

“developed” and “developing” countries have used gender as an

analytical tool from different perspectives to question women’s political

representation, political institutions’ (parties, legislature, local governments)

rules, norms, and ideologies. They have also examined accountability and

its impacts on women’s political representation at the national and local

levels.

44

THEORIZING GENDER AND POLITICS: FEMINIST POLITICAL SCIENCE PERSPECTIVES

Liberal democracies

The gender and politics literature in the early 1990s focused primarily

on advanced industrialized western democracies: United States, Australia,

Britain, Canada, France, Germany, the Republic of Ireland, Italy,

Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. Western feminist political scientists

(Phillips, 1991; and Lovenduski and Norris, 1993) have looked at issues such

as political institutions and structures, the effects of party structures on the

position of women within political parties, the impact of different systems of

candidate selection, and the impacts of the proportional representation

system on women’s political representation. Their major claims are that

feminism has major implications for the way we should think of democracy

(Phillips, 1991 and 1998). The way a party responds to women’s claims is a

product of the nature of those claims as well as the strategies used to press

them (Lovenduski and Norris, 1993).

However, western feminist political scientists’ focus on formal

orthodox channels of political representation (Geisler, 1995) in “developed”

countries has narrowed their visions and constrained the scope to see

gender and politics from different perspectives and realities.

Countries in transition to democracy

Based on many developing countries paths to democratization after

longstanding political dictatorship or civil conflicts, contemporary feminist

political studies (Tripp, 1994; Albertyn, 1995; Meintjes, 1996; Cock, 1997;

45

Tripp, 2000) have concentrated their efforts in studying countries in

transition to democracy in Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe.

Their aim is to understand the women’s movements and how women

had taken the political transition opportunity to fight for greater

inclusiveness (Tripp, 1994; Jaquette and Wolchilk, 1998). The effects of

electoral system structure on women’s representation in national

legislatures have also been a major subject of study. Representativeness in

this context should be analyzed in terms of reflecting party support, but also

in terms of accurately mirroring society at large, that is descriptive

representation (Matland and Taylor, 1997).

While focusing on women’s movements in democratic transitions, the

above feminist political scientists have failed to understand the more

formal institutional arenas such as the executive, the legislative and

political parties, to see the opportunities given to women for participation

and influence (Waylen, 2000). It is important to study the capacities of

political institutions to address the conflicting interests of men and women

that produce gendered asymmetries in resource access and social

opportunity (Goetz and Hassim, 2003). Even the focus on grassroots

women’s movements can productively explore their interactions with local

political institutions.

New democracies

What are the problems afflicting the new democracies and how are

they manifested and experienced in gender-specific ways? The focus of

the literature is on Latin America (Brazil, Chile) and Africa (South Africa,

Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Botswana). Gender and

46

politics is analyzed through political parties’ mechanisms, cultures, and

ideologies. It moves from the state as the main political arena to look at

political parties where elected representatives and officials come from,

and to examine electoral politics as a determining factor of women’s

political representation. The main aspects of political parties that prevent

women from being effective elected officials at the local level are the elitist

nature of parties, lack of articulation to social programs, and lack of

accountability of political leaders (Razavi, 2001). Party politics, as male

dominated also, limit women’s political experiences (Geisler, 1995; Goetz

and Hassim, 2003). Women enter politics in terms set by the male elite who

use women’s political energy for their own ends (Staudt, 1987). Another

characteristic of political parties is the so-called “female space” such as a

party “women’s wing”, where women are given little or no scope to

influence policy formulation, not even policies directly relevant to them

(Geisler, 1995: 546).

The focus on the local level in new democracies and on political

parties is a major shift in theorizing gender and electoral politics in Africa.

The new major issues covered in the debate are: the constraints of women

councilors to participate in decision making within the council, and the

impacts of traditional leaders on rural women’s involvement in politics.

Compared to the general literature on women in national and

legislative politics, these new studies highlight the institutional, political and

cultural conditions under which women councilors work at the local level.

Women’s representation is different from one context to another

depending on cultural factors. For example, M’batha (2003: 189) studying

power relations in a rural council in South Africa argues that women’s

47

access to power and the extent to which they are seen as legitimate

representatives in rural areas are highly dependent on the power and

attitudes of traditional leaders. Yet others find that women’s numerical

representation (increase in number) in local government affects not just the

articulation and promotion of local politics, but also the character and

conduct of local politics (Ahikire, 2003: 213).

This new body of literature, in addition to challenging women’s low

representation in political parties and the cultural constraints that shape

women local elected officials’ participation; it also looks at the institutional

constraints. There are two challenges facing women in local government:

institutional transformation to allow women’s voices to be validated and

women’s interests to be routinely addresses in policy making (Goetz, 1998);

and the creation of linkages between elected representatives and

constituencies of women who would be able and willing to challenge

existing patterns of resource allocation (Kabeer, 1994). My research in the

rural council of Dialakoto draws heavily from this new body of literature on

gender and local electoral politics.

Multi-party democracy and electoral systems

Multiparty democracy in different countries and different electoral

systems has produced different outcomes for women. In some places like

South Africa, it “has enabled women to exploit political competition by

emphasizing their electoral importance. However, pluralism does not by

any means assure effective political voice for women” (Goetz and Hassim,

2003: 26). Women’s participation and representation in local electoral

politics is shaped by combined complex interrelated factors of multi-party

competition, electoral system, party system, and political culture (Norris,

48

1993; Lovenduski and Norris, 1991; Goetz and Hassim, 2003). Therefore, we

need “to take care to observe the complex interactions of political culture,

the party system and the electoral system and to go beyond simple

clarifications of party competition, to see how party ideology and party

organization also play a role” (Norris, 1993: 319). As rightly stated by

Lovenduski (1993: 12), all political parties have decision-making procedures

consisting of formal rules, informal practices and customs.

Many feminists have looked at the electoral systems in Western and

African countries and how they affect women’s representation in political

institutions such as political parties, in legislature, and in local governments.

One of the main questions they generally ask and investigate is: what

impacts does the electoral system have on the ease with which feminist

issues can be politicized, and on the accountability of politicians to voters

concerned with gender equity (Goetz, 2003)? The electoral system is “the

basic electoral formula that determines how votes are cast and translated

into seats allocated to parties” (Squires and Wickham-Jones, 2001: 6).

Many institutional and structural issues need to be considered while

analyzing the different electoral systems through a gender lens. The success

of the electoral system in terms of addressing women’s concerns is

dependent on the extent of political parties’ commitment to gender

equality and on political leaders’ accountability (Mbatha, 2003: 197). In

looking at women’s representation on a parties’ lists of candidates, we

need to distinguish between first positions that have a realistic chance of

getting elected and those that do not (Matland and Taylor (1997). Haavio-

Mannila et al. (1985) identified three types of list positions: mandate,

fighting, and ornamental.

49

“Mandate positions are seats a party will lose in a poor election but win if they have a strong election. Fighting positions are the swing seats a party will lose in a poor election but win if they have a strong election. Ornamental positions are those that stand no chance for election even if the party has an extremely good election. Generally, women are underrepresented in mandate slots and overrepresented among ornamental positions”.

And as noted by Matland and Taylor (1997), women’s greater

representation in ornamental slots probably indicates women’s weaker

position in the nomination process.

There is a broad consensus that systems with multi-member

constituencies and proportional representation with party lists (such as in

Nordic countries) are much more likely than majoritarian-plurality systems to

overcome voter reluctance to select women’s candidates, as well as party

reluctance to field them (Norris and Lovenduski (1993; 1995). One of the

chief differences between electoral systems is whether they encourage

voters to focus upon the candidates or the party in making their selection,

and this can affect the willingness of candidates to champion controversial

causes (Goetz, 2003: 51).

The two main success stories of women’s political representation in

Africa are Uganda and South Africa. The mechanism for institutionalizing a

presence for women in formal politics in South Africa has been the party list

version of proportional representation (Razavi, 2001). In South Africa the

effectiveness of this system in promoting women candidates is also

dependent on the commitment of the party, usually underlined by quotas,

to place women candidates on party lists (Goetz, 1998). In Uganda (Goetz

50

and Hassim, 2003) the reserved seats for women have contributed to

increasing the number of women in representative politics.

Goetz (2003: 56) observed that “party fragmentation can increase

the chances that women candidates and gender equity concerns are

backed by parties because new and smaller parties will see new electoral

niches to exploit in the gender equity cause”. Sainsbury (1991, in Lovenduski

and Norris) looking at Sweden and Scandinavian countries politics suggests,

that increased competition, combined with the growth of new parties

would provide more opportunities for women candidate. According to Juul

(2006), the introduction and consolidation of multiparty politics is part of

good governance doctrine because political competition between

different parties is supposed to increase transparency and accountability.

Even though these statements show the potential of multi party democracy

for gender equity, it cannot be applied to all contexts. For example in

Senegal, the processes and practices of multi-party politics are based on

patron-client relationships. The entwined party appointments and

recruitments, tied to the electoral system, work against women’s political

participation and representation. Therefore, it is misleading to believe like

Beck (2001: 6002) that multiparty politics “would alter previously clientelistic

relations with the citizenry and change the neo-patrimonial nature of

Senegalese society”.

While the focus on theorizing gender and politics in Africa has been

mainly on Southern and Eastern African Anglophone countries, there is a

need to look at other sub-regional areas such as West Africa and

Francophone African countries. Women’s representation in political

institutions in West Africa is very low; this can be explained by the political

51

instability in many West African countries: war and post-conflicts (Liberia,

Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau, and Ivory Coast), political instability (Guinea

Conakry), and military coups (The Gambia). Even in ‘democratic’ countries

such as Senegal, Mali, and Burkina Faso women’s political representation is

low in both national and local level. In addition to the political factor, there

is a need to look at the different political systems in place, the social,

cultural, economic, and environment factors that shape women’s

representation in politics.

Gendered political representation and accountability

Feminist literature has been concerned with the ways in which

representative democracy might be enhanced to ensure women’s equal

participation (Phillips, 1991; Young, 1990; Williams, 1998). However, as

observed by Hassim (2003), this literature has shown that for women citizens

in most democracies, there is a problem of both representation and

accountability. Women’s political representation is a major subject of

debate among feminist political scientists. While all agree that increasing

women’s numerical representation in political institutions is important, they

diverge on its impacts, effectiveness, the ways women should be

represented, and who are the women elected officials that should

represent women.

Sapiro (1998) raises most of the questions that relate to the debate:

What is political representation of women? And to what degree and under

what circumstances are political institutions and decision-makers

responsive to female citizens? Under what circumstances are political

systems representative of women? Under what circumstances do they act

in the interests of the represented – in this case, women? These questions

52

need always to be kept in mind while analyzing women’s political

representation at the national and local levels.

I consider three main definitions and analyses of women’s political

representation: first, women’s numerical representation (numbers of

women in elected office), second, accountability; and third,

representation of women’s interests. These analyses are of interest for this

study for two reasons. First, the authors see women’s political representation

from different angles, each having a valid point and they complement one

another. Second, for my analysis of women’s representation among rural

councilors in Dialakoto rural council both in decision making and on

women’s interests in access to forest resources and land, each analysis is

relevant to explain different specific issues. Even though these three points

are not a recipe for all analysis of women’s political representation, they

highlight the main questions one needs to consider for a gender analysis of

local government.

Gendered numerical representation

Does election of more women ensure better representation of

women’s interests? The rationale for increasing the number of women in

elected positions is that “there are particular needs, interests, and concerns

that arise from women’s experience and these will not be adequately

addressed in a politics that is dominated by men” (Phillips, 1998: 233).

Phillips (1998: 228) has identified four approaches to women’s numerical

representation (proportion or quota in elected office): the role model that

successful women politicians offer; the appeal to principles of justice and

equality between the sexes; identification of particular interests of women

that would be otherwise overlooked; and a focus on a revitalized

53

democracy that bridges the gap between representation and

participation.

Just by looking at the number of men and women in elected

office one can tell if women are included or excluded. The low number of

women in political institutions (political parties, parliaments, national and

local governments) is indicative of gender inequality. Women’s exclusion is

not just a ‘deficit’ of democracy but indicative of fundamentally gendered

conditions for political participation (Goetz, 2003: 49) which are intrinsic to

current political practice, not an extraneous, additional concern (Phillips,

1993: 98). Numerical representation refers to the presence of women.

But as pointed out by Goetz and Hassim (2003), there are differences

between a feminine and a feminist presence in politics (Goetz and Hassim,

2003). Beyond “getting women in” (Razavi, 2001), democratic and good

governance principles such as ‘representativeness’ and accountability

need to be considered. Increasing the number of women is necessary but

not sufficient. While “engineering” elections through gender quotas makes

women more visible, the difficulty resides in making a substantive change in

institutional priorities and state accountability (Kudva, 2003).

Challenging “the myth of women’s incorruptibility”

A very new trend in theorizing women’s political representation has

emerged challenging the myth of women’s incorruptibility, essentialist

notions of women’s higher moral nature, and assumed propensity to bring

this to bear on public life and particularly on the conduct of politics (Goetz,

2007). According to Goetz (2007, 88-89)

54

“Politics is the worst place to ignore difference between women: arrangements for the inclusion of women in politics that are insensitive to differences of race, class, and ethnicity between women will see elite women capturing public office. Is it useful to analyze problems of governance – or accountability failures – from a gender perspective? This is a question about what governments can do for women, as opposed to what women can do for good governance”.

Gendered accountability

Feminist political scientists have recognized that women’s political

representation is meaningless if not linked to accountability. Political

leaders should be accountable and responsive to the population and

particularly to women who have specific needs and concerns as a group.

According to Phillips (1991: 19), increasing the proportion of women

elected need not increase the representation of women per se, for it is only

when there are mechanisms through which women can formulate their

own policies or interests that we can really talk of their ‘representation’.

According to Goetz (2003), accountability is a key issue in representation; it

has become one of the signs by which a democracy can be known.

Accountability mechanisms make authorities answer for meeting standards

of gender equity in policy and service delivery. She is echoed by Phillips

(1993: 99) who states that accountability is always the other side of

representation, and, in the absence of procedures for establishing what

any group wants or thinks, we cannot usefully talk of their political

representation.

Accountability is a necessary condition for women’s effective

representation. Goetz (2003: 48) states that politics is the intervening

variable between voice and accountability. She suggests a consideration

55

of the “voice-to-representation-to-accountability” relationship to better

promote gender equality in policy making and agenda setting. Women

must be able to use their ‘voice’ to make political leaders responsive to

their needs. In theory, being able to ask for ‘answerability’ and to impose

‘enforceability’ are the first democratic principles; but to make them

effective there is a need to consider the factors which shape the gender

equity related to these principles. Those political factors are patronage, the

electoral systems, traditional and patriarchal male local leaders and

political elites. Women’s political effectiveness is measured in three

dimensions:

“access, presence, and influence. Access involves opening arenas to women for dialogue and information sharing; presence involves institutionalizing women’s participation in decision making; influence brings women’s engagement with civil society, politics and the state to the point where they can translate access and presence into a tangible impact on policy making, the operation of the legal system, and the organization of service delivery” (Goetz, 2003: 40).

How is accountability translated at the local level? How does local

accountability shape gender equity? In many parts of the Third World, and

particularly in Africa, numbers of women on local councils are actually

lower than those in parliament (Goetz and Hassim, 2003). Local

government realities in Africa are shaped by social and cultural norms such

as traditional patriarchies (Goetz, 2003; Bandiaky, 2007). Within the councils,

male political leaders already have their cultural beliefs on women’s roles

and status in society and tend to relegate women rural councilors roles to

56

domestic issues. As head of households the male leaders do not see

themselves as accountable to the women that elected them. In addition,

“government and opposition parties fail to promote political accountability to women by refusing to problematize gender biases in existing and proposed legislation, by failing to back up national commitments to gender equity with budgetary commitments, and by failing to consult with women’s interest groups when formulating policy (Goetz, 2003: 32)”.

Considering these local and national biases, Phillips (1998: 235) warns

feminists that “in the absence of mechanisms to establish accountability,

the equation of more women with more adequate representation of

women’s interests looks suspiciously undemocratic”.

Representation of women’s interests

The debate over how to establish the link between political

representation and women’s interests has been controversial within

women’s studies. Women’s political representation becomes problematic

when philosophical and political questions are asked: is the category of

women homogeneous, meaning do women share the same interests

based on their sex? Do women elected officials represent the interests of

women? “Why should we care who our representatives are?” (Phillips,

1998) And like Sapiro (1998) we also ask, what is political representation of

women? And to what degree and under what circumstances are political

institutions and decision-makers responsive to female citizens? While some

highlight the need to consider both individual interests (agency of women)

and group interests, others believe that women’s interests make sense

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when it can be translated in policy; understanding the political arenas

within which women’s interests are cast is also important.

According to Lovenduski and Norris (1993: 2) the presence of women

in decision-making arenas is necessary for women’s interests to be

translated within political institutions and in the decision-making process.

Therefore, women’s presence is needed to enforce gender equity in

decisions and policies and to hold male political leaders accountable.

When women are representatives in political institutions, as insiders

they should develop strategies to have their voices heard and be able to

address specific interests. According to Pitkin (1967: 232) the role of women

in representative politics should be “standing for” and “acting for” women

and their interests. Along the same lines, Molyneux (1985) distinguished

feminist interests as “strategic” gender interests in contrast to “practical”

interests women have in their sex-typed roles. However, Goetz (2003: 5)

qualifies this distinction between “descriptive” and “substantive” or

“strategic” representation as misleading in two ways:

“on the one hand, the design of political institutions and the culture of competition or ideas and principles in civil society, politics and the state profoundly shapes the perceived legitimacy of women politicians and of gender equity concerns, and hence the effectiveness of feminists in advancing gender equity policy. On the other hand, gender-sensitive institutional reform is required not only to get women through the door in politics, but also for policy making and implementation to respect gender equality”.

Phillips (1991: 71) argues that it is not a matter of representing

women’s specific ‘interests’ (whether this means more women in politics, or

58

parties devoted to women’s concern) and that the needs of women

explode the whole politics of interest. The political culture and ideology of

political parties and the electoral systems in place matter in representing

women’s interests. The problem with women’s interests’ representation is

that members of the legislature do not accurately reflect society in terms of

socioeconomic diversity, education, race, or gender (Putnam, 1976). In

addition, political parties are frequently viewed as inadequate vehicles for

representation (Phillips, 1988: 238).

The lack of “mirror representation” affects mostly women who as part

of the marginalized groups do not have many representatives because of

the way the electoral systems (generally non-diverse) are set up. Elections

which are free and fair in the procedural sense do not necessarily produce

outcomes which reflect either the diversity of interests or identities in

societies (Hassim, 2003: 85).There has been little consideration, however, of

how electoral systems might affect demographic representativeness

(Matland and Taylor, 1997). Therefore, as suggested by Matland and Taylor,

it is reasonable to consider how the electoral system influences the degree

to which the legislature mirrors society and its different groups.

In addition to understanding the functioning of political institutions, it

is important to consider the social and cultural settings which shape

women’s political participation and representation. “The attribution of

common interests requires an understanding of human nature and social

structure which can satisfactorily account for the systematic failure of large

groups to perceive and act on politics from which, arguably, they would

benefit” (Diamond and Hartsock, 1998: 201).

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Lack of focus on natural resources and livelihoods in theorizing gender and

politics

Feminist political scientist theorization of women’s political

representation is mainly based on institutional level analysis and the

challenges women face to be included. It is only during the last decade

that the focus on local government has slowly emerged; and very few

studies provide empirical data on women’s representation in local

councils’ decision making processes. Women’s political representation has

been analyzed through the party systems in Africa (proportional

representation, quota, and one-party); however, there have not been

empirical data on how multi-party democracy at the local government

level has suppressed important issues such as gender equity,

accountability, and responsiveness to concerns over women’s unequal

access to economic and environment resources.

While focusing on gendered representation at the national level and

to a lesser extent at the local level, feminist political scientists did not

consider the importance of women’s access to natural resources.

Certainly, institutional representation is important. However, when it does

not consider women’s basic needs, constraints, and interests in the natural

resources that constitute their livelihoods, then poor and voiceless rural

women are excluded from that representation. Access to forest resources

and land is crucial to theorizing women’s political representation in the

context of rural Senegal.

The debate on how women’s interests should be taken into account

is generally philosophical and academic. It addresses the adequacy on

60

how one should frame women’s interests; there is scarcely any mention of

what women’s interests are. How have they been taken into account in

political institutions? What are the challenges women face to make their

representatives responsive to their needs and interests? Throughout the

literature, only Kawamara-Mishambi and Ovonji-Odida (2003) have

established the link among women, local electoral politics and natural

resources such as land. They analyzed how women in civil society and

politics in Uganda have struggled to bring gender equity into land reform

and to promote women’s land rights through a “co-ownership clause”.

Goetz (2003), who is also policy oriented suggests that women’s political

representation is not just getting them through the door of politics.

Women’s practical needs and interests must be translated into policies and

political agendas.

Women’s interests are political, economic, cultural, social, and

environmental; they are also diverse and contextual. In addition to the

political factor, there is a need to look at the different political systems in

place, the social, cultural, economic, and environment factors that shape

women’s representation in politics. Sapiro’s (1998) question “when are

interests interesting?” can be answered from a basic needs standpoint.

That would be when the interests relate to people’s livelihoods (i.e. access

to economic and natural resources) and when those economic and

environmental resources are translated into public policy and political

agendas.

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LINKING GENDER, LOCAL ELECTORAL POLITICS, AND NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Democratic decentralization through a natural resources lens has

offered a perspective for linking environment and local politics. “Natural

resources are at once critical for local livelihoods (subsistence and income

generation), and are also the basis of significant wealth for government

and national elites” (Ribot and Larson, 2004). Natural resource

management is shaped by social and political forces and state agencies in

charge of forest management, the local elected officials, and village

committees. A comprehensive examination of various institutions and their

interactions—committees, elected bodies, social structures—and their

combined effects on gender is needed.

Scholars differ as to which formal institution is better for good

governance and local democracy, often taking an either-or institution

focused perspective that neglects extant social structures that might

impact upon these institutions (Krishna, 2003). “Democratic”

decentralization scholars favor elected local governments as arguably

downwardly accountable and responsive to local citizens (Ribot, 1995;

Agrawal and Ribot, 1999; Smoke, 2000). Those favoring participatory

approaches involving other, including non-elected, actors, argue that they

can likewise significantly improve the outcomes of development programs

under certain circumstances (Esman and Uphoff, 1984; Chambers et al.,

1990; Krishna, 2003).

“In the context of natural resource management (be it forests or water), devolving greater power to village communities is now widely

62

accepted as an institutional imperative by governments, international agencies, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Moreover, rural community forestry groups represent one of the most widespread and rapidly expanding attempts at participatory development” (Agarwal, 2001: 1623)”.

However, as noted by Agarwal, even though village committees for

natural resource management are set up to operate on principles of

cooperation benefiting all sections of the community, they can exclude

significant sectors of the population, such as women.

A new trend in the development and environment discourse is

emerging moving from the local governments/community-based

conservation dichotomy to a stress on partnership between these various

actors. Smoke (2003) discusses the important roles that community-based

organizations and participatory mechanisms can play for making

decentralization effective. Krishna (2003) focuses on a more prominent

collaborative partnership by showing the utility of both local governments

and community-based organizations as they work in partnership. He

recognizes that relatively little analytical work is available however, that

helps address critical issues associated with nurturing such partnerships in

practice. I argue that gender is among those critical issues. How would

gender fit into the partnership? How would the leaders both traditional and

political be accountable and responsive to women in this partnership?

Even with this new collaborative framework, partnership is not the key

for gender equity. Inequalities and inequities in the division of labor, power,

and resources between women and men in societies and between

different groups of women within communities have received scant

63

attention in both democratic decentralization institutions and in

development and conservation programs (Brosius et al., 2005). They both

function in a way that undermines women’s abilities to serve their individual

and collective interests. On the one hand, even though its aim is equity,

local governments can be elite dominated (Mawhood, 1993; Pieterse,

2001, World Bank, 2001) and upwardly rather than downwardly

accountable (Edwards and Hulme, 1996). On the other hand, community-

based organizations such as forest groups or village committees are also

prone to élite capture, they are quite often poorly equipped with skills and

technology and they frequently look upwards (to donors) rather than

downwards (to their constituents) for legitimacy and direction (Farrington et

al., 1993; Hulme and Edwards, 1997). All these characteristics are

detrimental to women’s effective participation and representation.

But will these pessimistic observations lead to an impasse for

women’s participation and representation in local institutions? Beyond the

acknowledgement of some of the detrimental outcomes of participatory

approaches and decentralization to women, I state that decentralization

offers new spaces and opportunities for gender equity. Democratic

decentralization emerged as a potentially sustainable and scaleable form

of inclusion (Ribot, 2002) and of participation that is territorially generalized

and institutionalized through law within the existing structures of

government. As such, it has the potential advantage of being a form of

sustainable and scaled-up democratic local governance (Ribot, 2007).

However, I still emphasize that decentralization does not guarantee gender

equity and cannot deliver it without other changes.

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Feminist political ecology and feminist environmentalism perspectives

Although they do not focus on electoral politics, these two schools of

thought, feminist environmentalism and feminist political ecology, help to

understand gendered institutions as they affect natural resources, rural

people’s livelihoods and power relations among the local institutions.

Feminist environmentalism shows the importance of context and

history in understanding women’s relationships with the environment.

Natural resources are fundamental to poor rural women’s livelihoods and

their importance is contextual (social, economic, and political) and based

on women’s “material realities” (Agarwal, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1997a, 1997b).

Women’s relationship with the environment and resources is historical

(Seager, 1993 and 2003). The gendered access to forest resources should

then be analyzed along with class, ethnicity, historical, and geographical

locations. From a feminist environmentalism perspective, natural resources

are of great importance for poor rural women because they are necessary

for their livelihoods. Therefore, women participate effectively in village

resource management committees and feel they are well represented in

the rural council if their challenges about unequal reduced access to forest

resources and land are taken into account.

“Feminist political ecology treats gender as a critical variable in shaping resource access and control, interacting with class, caste, race, culture, and ethnicity to shape processes of ecological change, the struggle of men and women to sustain ecologically viable livelihoods, and the prospects of any community for sustainable development” (Rocheleau et al., 1996).

65

The lack of consideration of gender might give rise to political

ecological dynamics that have profound implications for women’s

involvement in environmental management (Schroeder, 1999). Gender

differences crucially affect how natural resources (including forest

resources) are managed and used, and gender relations shape, and are

themselves shaped by, women’s and men’s access, use and control of

resources (Leach, 1994). Forest resource management cannot be

understood without a concern for gender and the consideration of local

people’s own perspectives. The consideration of tenure rights and

responsibilities in control, access, use and management of resources are

also key to understanding local social contexts, perceptions, and concerns.

Projects should consider women’s interests, opportunities, and

environmental needs and understand the local social dynamics (Leach,

1994: 16). When women feel that their environmental interests and

livelihoods could be jeopardized, they develop strategies of contestations,

resistance, and renegotiation to secure their access to resources. Thomas-

Slayter (1994) underlines the important role local communities play in

natural resource management and the way networks are central to

determining access to and control over resources. At the local level

“gender interacts with class as a dominant variable affecting internal

patterns of village resource management” (Thomas-Slayter, 1992: 811). The

peculiar political manipulation and women’s co-optation by development

agencies to realize their environment programs (Schroeder, 1999) do not to

take into account the actually existing mechanisms by which material

needs are being met.

66

The authors of these two schools of thought recognized that men

and women have different relationships with institutions—international

organizations, national and local governments, and traditional authorities—

and differential access to resources. Yet to understand the local social

dynamics of inclusion and representation, it is essential to be aware of the

position of men and women vis-à-vis formal and informal institutions at the

local, national, and international levels. Institutions—whether formal state

and global rules and regulations or informal social norms and relations of

power and authority—serve as channels for access to resources (Berry,

1989). Understanding how institutions work and for whose benefit (Robbins,

1998) is important for a gendered questioning of power relations in natural

resource management. Environmental problems too cannot be

understood without taking into account the formal and informal institutions

(Seager, 1993) that may shape and reproduce relations of unequal power

and authority (Rocheleau et al., 1996; Rocheleau, 1995; Leach and

Scoones, 1997). From a feminist political ecology perspective, gender helps

to understand the differences in access to and control over resources

through caste, class, culture, and ethnicity. Then, external agencies while

using participatory approaches should consider gender disaggregated

data at all levels and sectors for equal and equitable participation of men

and women and among women.

67

CHAPTER 3: HISTORY OF LOCAL GOVERNANCE AND NATURAL

RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN SENEGAL

This chapter aims to show how Senegal’s political democracy from

the colonial period has shaped decentralization processes and the spaces

offered to women to become local political leaders. It also shows how

local communities have been excluded or included in natural resource

management and how women are involved into the broad picture. The

questions that lead the historical perspective are as follow: how was

decentralization gendered during the colonial period? Did the

decentralization reforms in the post-independent nation-state contribute to

women’s effective local political representation and participation in local

government? How Senegal’s political democracy from single-party rule to

a multiparty system has shaped the gendered processes and practices in

local government? Did the forest service historical processes and practices

allow women’s better access to and control over land and forest

resources?

WOMEN/GENDER IN LOCAL ELECTORAL POLITICS

Colonial and post Second World War II period

Decentralization was instituted by the colonial authority for

administrative and political reasons. First, in August 10, 1872 with the

creation of the four Communes labeled as de plein exercice and the

Communes mixtes in 1904. The belonging and affiliation to one of the two

different types of communes had political impacts in providing French

citizenship and the right to vote. The inhabitants of the urban communes

de plein exercice of Dakar, Gorée, Rufisque, and Saint Louis enjoyed the

68

rights and privileges of French citizenship which included Western political

ideologies and modern electoral politics. People living in the interior, the

Communes mixtes, were reduced to the status of French subjects under the

jurisdiction of the colonial administration (O’Brien, 1972; Wesley Johnson,

1971; Gellar et al., 1982). The Senegalese citizens living in the communes

enjoyed full political and civil rights while the subjects in the countryside (i.e.

the rural area) were subjected to the indiginities of forced labor (Gellar,

1982).

During the colonial period women’s political participation as citizens

was late to come and there were no women representatives. Women

obtained the right to vote only in 1945 a century later after Senegalese

men started voting in 1848. Women’s right to vote and political

participation and representation were shaped by the status of “citizen”

and “subject”. Women considered as “subjects” (i.e. inhabitants of the

countryside/ rural area) started voting in 1946. The colonial perception of

who has the right to vote was based on who knows how to read and write

in French. The women “subjects” (inhabitants of the rural area) who were

considered illiterate were therefore legally excluded. The women “citizens”

who were from the four communes and went to school were considered

‘advanced’ (in opposition to backward) and ‘assimilated’ (into French

civilization).

After obtaining the right to vote, women’s political participation was

a determining factor in electing nationalist leaders to end the colonial era

in 1960. During the municipal elections in 1945, women’s massive

participation (21% of the electoral voters in Dakar) allowed Senegalese

male leaders to have control of the four communes, therefore eliminating

69

the White colonial political supremacy (Lacroix and M’baye, 1976). Women

had been involved in the new political parties created in the aftermath of

the Second World War, and participated in large numbers within the

parties in the anti-colonial political struggle.

However, most of the nationalist political parties’ processes and

practices were based on clientelism, and did not really focus on women’s

interests, but instead had used them as an electoral maneuvering force

(N’diaye-Sylla, 2001). Despite the fact that Senegalese nationalist male

politicians had been rallied around by women who allowed them to have

the majority of voters, they never proposed in their party, a program for

women (MFEF, 1993: 13). As stated by Gellar, “in the postwar period,

although [women] have been given suffrage and were active in urban

Senegalese politics, Senegalese women held no major political office

(1982: 101-102)”. This marginalization of women confirms the thesis that

women have been used as an instrument to achieve political parties’ and

male political leaders’ electoral objectives (Diop, 1998).

70

The electoral systems in post-independent nation-state: from the winner-

takes-all to multi-party

From independence in 196011 to 1974, Senegalese political

democracy was based on a single-party rule system. The Senegalese

Progressive Union (UPS) (renamed the Senegalese Socialist Party in 1976)

headed by Senghor held all seats in the National Assembly and faced no

formal political opposition in national or local elections. In 1974 the

government formally recognized the Senegalese Democratic Party (Parti

Démocratique Sénégalais – PDS), led by Abdoulaye Wade, as the

country’s first legal opposition party; what Gellar (1982) qualifies as

“semblance of multiparty democracy”. The Senegalese constitution was

revised twice in April 1976 permitting a three-party system and in

December 28, 1998 making room for a forth political party.

Abdou Diouf (1981-2000) liberalized the regime by moving from four

to unlimited political parties; however, this regime forbade the creation of

any political party based on race, ethnicity, sex, language, religion, or

regional affiliation. In late March 1981, the National Assembly authorized

the recognition of all political parties and by 1982 there were eleven legal

political parties. Since that time political parties have been mushrooming in

11

In 1960, the first act of the independent nation-state was to withdraw the administrative

boundaries set up during the colonial period and to bring the administration closer to the people and make it more development oriented. Then, Senegal was administratively divided into 7 régions, 28 cercles and 85 arrondissements, replacing the 13 cercles, 27 subdivisions and 135 cantons established during the colonial rule. In addition, Senegalese officials replaced French officials in field administration (Gellar et al., 1980: 20). Subsequent changes in official nomenclature sought to eliminate all vestiges of colonial rule and

reaffirm the national identity of the Senegalese administration. Thus in 1964 the cercle became the département and the old colonial title of commandant was replaced by that of préfet (Gellar, 1982: 39), the state administrative agent at the local level.

71

Senegal, opening spaces for more political patronage, clientelism, political

quarrels and rivalries without precedent. The latest count in 2007 put the

number of political parties in Senegal at 106.

In 1972 an administrative decentralization reform was put in

place aiming at the decentralizing of the administrative structures in order

to promote rural development and encourage popular participation in the

management of local affairs. Thereby, Rural Communities and Rural

Councils were created for the first time as the lowest level administrative

unit (Vengroff and Johnston, 1987). The Rural Community12 refers to a

geographic space while the Rural Council13 is the local government

decision making institution of the Rural Community comprised of rural

councilors (men and women) elected every five years on a winner-takes-all

electoral system. During that period of single party rule all members of a

given Rural Council came from the same party, the Senegalese Socialist

Party, as it was almost impossible for an opposition party to win

12 A Rural Community was defined as an administrative agglomeration uniting many

villages which belong to the same territory and share common resources (Ministère de l’Intérieur, 1972: Loi no. 72.25, Titre I, Article 1). It was the basic unit of government in the countryside, which set the stage for greater popular participation in local government. Rural Communities were conceived as the core political units within a decentralized agrarian socialist society. Each Rural Community had a rural council that was granted

broad powers to regulate local markets, fairs, cattle walks, and residential zoning patterns. To prevent domination by rural elites and ensure greater popular participation, village chiefs, cooperative presidents, and those with non-rural occupations were formally excluded from holding the office of president (Gellar, 1982). 13 A Rural Council according to the 1972 reform was led by a president who has the executive power and two vice-presidents. The headquarters of the Rural Council was

based at the administrative (chef-lieu) of the Rural Community. Rural Councils had the power to allocate uncultivated land and to revise existing land tenure systems in the areas under their jurisdiction and they had their own small budget (Gellar, 1982: 41). The number of councilors in any given council depends on the population of the Rural Community 12 members for Rural Communities (RC) with less than 5000 inhabitants; 15 members for RC with 5001 to 10 000 inhabitants; 18 members for RC with 10 001 to 15 000 inhabitants; and

21 members for RC with more than 15 000 inhabitants (Ministère de l’Intérieur, 1972: Loi no. 72.25, Titre II, Article 3). The number of villages varies from one rural community to another.

72

representation in local government (Juul, 2006: 832). During the single party

system under Senghor, women were not represented in the local

government put in place in 1972. Women in local government were

absolutely invisible and not of great interest to the different political parties.

From the independence in 1960 to 2000, the national political arena

in Senegal has been dominated by the Socialist Party (Parti Socialiste - PS)

with Leopold Sédar Senghor (the first democratically elected president)

until 1981 and then with Abdou Diouf until 2000. The same political

dynamics were reflected at the local governments’ level by a nationwide

formation of the Rural Councils with the single ruling party system. In the

beginning of the 1980s, Abdou Diouf liberalized the political system and

allowed the formation of a multitude of political parties (Patterson, 1998;

Villalon, 1993).

Until 1996 before the adoption of the decentralization law, the

composition of the rural councils was based on a winner-takes-all electoral

system held every five years in which only nationally registered parties

could present candidates (Vengroff and Johnston, 1987). Consequently,

all members of a given rural council came from the same party (PS), as it

was almost impossible for an opposition party to win representation in local

government (Juul, 2006: 832)’.

Gendered multi-party democracy in local government

Political clientelism and machine politics have been long-standing

features of the Senegalese political landscape (Schumacher, 1975: 1). “It

would be impossible to comprehend the flavor and essence of Senegalese

73

politics without understanding of the important role played by ‘clan

politics’ in the country’s political life” (Gellar: 1982: 27).

At the local level, clan politics incorporated large numbers of people

into the game of electoral politics and linked the mass of the population to

regional and national leaders. During the single-party rule period, clan

politics operated primarily in the form of intraparty factionalism among rival

politicians jockeying for control over local and regional party organizations.

With the establishment of elective Rural Councils (1972 decentralization

reform) and its spread throughout Senegal in the early 1980s which

coincided with multiparty system, electoral politics moved to interparty

electoral competitions among opposition political parties in the rural and

local areas (Gellar, 1982).

The Rural Councils became highly politicized over the major

battleground of local clan politics (O’Brien, 1975; Gellar, 1982). Women’s

lack of effective participation at the local government decision-making

level could be explained by four main factors. First, the political arena is

dominated by men who are more concerned with political positioning and

rivalries with opposition parties than women’s representation. Second,

political parties in power us women as instruments to achieve their political

goal of reelection. Third, women’s role is reduced to brightening political

meetings and electoral campaigns instead of being leaders in decision-

making leaders. And four, decentralization laws are gender neutral.

A gender assessment of women’s representation in rural councils

done by the Ministry of women’s affairs (MFEF, 1990) with a focus on Thiès

74

region where the 1972 administrative reform was first implemented14,

underlines that the reform followed the pre-existing political structures in

ignoring women’s specific issues. In 1980 (eight years after its

implementation), Thiès had only four women out of five hundreds rural

councilors. In 1990 among the three hundreds and seventeen (317) Rural

Communities nationwide, there were only three women as Rural

Communities presidents. This slow and low representation is surprising

considering the international context of the women’s decade (1975-1985)

when all the national governments were urged by the United Nations to

work closely with women and for women. The winner-takes-all electoral

system had shaped the local government electoral politics led by elective

rural councils and was in favor of the party in power, the Socialist party (PS),

which had national and local political monopoly.

Gendered transfer of power to local elected officials

The 1996 democratic decentralization reform

The 1996 decentralization/regionalization political reform and the

electoral reform brought new principles, processes, and electoral

mechanisms different from the previous administration reform in 1972 and

the winner-takes-all electoral system. The state has transferred power to

14 The implementation of the administrative reform was done progressively throughout the seven regions of Senegal at that time (now there are eleven): Thiès, 1972; Sine-Saloum

(Kaolack and Fatick), 1974; Diourbel (Diourbel and Louga), 1976; Casamance (Ziguinchor and Kolda), 1978; Fleuve (Saint Louis), 1980; Senegal Oriental (Tambacounda), 1982; and Dakar, 1984 (Ministère de l’Intérieur, 1984: 9; Vengroff and Johnston, 1987: 276).

75

Local Collectivities15 composed of Regions, Communes, and Rural

Communities. Local Collectivities have autonomy in decision-making and

in the management of local affairs. The 1996 decentralization reform is

aimed particularly towards local democracy and governance through a

redistribution of state political power to local elected actors with new

conception of citizenship, accountability, responsiveness, and autonomy

(SAFEFOD, 1997).

No laws prevent women’s political participation and representation

at the decision-making level; however, it is absolutely true that no laws

have promoted more-equitable gendered political participation and

representation in decision making. Even though there is no legal constraints

to women’s political participation in local affairs, gender is still not

acknowledged in decentralization policies. The Local Collectivities Code

(composed of 372 articles) gives power to local deliberative organs [the

councils] to “ensure good living conditions to all of the population without

discrimination”. The Code refers to women councilors only in three laws

(Articles 28, 98, and 202) about the decision-making bodies (IED, 2006).

For this dissertation I focus on the Rural Community16, the most-local

level of local government in charge of natural resources such as land and

15

Local Collectivities represent the administrative and geographic agglomerations. The

institutions are respectively the Regional Council, the Municipal Council, and the Rural Council. 16 According to laws 96 - 06 of March 22, 1996 bearing code of the Local Collectivities, a Rural Community is defined as ‘an administrative agglomeration uniting many villages wich belong to the same territory and share common resources. The prerogatives and political mandate given to rural councilors have changed comparing to the 1972 administrative decentralization. The number of rural councilors per Rural Community (RC) are as follow: 20 members for RC with less than 5 000 inhabitants; 24 members for RC with 5

000 to 10 000 inhabitants; 28 members for RC with 10 000 to 15 000 inhabitants; and 32 members for RC with more than 15 000 inhabitants (Rds, 1996: laws 96 - 06 of March 22)

76

forest resources. The Rural Council is composed of rural councilors (men

and women) elected for five years by universal suffrage and on direct

party list and by proportional representation based on the rural ratio.

77

The 1996 electoral system: majority and proportional representation

The participation and representation of political parties in the council

are based on the party list system: majority and proportional. Each party

has to submit both lists. The majority list (liste majoritaire) is composed of key

political leaders. On the majority list, there are the tenured (titulaires) and

the substitutes (suppléants). The tenured are the key party political leaders

who will be automatically selected if the party wins. The substitutes are the

one selected if for some raisons one of the tenured leaders is not available,

resigns, or dies; the substitutes will be chosen based on the order on the list

(top to bottom.) The proportional list is composed of well known and

established local individuals who are capable of mobilizing voters, the

political transhumant (transhumants politiques – politicians switching

parties, generally crossing party lines for political, personal, and economic

reasons).

The majority list should have a total number of candidates equal to

half the number of seats in the Rural Council17. The party that wins the

elections will automatically take half of the rural council seats with its

majority list; which is called in the Wolof political jargon “raw gàddu”

meaning the winner takes the half.

The other half of the council will be selected from the different parties

proportional lists (including the proportional list of the winner) based on

their performance. The method for allocating the remaining seats to the

different parties is based on the “rural ratio” (quotient rural). The rural ratio is

17 According to Law 96 -12 of the Electoral Code, the composition of a Rural Council is as follow: 20 councilors for a Rural Community (RC) with less than 5,000 inhabitants; 24

councilors for a (RC) between 5,000 to 10,000 inhabitants; 28 councilors for a RC between 10,000 to 15,000 inhabitants; and 32 councilors for a RC with more than 15,000 inhabitants.

78

the number of votes a party needs to have in order to earn one councilor.

To determine the rural ratio, the total number of votes during the election in

the Rural Community is divided by the number of councilors in the Rural

Council. As many times this ratio is contained in the total number of votes

obtained by a party, that party will gain a seat on the council.

This new electoral system installed a dual system for the election of

rural councilors, ending the practice of winner-takes-all system promoted

by the 1972 decentralization reform. Therefore, the proportional

representation permits members from the opposition parties to be

represented in rural council. Do the decentralization reform and the new

electoral system improve women’s local political participation and

representation in local government? The table below show the rural

councils gendered representation during the last local elections in May 12,

2002. The statistical information in the table are drawn from the census

report of May 12, 2002 local elections, done by the Centre d’Appui aux Elus

Locaux (CAEL) in 2005.

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FIGURE 3.1: Repartition of seats in the Rural Council from the 1996 electoral

system

Rural Council seats repartition

Winner of the

elections

50%

To be shared

by all involved

parties

50%

Winner of the elections: 50% To be shared by all involved parties: 50%

Dialokoto Rural Council Seats Allocation after the

2002 election

PDS, 74%

PS, 18%

AJPADS, 4%LDMPT, 4%

The votes were allocated as follow: - PDS: 17,997 votes so be it 21 councilors - PS: 4,285 votes so be it 5 councilors

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- AJ/PADS: 857 votes so be it 1 councilor - LD/MPT: 857 votes so be it 1 councilor

Gendered representation in Senegal Rural Council after the 1996

decentralization reform

A comparative analysis of women’s political representation before

the decentralization/regionalization law in 1996 and the 2002 local

elections (COSEF, 1999; CAEL, 2005) reveals that before the 1996

decentralization political and electoral reforms, women represented

14,46% of local elected actors (regional, municipal, and rural councilors)

and 7,64% were in the executive board of the local councils. Only two

women were Presidents of Rural Communities (PCR) in Malem Hodar and

N’diass (MFEF, 1993).

After the adoption of the 1996 decentralization reform, women’s

political representation at the decision making level drastically dropped. It

is rare in Senegal to find a woman president of a rural council. The results of

the 2002 local elections show that women represent 10,90% of local

elected actors and 9,37% are on the executive board of the local councils.

This table below shows that women’s representation in local councils

and their executive board (the decision-making level) is very low.

Senegalese women participate in masse18 in electoral politics, however,

they have a low representation as elected officials. They are generally

relegated to masters of ceremony and mobilization roles in political

meetings and electoral campaigns. A minority of women is candidates in

18 During the local elections in 1993 the gendered participation in local electorate at the Rural Communities nation-wide was: total voters 1,404,092 of which 753,372 women and

650,720 men (IAD, 2000). For the general elections, women represent 51% of the electorate (Third General Census of Population and Habitat 2003)

81

local councils and those who are candidates are relegated to secondary

roles.

TABLE 3.1: gendered representation in Senegal Rural Councils after the 2002

local elections

Gendered representation in Rural Councils

Number percentage

Men 8194 89,1%

Women 1002 10,90%

Gendered representation in Rural Councils executive board (president and vice-presidents)

Men 870 91,63%

Women 90 9,37%

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Section conclusion

Senegalese women’s rights to vote acquired after the World War II

created awareness of women’s important role in elections. It also acted as

a wake up call for women to enter the political arena. However, women

were not considered effective political actors in decision making and were

not represented at all the political institutions. During the colonial and post-

world war period, neither the political parties nor the elected leaders

promoted local democracy. They have also shown conservativism over the

advancement of women at the decision making level, furthermore they

did not have a clear political vision for women’s issues (MFEF, 1993).

In the post-independent nation-state, the 1972 administrative

decentralization reform was put in place trying to be more inclusive of local

population. However, this reform has followed in the step of the pre-existing

political structures ignoring women’s specific issues and political

representation.

Neither the start of multi-party democracy promoted women’s local

political representation nor the 1972 administrative decentralization reform

which aimed to increasing local and popular participation in politics have

promoted women’s political representation. Rather, women’s local

representation and their political interests have been ignored.

Paradoxically, the 1996 decentralization and political regime change

in 2000, which was seen as opportunities for gender equity, did not improve

women’s representation in local councils instead one witnesses a decline.

The 1996 decentralization/regionalization reform aimed at transferring

power to local elected actors created new forms of political patronage

83

and exclusions in access to local government decision making and to

natural resources.

Does it mean decentralization is still looking for its mark or there

should be more specific mechanisms and practices for gender equity in

local governance? The process of exclusion and subordination of women is

legitimated in different ways both within the structuring of the political

arena (organization and functioning of political parties) and the familial

and socio-cultural constraints (N’diaye-Sylla, 2001). Since the colonial

period to present days, women constitute the majority of the electorate;

however, they continue to occupy a marginal place in political decision

making spheres. Although they are theoretically and legally eligible, they

have never constituted a third of the political representatives, let-alone met

gender parity.

ENGENDERING LAND RIGHTS AND FOREST RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Rural people’s livelihoods depend on forest resources. The majority of

people is farmers and need to have access to land. In Senegal, 70% of the

populations of which 52% are women live in the rural areas. Women

represent 39% of the active population, are in charge of 90% of domestic

work and 85% of agricultural work (third General Census of Population and

Habitat realized, 2003). However rural women have less access to forest

resources and land due to institutional, political, and traditional factors.

The aim of this section is to show how the three main reforms, the

1964 land reform, the 1972 administrative decentralization, and the 1996

democratic decentralization have been the key frameworks in people’s

access to forestry resources and land. The mechanisms and principles of

84

these different land reforms have shaped the Senegalese environmental

processes and practices, the forest service interventions, and the

relationships among the different stakeholders involved in natural resource

management. Natural resource management has initially witnessed an

exclusion of local communities in protected areas and then a slow inclusion

in the name of participation. Analyzing the history of forest resources and

land management in Senegal through a gender lens, the section is guided

by two main questions: do the main decentralization reforms promote

gender equity in access to land and forest resources? How are the laws

and policy documents gendered?

Gendered land rights and tenure

1964 National Domain law and 1972 Administrative Decentralization

Reform

In the aftermath of the independence, the first land reform, the

National Domain Land Reform (loi sur le Domaine National), was adopted

in 1964. This reform stipulated the possibility of land access by the citizens

through the state, the land owner (Article 2, law. No. 64-66, June 17, 1964).

This law considers the Senegalese state as the owner of all non-registered

lands. However, customary laws were still in effect in the rural areas. This

law was reinforced in 1972 with the administrative decentralization reform

when the Sub-prefect (Sous-préfet) as the state representative at the local

level was given power to be in charge of land allocation. Even though

elective rural councils were in place, they were not in charge of either land

85

allocation or forest resources management, all delegated to government

environment institutions.

These two major land reforms stipulated equal access to land to all

people living in a specific territory and a fair allocation of available land to

those who could make good use of it. Actually, this rhetoric is different from

practice when analyzed through a gender lens. In the rural areas cutomary

laws have been applied in parallel to state laws, which prevented women

from being land owners. The majority of peasant women (mainly the poorer

ones) generally had access to land through their husband or a male

member in the family. Even when they had access to land, it is small pieces

of land, which did not allow them to do a large-scale agriculture

production (MFEF, 1993). Women also did not have space to talk about

their constraints in access to land; they also could not make good use of

the land as stipulated in the land reform laws because they are very poor

and hardly have access to input and fertilizers.

The rural councils when created in 1972 was in charge of providing

provision credit, agricultural implements supply and equipment distribution

to the peasants. Peasants’ cooperatives were part of the rural councils and

were in charge of the management of peasant affairs. However, the co-

operative officials, in fact were often male local notables chosen by the

government. Therefore, they were in a position to turn the institutions to

their own economic advantage. Economic inequalities in rural society were

thus strongly reinforced by the co-operatives (O’Brien, 1975; Gellar et al.,

1982). Cooperatives, who were put in charge of distributing seeds, fertilizers,

and farming technology were given priority to male heads of household

and land owners. Therefore, women generally had to go through their

86

husbands to have access to the supplies and benefits offered to the

peasants by the cooperatives.

1996 Decentralization/Regionalization Reform

The Decentralization/Regionalization Reform adopted on March 22,

1996 by law no. 96-06 was political and environmental. The rural council is

the decision maker in regard to land allocation and use in the rural

community, precisely the territory zones (zones de terroir19). Although, the

National Domain Law of 1964, which gave power and ownership to the

state of all non-matriculated lands, is still maintained.

The rural council, as the decision-making body, has the power to

define the rights of land use and planning for habitat, tourist camps, and

cultivation based on the decentralisation laws. The inhabitants of the rural

community can make a formal request to the rural council, which

deliberates every year before May 15 to avoid disputes over cultivated

land during the cultivation period (which is during the rainy season from

June to September). Any land allocated should have value added to it

either by the beneficiary or members of his/her family. In the rural area,

individual or group beneficiaries can use the land for an unlimited time but

do not have a definitive or absolute right. The allocated lands cannot be

sold or rented. The usage right disappears when the association/ group is

dismissed or the individual beneficiary dies (in this case the heirs could have

the usage rights if they can continue to add value to the land). This form of

19 Zone de terroirs are territories which do not fall into the national domain i.e. classified or reserved forest, national parks, and biosphere reserves.

87

land use under the decentralization system happens only in the rural area

and is not applicable in urban settings.

The decentralization/regionalization laws only stipulate the conditions

of land use but do not focus on women’s constraints, interests, and

opportunities for access to and control of land. Women can have legal

access to land with decentralization, however they have difficulties in

access to input and fertilizers; also they do not have economic means for

commercial agriculture. Even though de jure, women have access to land

de facto rural women’s access to and use of land is still dependent on

local social norms, which favor men (IED, 2006).

Rural women generally have access to land via the rural council as a

collectivity through their associations/ groups. The collective land is

generally used for vegetable gardens and orchards. The products are used

both for family consumption and for sale; the money collected from the

sale is kept in the association account to meet certain needs. However, the

land allocated to them is usually less than one hectare for an average of

30 to 40 women per association (MFEF, 1993). Here, one witnesses a

‘collectivization’ of land allocation, which does not promote women’s

agency and individual ownership and control of land. It is very rare in the

rural area to see a woman making a request for land, as an individual to

the rural council.

Forest resource management: from exclusion to participation

Local communities’ exclusion from forest resource management is a

longstanding practice since the colonial period when protected areas

have started to be created. In addition to the exclusion, local communities

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were displaced. By mid-1990s, following the international community

recommendation of people’s participation in natural resource

management, the forest service changed its approach by collaborating

with people living in the outskirts of protected areas. This section presents

the different approaches used by the colonial government and the

independent nation-state. It shows that even though the national

environment discourse has changed over time, on the one hand

conservation objectives have been always privileged over people’s access

to and control over resources; on the other hand Senegal environment

policies are tied to the international environment discourse.

Following the colonial footsteps in nature conservation: exclusion of local

communities

The colonial period

In regard to natural resource management, the French colonizers

had two main objectives: the creation of protected areas for leisure and

hunting and the promotion of cash crops for commercial purposes.

The creation of Niokolo Koba National Park in 1933 was the first

practice of exclusion and displacement. Indeed, villagers were displaced

for the first time and allowed to keep their fields up to 11 km inside the park.

From its creation until 1950, the area of the park was 175,000 hectares and

it was used as a space for hunting, called “refuge zone”, for the colonizers.

In August 19, 1954 the area was increased up to 230,000 hectares,

therefore reinforcing local communities’ exclusion in access to forest

resources.

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In addition to conservation objectives, the French colonizers were

also concerned with agriculture as income generating activity than

people’s access to forest resources and land. The mandate of the colonial

Forest Service created in July 4, 1935 reflects how agriculture and

conservation appeared to have common objectives. In fact, the colonial

Forestry Service was always linked to the Agriculture Service under the

control of the Water and Forest General Inspectorate in French West Africa

(Inspection Générale des Eaux et Forêts de l’Afrique Occidentale Française

- AOF). These two objectives had negative impacts on people’s access to

land and forest resources, particularly on women. Commercial agriculture

reduced women’s access to land and confined them to small farming for

family consumption while men were concentrated in peanut fields for

exportation. The people’s participation in forestry resources management

and women’s access to land and resources were not issues of importance.

The independent nation-state

In the aftermath of the independence in 1960, the newly

independent state put in place administrative, environmental, and political

reforms in order to promote rural development and to escape from the

burdens of the remnants of an overly centralized colonial system (Vengroff

and Johnston, 1987). However, Senegal’s environment politics was mainly

based on colonial rules and the application of international conventions

and treaties. Rural development rules and practices were still based on

colonial rules and custom. The French colonial legacy continued to have a

profound impact on the Senegalese administration and administrative

practices (Gellar, 1982).

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Niokolo Koba National Park (NKNP) was enlarged twice up to 913.000

ha in May 14, 1968 and September 18, 1969. The park became three times

larger than its size during colonial times and the largest park of Senegal and

one of the largest in West Africa. The park was once again totally restricted

to any human activities and villagers were displaced and dispossessed of

their lands. They were also prohibited access to their fields inside the Park

making it worse than during the colonial period when populations were

allowed to keep 11 km of land inside the park for cultivation purposes.

During the last extension in 1969, in Dialakoto Rural Community (the

research area for this study), ten villages were expelled from the Park

leaving behind them cemeteries, places of worship and vast agricultural

fields. With the park extension and the people complaint, about the lack of

cultivable land, the Senegalese state created the classified forest (forêt

classée) of Diambour in 1968 with an area of 127,500 ha at the periphery of

the park, therefore creating a buffer zone. The creation of protected areas

had led to competitions for access to resources and to conflicts between

the park agents and communities at the outskirts.

The state also promoted environmental tourism for leisure similar to

practices of the colonial period. Hunting zones, eight units of 2,315,500 ha in

total, were created under the jurisdiction of the forestry service. Hunting

permits started to be distributed to private operators in 1988.

State practices showed how after independence the national

authorities took over the colonial administration’s efforts to promote nature

conservancy. The creation of protected areas for national and

international conservation objectives did not take into consideration any of

the rights of the populations thus eliminating any form of property rights,

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which often involved conflicts between the populations and the forestry

service agents.

The rural opposition to government policies on rural development

called malaise paysan (i.e. a period during which peasants refused to

repay government loan from 1968 to the 1970) further underlined the need

for change (Schumacher, 1975; Gellar, 1983; Waterbury, 1983; Caswell,

1983). This revolution is one of the reasons the Senegalese government put

in place the administrative decentralization reform in 1972 to encourage

popular participation in the management of local affairs. But as stated by

Vengroff and Johnston (1987: 275), “the type of system adopted in Senegal

does not represent a major departure from the French administrative

practices in the sense that the state and its agents retain the supervisory

control over all aspects of local level actions”.

Semblance of community participation in forest resources management

In the middle of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s the need for

integrating local populations into forest resource management appeared.

At this time, the international community defined new concepts and new

ways of governing the commons. Progressively, the new environment

discourses became appropriated by national governments who started

ratifying international treaties and conventions, and implementing national

action plans and environmental programs.

In Senegal, a new discourse on participation with the slow

involvement of the population in natural resource management started

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emerging. The Forestry Code was revised20 in July 18, 1974 to address

increasing resources degradation, following the 1970s drought. In this

context, partners in development and donors focused on large-scale

reforestation programs for desertification alleviation in Senegal. However,

these approaches were interventionist rather than participatory. They were

also political and did not take into account community participation, let-

alone women’s issues. Even though the main policy documents, the first

Forest Development Action Plan (Plan d’Action Forestier de

Développement) in 1981, the Desertification Report in1984, and the Forestry

Plan in 1992, promoted the inclusion of people’s economic needs in forest

conservation; they did not acknowledge women’s role in desertification

alleviation or the impacts of desertification on women’s lives.

Following the Earth Summit in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, international

organizations, donors and national governments started recognizing the

necessity of including citizens in environment management. National

policies on natural resource management were drafted in conformity to

international conventions that have been signed and ratified. Senegal

ratified the convention on biodiversity conservation and adopted Agenda

21 Principles, which stipulate community participation and specifically

women in natural resource management. The principle 10 recommend the

participation of all concerned citizens, that each individual shall have

appropriate access to information concerning the environment that is held

by public authorities, and the opportunity to participate in decision-making

processes. States are urged to facilitate and encourage public awareness 20 The first forestry code was drafted in February 9, 1965 by-law no. 65-23 and by-decree no. 65- 078 of February 10, 1965. This law gave exclusive management power of forestry

resources to the forestry service.

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and participation by making information widely available. “Women have a

vital role in environmental management and development. Their full

participation is, therefore, essential to achieve sustainable development

(Principle 20)”.

By mid-1990s, community-based reserves (CBR) management is

added to the discourse of participation. Many community-based reserves

have been implemented in the periphery of protected areas run by the

forest service and funded by international donors. The mushrooming of

CBRs focused more on creating buffer zones for biodiversity conservation

purposes than for community participation in natural resource

management.

Institutionalizing participation: transfer of power to elected officials in forest

resource management

The transfer of power to local government over natural resource

management with the 1996 decentralization reform brought a new

dimension – electoral politics- to natural resource management. The rural

council as the most local level of local government is in charge of forest

resources management in the rural community. The taxes and fines

collected from the use of forestry resources contribute to the rural council

budget. It drafts a Local Development Plan and gives its opinion in all

development and environmental projects regarding the rural community.

Major environment policies were drafted in accordance with

decentralization mechanisms and participatory approaches as

recommended from the Earth Summit in 1992: the Environmental National

Action Plan (PNAE) was drafted in 1997, the Forestry Code was redrafted in

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1998, and the Environment Code was revized21. These frequent changes

are mainly political. The Senegalese government needed to follow the

international community recommendation of popular participation in

natural resource management and through institutionalized and legal

settings of decentralized instituions to benefit from funding. The forest

service also needed to reconcile with local people living in the periphery of

protected areas with whom they have been in conflict for a long period.

The forestry service, then, became more open to social and cultural values

in natural resource management. Even though there was openness to

communities’ participation in nature conservancy, the relationship

between women and their environment was not of specific interest.

Women’s relationship with the environment has started to be

recognized as an issue in Senegal environment policies with the

Environmental National Action Plan (PNAE). It acknowledges the

inequalities among social categories and classes, as well as between men

and women in access to natural resources. Women play an important role

in the management of their environment and women’s associations/groups

are very active in desertification alleviation. Therefore state institutions

should give women more prerogatives in environment management.

However, women’s and gender issues on natural resources are only in

speeches but are not considered in practice.

Moreover, the environment policy documents are too technical and

juridical for discussing gender issues. They focus on the physical

environment (the different types of pollution) and environment impact

21 The first Environment Code was drafted in January 28 1983 by-law no. 83-05. It focused on issues such as classified forests, water pollution, noise pollution, and air pollution.

95

assessment. There are no references to social, cultural, and gender issues.

The different environment policies and action plans redrafted within the

decentralization context in Senegal are generally gender blind, gender

neutral, or women’s and gender issues are only mentioned as generalities.

Gender is disregarded in policies, laws, and agendas, which undermines

women’s interests and opportunities accessing environmental resources.

A great amount of ciriticism has been voiced about the politics of

decentralized natural resource management in Senegal. The way that

decentralization is practiced and/or applied does not always follow the

way it is defined and presented in policies and the institutional setting.

Natural resource management is decentralized in theory but centralized in

practice. Regarding land tenure issues, decentralization policies do not

really recognize Local Collectivities power in land attribution and

distribution. The state still remains the ‘master of land’ either as owner or

manager of the national domain.

As it is institutionally mentioned in decentralization policies “the state

has the control of the legal system and the control of the budget of all

activities. The state is the guarantor of resources and local collectivities are

resource managers” (Rds, 1996). Despite the transfer of power from the

state to local collectivities that is supposed to occur with decentralization,

environment management in Senegal is a state monopoly and local

collectivities intervene generally in land allocation as delegates. All the

decisions are inspired and executed by the state (N’diaye, 1994).

Questioning the sustainability of policy reform in Senegal, Utting and

Jaubert (1999) argue that it has come about largely in response to foreign

influences and donor conditionality rather than any national movement or

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pressure. Under influence from the donor community, significant reforms

were made. The environmental discourse and policies of developing

countries and development agencies have undergone significant change.

“Attention has shifted from top-down and authoritarian approaches in the

field of conservation to community based natural resource management.

Many developing countries have decentralized some aspects of their

natural resources for multiple political, economic, social, and ideological

reasons, and often with support and pressure of aid agencies” (Ribot,

2002).

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Section conclusion

This section shows that community-based conservation, participation,

democracy, and decentralization have become part of the conventional

rhetoric. More attention is being paid to these approaches and rethoric at

the local level by government, donors, development agencies and

international and national conservation organizations. Therefore, any

environmental program or project according to its context obeys to rules

and reforms in progress. The stakes over resources and the power relations

among actors change nature with policy reforms in force for a certain

period of time depending on the fashion and disposition of donors.

However it should be noted that the policy of natural resource

management, especially forest, always reserved a dominating place to the

State who managed the natural resources in an exclusive way. Even with

decentralization the State remains the main actor.

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Chapter conclusion

This chapter draws two main observations: first, decentralization in

both colonial and post-independent nation-state did not contribute to

women’s effective political representation and participation in local

government. Second, land and forest resources management structures,

processes, and practices did not allow women’s better access to and

control over land and forest resources

Senegalese women’s full right to vote in 1946 allowed recognition of

women as citizens and political actors. Women have played a key role in

electing the Senegalese nationalist leaders facilitating the path towards

independence. However, their status as political leaders during the colonial

period and up to now is yet to be recognized. The number of women

elected officials has increased, but it is slow and little. The two main

decentralization reforms, which aimed for popular participation and

representation, did not allow a better representation of women in local

government. These two reforms are gender neutral so do the different

electoral systems. The political regime either single-party rule or multi-party

democracy did not favor women’s political representation. The Senegalese

“politician politics” (i.e. the machine style politics) based on clientelism and

politics of corruption (Schumacher, 1975: 225) has been a long standing

practice. The political patron-client relationship has been a real obstacle

for gender and women’s issues to be at the center of political objectives

and agendas.

Gender and environment are not automatically and inherently

served by localization. It is also about national and international politics.

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The evolution of environment discourses, processes, and practices in

Senegal shows colonial linkages and neo-colonialism in governing the

commons. While gender and women’s issues are missing in the

international environment agenda, the same logic follows at the national

level. The Earth Summit conference in Rio in 1992 and the adoption of

Agenda 21 have created a trigger point in Senegal environment policies to

take into account women’s issues. However, at both international and

national levels women’s environmental issues have been conceptualized in

a very essentialist way. The discourse is based on women’s roles in

environment protection, omitting the impacts of environment degradation

in women’s lives, women’s needs and constraints in access to land and

forest resources. Women’s issues in Senegal environment policies have

been poorly conceptualized and mainly recognized in speeches but not in

practice.

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CHAPTER 4: CONTEXT OF CASE STUDIES

This chapter aims to describe the area of study, Dialakoto Rural

Community, based on its social, cultural, demographic, economic,

environmental, and political situations. It also presents the context of

Malidino reserve, which is located in Dialakoto Rural Community, describing

how the creation of village committees to be in charge of reserve emerges

as parallel institutions to local elected actors.

DIALOKOTO RURAL COMMUNITY

MAP 4.1 Situation of Niokolo Koba National Park, Diambour Classified Forest

and Malidino Reserve

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From the 1998 census the population is about 7,121 inhabitants.

Dialakoto is composed of 34 villages with a low population density. Indeed,

40% of the villages have less than 100 inhabitants and 67% less than 200

inhabitants. This can be explained by the presence of the Park, which

displaced many villages, 10 in Dialakoto, and occupied most of the

community spaces that had been cultivation land. 40% of Dialakoto

surface is situated inside the Park and there are some villages inside

Diambour classified forest, which creates conflicts between the park

agents and the populations.

It has three main ethnic groups, Diakhanké, Pulaar, and Mandinka;

with the domination of the latters. Pulaar and Mandinka are based on a

patriarchal succession with a stratified social organization based on age

and chieftaincy. The elders and male authorities are pillars of the social life

all around the park. In villages where founders belong to one or the other

ethnic group, the best lands and the decision making power are held by

the dominant group. The legal way of accessing land is through the rural

council, however there is a common approach to land ownership in the

rural area based on usufruct rights.

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MAP 4.2 situation of Dialakoto Rural Community and Malidino reserve in

Tambacounda region

MALIDINO BIODIVERSITY COMMUNITY RESERVE

The Malidino reserve with an area of 10,059 hectares is situated in the

periphery of the Niokolo Koba National Park in Dialakoto Rural Community.

The spaces inside the reserve have different juridical status: one part of the

reserve (3561 ha) is situated in Diambour classified forest at the West; the

community space in the zone de terroir (6498 ha) at the East; and in the

South the reserve is limited by NKNP. The populations in the area are

wedged in between the Park (913,000 ha), the classified forest (127,500 ha),

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and the reserve (10,059 ha), therefore reducing the available land for

cultivation.

The villages22 surrounding Malidino are: Dialamakhan,

Tambacoumbaboulou, Kéniékéniéko, Binguel, Sounatou, Sitaouma, Darou

Idjiratou, Thienel, Mansadala and Diakhaba Peul. There are two main

ethnic groups, the Pulaar and the Mandinka. All the villages are in majority

Pulaar but Mansadala is mainly composed by Mandinka. The population

around Malidino is 1781 adults’ inhabitants with 50.64% male and 49.36%

female (Boutinot, 2004: 21).

MAP 4.3 Malidino Reserve Surrounding Villages

22 Among these villages, 8 belong Dialakoto rural community and two villages, Kéniékéniéko and Binguel, belong to Beni Israel rural community situated in Balla

arrondissement and Bakel départment. Darou Idjiratou and Thienel are hamlets and depend administratively on Mansadala village because of their small size.

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MAP 4.4 Malidino Reserve Biodiversity Compositions

The Malidino Biodiversity Community Reserve is part of an

Environment/Poverty-Alleviation Energy Program (SPEM/PROGEDE23) that

was launched in Senegal in 1997 after similar programs were implemented

in Mali, Niger, Benin, and Burkina Faso. The Program consists of two main

components.

The first is the Sustainable Woodfuels Supply Management

Component, which entailed the implementation of a community-run forest

management system in the periphery of the Niokolo Koba National Park

(Malidino reserve is part of this component).

23 PROGEDE is the French acronym of the program, which is well known across Senegal. It

stands for Programme de Gestion Durable et Participative des Energies Traditionnelles et de Substitution.

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The second is the Demand Management and Inter-fuel Substitution

Options Component which entailed the modernization of the urban

charcoal trade and the reduction of demand-side pressure on the wood-

fuels supply system (World Bank, 2005). The total cost of the budget is

$19,900,000 funded as following by different donors: the Netherlands $8, 8

million, the World Bank $5,200,000, the Global Environment Facility (GEF)

$4,700,000, and the Senegalese government $1,200,000. The World Bank

coordinates and manages funds for these projects. The Ministries of the

Environment, Industry, and Energy, which appoint the Forest Service agents,

are jointly responsible for the overall implementation of project activities in

the field (PROGEDE, 1998).

PROGEDE intervenes in 28 villages in the periphery of NKNP situated in

Tambacounda region. Among the 28 villages, 10 are involved in Malidino

reserve management and benefits. Malidino means ‘pond of

hippopotamus’ in Mandinka (however, this naming has been controversial

among the Pular people). The pond is situated in the heart of the reserve.

The process of the creation of the reserve began in 1998; it was

officially recognized as a Biodiversity Community-based Reserve in 2002.

The Forest Service and the World Bank designated the Dialamakhan village

as the reserve center mostly due to its geographical location: it is nearly

equidistant from the other nine villages surrounding the reserve. According

to PROGEDE MARP document (2003), Dialamakhan has the highest adult

population: 369 inhabitants of which 196 are men (53, 11%) and 173 are

women (46, 89%)

The reserve has two main objectives: biodiversity conservation in the

periphery of the Park and rural poverty alleviation through income-

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generating activities and food and material distribution (PROGEDE, 2002;

World Bank, 2005). In pursuing its rural poverty alleviation objective, the

World Bank and Forest Service make financial infusions and develop

income-generating activities to enable the villagers to better conserve

forestry resources inside the reserve. Food and seeds are donated during

periods of acute shortage, such as the rainy season. Modern equipment for

beekeeping and wildfire fighting is also distributed among reserve

managers. Income generating activities relate to the cultivation of

vegetable gardens, orchards, tree nurseries, and the collection and selling

of fruit and forest products inside the reserve. The World Bank and the

Forest Service also initiated the setting up of an animal park, an

employment-generating tourist camp, and a new road24 linking

Dialamakhan to the other villages. The income generating and rural

poverty alleviation activities are developed for people to better take care

of resources.

Chapter conclusion

This decriptive chapter shows that Dialakoto Rural Community is

experiencing a complex co-existence of different institutions in natural

resource management. While the 1996 decentralization reform aims for

transfer of power in natural resource management to the rural council;

external agencies such as the forest service have created village

24 During author fieldwork in the Dialakoto Rural Community in June-August 2007, one could see the beginning of construction of a new road. Even though it took seven years for that pledge to be honored, the populations of Dialamakhan and the villages surrounding the reserve are very happy because it will improve transportation, communication, and will facilitate commerce. It will also facilitate pregnant women’s

access to the main hospital. There are also hopes that the tourist camp will be built, generating employment.

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committees composed of traditional authorities to be in charge of

resources inside the community-based reserve. Village committees are

therefore an autonomous community institution masters of their own

territory, the reserve area, even though de jure the rural councils have the

right of resource management in the zones de terroirs.

The diversity of actors in the periphery of NKNP has created

institutional pluralism, which however, does not promote local democracy.

It creates adversarial relations and competition among diverse local

institutions with diverse sociopolitical and logical systems and the

emergence of new forms of socio-politico-administrative hierarchies at the

local level (Faye, 2006).

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CHAPTER 5: GENDER INEQUALITY IN MALIDINO BIODIVERSITY

RESERVE POLITICAL PARTIES AND THE ‘VILLAGE APPROACH’

Do participatory approaches lead to improved gender equity in

decision making processes, access to natural resources, and to supplies in

Malidino Reserve management? This chapter interrogates how

participatory approaches used in the Malidino Reserve shaped the gender

distribution of outcomes in decision processes, access to forest resources

and land, incomes and economic activities, biodiversity conservation, and

rural community empowerment and social change. It also shows how

donor-sponsored participatory approaches might exacerbate party

political, and through them, ethnic, kinship and gender cleavages by

bestowing power and authority on actors belonging to a rival party and on

actors with questionable democratic legitimacy. Participatory parallel

institutions based on cultural and traditional norms serve to undermine

women’s ability to collectively address their own interests.

THE FOREST SERVICE AND THE WORLD BANK PARTICIPATORY APPROACHES

To better implement its objective of biodiversity conservation in the

periphery of the Niokolo Koba National Park, the Forest Service was to work

in partnership with the local populations. Its philosophy of local

participation is summarized as a “village approach” whereby the locals are

responsible for managing the reserve. The villagers are to decide on

leadership, the main actors, and the rules based on their social

organization, hierarchy and beliefs. The Forest Service proposes the

committee structure and framework, and drafts the Management Action

Plan; however it may not intervene in the process of leadership selection

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and rule making. This policy is in line with Henkel and Stirrat’s observation

that “by disowning the process they initiate development agencies thus set

themselves up as only “facilitating” to avoid the necessity for taking on

responsibility for the outcomes of their interventions” (Henkel and Stirrat,

2001: 183).

Need assessment and contacting stakeholders

Indeed, at the outset of the project, a consultative approach was

adopted involving key stakeholders. The Forest Service and the World Bank

conducted a series of national and regional participatory workshops

between December 1995 and April 1996 to obtain feedback from

representatives of civil society with respect to the overall project strategy.

Women, youth and NGOs were identified as key participants who were to

play a fundamental role throughout the life of the project. A series of

Participatory Rural Appraisals (PRAs) were also conducted aimed at

obtaining the socio-economic and cultural information for preparing

management plans specifically tailored to the local demographics. Special

attention was paid to the identification of issues relevant to women, their

training and capacity building.

National consultants carried out a preliminary fact-finding mission in

June 1998 in eight villages in the Tambacounda and Kolda regions. The

plan was to meet local women’s groups, NGOs and government officials to

assess the needs of rural women and identify the best ways of ensuring

gender-sensitive project implementation. Suzanne Roddis, a World Bank

consultant in 1998 produced a pamphlet titled “A Working Report for

Taking Gender into Account in the Traditional Energy Sector” to bring the

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process of gender analysis into PROGEDE’s implementation strategies.

Social and Environment impact assessment studies were also carried out

throughout the lifetime of the project. “But, managing local resources is

not a matter of technical problems looking for solutions. There are many

technical solutions; the critical issues are motivation, organization, equity,

and political will. One key lies with local communities” (Rocheleau and

Thomas-Slayter, 1995: 19).

To better implement the objective of biodiversity conservation in the

periphery of Niokolo Koba National Park, the forestry service needed to

work in partnership with the population who will be in charge of Malidino

reserve management. The participatory processes in Dialamakhan mainly

consisted of forestry agents contacting village leaders, such as the village

chief, the youth leader,25 (subsequently reserve president and the village

rural councilor), some other youth members, the notables, the Imam, and

male heads of households. During the meetings, the Forest Service agents

discussed the reserve project and explained the expectations of local

involvement in the protection of the forest through reforestation and

conservation, while also enforcing the ban on tree cutting or agriculture

activities. The agents requested the population to no longer cultivate inside

the reserve because of the agricultural principles of the reserve that

excluded the clearing and farming of the land. The president of the reserve

and the leaders of VMCs tried to convince the villagers of the need to

abandon their agriculture lands inside the reserve.

25 A youth leader is the chairperson of the youth association in the village composed of young men and women between the ages of 12 and 30. He is chosen by his peers through

election based on trust and leadership skills. The youth association engages in the village’s social, cultural, environmental, and economic activities.

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Given the reserve’s “common property” status, the Forest Service

asked the people of Dialamakhan to form a socially all-encompassing

group to manage it. The women’s association, around for some thirty years

and composed of all the married women in the village, the youth

association, in place since 1992, and the village men then set up a special

reserve association with open membership. After the community chose the

association’s leaders, the villagers laid out a formal list of objectives, status,

rules, and activities of the association. The document was then sent to the

regional governor for approval.26

Between 1998 and 2000 the implementation of the reserve was

mainly related to setting up the structure and composition of the

committees in Dialamakhan as a pilot site. In 2002, the other nine villages

surrounding the reserve expressed a willingness to get involved in the

management and to enjoy access to the poverty alleviation supplies in the

form of food, seeds, material supplies, vegetables garden and orchard

management. The same committee structures were to be set up in every

village. All in all, ten villages opted to get involved. From 1998 through 2000

the partnership in implementing the reserve between the forestry service

and the villagers of Dialamakhan was very slow because of institutional

problems within PROGEDE team. In 2001 after the presidential elections in

Senegal, with the new regime a new team is installed in the forestry service

to be in charge of PROGEDE activities. Since that time the process of

implementing the reserve has become more dynamic.

26 In Senegal all social and economic associations have to be legally authorized by the regional governor in order to have the right to open a bank account and to benefit from

government and donor funding. The Governor issues a special deposit slip with a reference number that authorizes the organization’s activities.

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The modes of appointing the reserve leaders

The Forest Service then initiated the setting up of Village

Management Committees and identified the reserve objectives in a

special Management Action Plan (MAP). The villagers decided that

members of these bodies would be chosen from amongst the villagers in

line with the Village Management Committee structure that the Forest

Service proposed. The Village Management Committees are the local

institutions in charge of the reserve management and enforcement of the

relevant regulations. The structure of the committees is proposed by the

Forest Service while the villagers chose their leaders and members.

Village committees: structure, framework, and actors

The committees of the reserve management are:

1) Village Management and Development Committee (VMDC). The

VMDC is to be the interlocutor between the villages and project structures

(in particular PROGEDE) with respect to village-level activities. The VMCD is

composed of an executive board (president, vice-president, secretary,

treasurer, and account inspectors), and the forestry, farming, and pastoral

sub-committees.

2) The Surveillance Committee is mainly comprised of youth and

works closely with the VMDC forestry sub-committees to ensure that forest

users respect charter rules.

3) The Wise-men Council comprised of traditional authorities such as

village chiefs, imams, spiritual guides, and notables. It uses traditional forms

of conflict management.

113

Every village has a VMDC with a president, a surveillance committee

and a Wise-men council.

4) The Inter-villages Management Committee (IVMC) is a federation

of all various committees of the ten villages. It authorizes the various forms

of usage in the reserve, such as grazing and exploitation of non-timber

forest products, and is the reserve’s central decision-making body. It

outlines the reserve’s policy guidelines and serves as an interlocutor

between the villages and external partners, namely the rural council,

PROGEDE, and the World Bank. The reserve president is the coordinator of

the IVMC and all the presidents of the VMCDs at the village level. The IVMC

is the executive board composed of fourteen representatives from each

village; Dialamakhan as the village center has four representatives, one of

whom is also the reserve president.

Village committees versus the Rural Council

According to decentralization laws and policies, for the

implementation of a community-based reserve, the rural council should be

the direct institutional and implementing partner because it is the elected

body in charge of natural resource management in the rural community.

“The Forestry Service should work in collaboration with the rural councilors

who are responsible for the resources Management Plan and the Local

Development Plan of their rural community” (article 1, decentralization laws

1996a). This law is restated in article 5 of the Forest Code (1998): “the rights

and power transferred from the State to Local Collectivities in forests and

land management should be put in a Management Plan drafted by the

forestry service and approved by the rural council”.

114

There is some conflusion in the various stipulations as to which level of

authority is vested with power to manage the Reserve. The Guiding

Principles drafted in December 2002 state that the Reserve is “under the

institutional authority of the Rural Community, which transfers through

deliberation its management authority to the villages on the periphery of

the reserve”. However, in decentralization laws there is no stipulation that

the Rural Council should delegate power to the village. The Rural Council is

the lowest level of local government. In the village itself, the de facto

village head is a chief who is a hereditary figure and is not usually popularly

elected. The creation of Village Management Committees by the forestry

service and the World Bank has contributed to the recognition of parallel

institutions to decentralized institutions such as the Rural Council. The

principles and mechanisms of the creation of VMCs and the modes of

appointing the leaders are inconsistent with decentralization objectives.

In the case of Malidino, decentralization has been twisted and mixed

with participatory approaches. But, decentralization is distinct from

participatory approaches, which usually do not involved transfer of powers

to local groups, but rather provide their inclusion in decisions made by

outside entities (Ribot, 2002). The rural council has been involved in the

reserve implementation mainly when it comes to signing official

documents, to attending in general assemblies, and when funding partners

visit the reserve.

The Forest Service thus explained its choice of opting to work with

VMDC instead of the Rural Council which by law should have been in

charge of managing the reserve (RdS 1996a, 1996b, 1998). First, the politics

of choice of the Forest Service and the World Bank is based on the “village

115

approach”, which on the one hand aims at popular inclusion in decision

making throughout the process, from the inception phase, to the actual

management of the reserve; on the other hand promote the respect of

local people’s culture, tradition, and social hierarchy. But Kothari (2001:

145) warns us that “claims of empowering ‘local’ people by participatory

practitioners through the acceptance of power as cultural norms,

normalization of power and inequalities through common sense, power

and inequalities become normative and thus remain unchallenged. In this

way, power inequalities in society and the needs and interests of the poor

and marginalized can be revealed”. Community-based natural resource

management is the Forest Service strategy aimed at building a new

partnership with the locals residing on the outskirts of protected areas

(Ribot, 1995), and formerly locked in conflict with the Forest Service.

Second, the Forest Service claims that Rural Councils are driven by

party politics and are more concerned with party matters and electoral

votes than people’s needs. Says one Forest Service agent:

“The Rural Councilors are not any more legitimate than locally-appointed leaders, who are likewise chosen to represent all people. The Rural Council does not have the financial means to supervise and visit all the villages involved in reserve management activities. There are insufficient numbers of councilors to manage the resources: many villages have only one elected representative, while others have none”.

This statement of a forester is instructive as electoral politics in the

locality are indeed perceived to be conflict and patronage ridden, and do

little advancing social equity. Other participatory approaches, however,

116

are likewise no panacea against exclusion as the “village-based

approach” can reaffirm the power of traditional authorities. It does so by

treating communities as if they were ungendered units and community

participation as an unambiguous step toward enhanced equality

(Agarwal, 1997: 1374). As Cornwall (2003: 1329) reminds us that “in the

name of participation, the village social hierarchy is not being challenged;

rather, on the one hand, existing structures and dynamics of gendered

power and exclusion are being reproduced; on the other, existing

inequalities are even further entrenched and strengthened”.

Criteria for choosing the reserve leaders

Committee leaders are chosen for political, economic, and social

reasons. Traditional and customary leaders are the ones who co-opt,

nominate, and support one another during designations and nominations

in leadership positions.

The reserve leaders were mainly chosen based on the following

criteria: to be able to defend the village interests (45%), the village trust

them (16%), and to be at the same time dynamic, devoted to the village

cause, and available (33.67%). Villagers perceive and accept certain types

of projects based on the benefits they can gain from it.

Regarding the selection process 98% believe it was done by

“consensus”. They would say “the village has elected them”. However, they

did not give any specific meaning to what was the consensus build on and

who is the “village”. Is the village representative and inclusive in the

nomination process? Even though the number of people who disagrees

was not many 15%, they represent a key group that deserves to be

117

considered. They followed the majority in their decisions because there is

nothing they could have done to change the dynamic. This shows the lack

of accountability mechanisms. Those people were more concerned about

the cultivation land they had to abandon.

All the leaders interviewed mention they were contacted by the

president who they recognize of as the patriarch of the reserve. Since the

people who took part in the meetings to nominate the reserve leaders

were the village chiefs, the Imams, women’s associations’ presidents,

political parties’ leaders’ one can understand how they choose themselves

to be the leaders of the reserve. All the existing power structures are

reproduced in the reserve management.

The political choice of the reserve leaders

The president of the reserve was co-opted by the forestry service

because he was a dynamic and powerful political leader who can

mobilize people and get their adherence in any sort of activities. He is the

one who contacted the people he thought would be able to play an

important role in the reserve management. In Dialamakhan village, one

sees an authority figure, the president of the reserve, who is above all other

authorities.

76% of the villagers agree with the nomination of the reserve

founding president and 41% believe he is able to defend the village

interests. They believe he is the initiator of the reserve and has allowed this

project to be implemented because as the only political leaders in the

village at the time the reserve was created he was automatically chosen

by the forest service. That choice gives him a patriarchal recognition over

118

the reserve management. This co-optation has created a mirage among

the villagers who are not able to perceive that the project was already

conceived by external agencies and they were only asked to participate

in so was the reserve president.

The Malidino reserve documents do not stipulate the role and

prerogatives of the reserve president and how he should be chosen.

Interviews with local actors suggest that there was a collective agreement

that Gardido27, a local councilor, should be chosen as the founding

president because of his dynamism and devotion to the village interests as

the youth leader—he was president of the youth association of

Dialamakhan at that time. In addition to being a political leader, he is

considered to possess an environmental consciousness due to his prior

involvement in reforestation and wildfire alleviation. He also plays a crucial

role in the process of getting the villagers to agree to the reserve objectives

and to participate in the implementation of the relevant directives.

Local electoral politics and upward links to the national level are

crucial factors in understanding Gardido’s power base, as well as the

general power dynamics involving the various local actors and

stakeholders. The reserve president’s power is derived from his party

political connections and financial incentives emanating from the Forest

Service. He has been the first and only elected rural councilor in

Dialamakhan for ten years representing the political party, which

monopolized national political power since independence from 1960 until

2000, the Socialist Party (PS). When elections were held to the local councils

27 Fictional names are assigned to interviewees.

119

in the 1980s, PS dominance was replicated at a local level as well (Vengroff

and Johnston, 1987).

Gardido had profited from an international trip with the forestry

service in 2004 to immigrate to Spain thereby paralyzing the project

because he was the primary decision maker and coordinator who had all

the information. During a focus group in Sounataou28, men and women

affirm: “Gardido is the light of the reserve. Since his departure, it is like being

in a close dark room without a light”.

The reserve president from 2005 to mid-2007 (who replaced the

reserve founding president), Djoguido,29 was co-opted by some village

leader and is the uncle of the reserve’s founding president. He was chosen

to replace his nephew not because of any deep involvement with the

reserve issues, but due to his status as the wealthiest individual in the village,

an émigré to Spain for nearly fifteen years and back in Senegal for only a

short visit. In an interview, he candidly admitted his profound ignorance of

reserve-related issues30. When the village headmen first nominated him to a

leadership position, he refused to take it up, but later changed his mind.

Due to his ignorance of the project, there have been scarcely any activities

inside the reserve since the departure of the original founding president.

In mid 2007, Djoguido went back to Spain, and was replaced by

another man through elections in a general assembly while competing with

another man very involved in the reserve activities. This new reserve

president, is this time “democratically elected” (as some villages would

28 Author interview, March 30, 2006 29 Author interview, Dialamakhan, 4 March 2006. 30 Author interview, Dialamakhan, 3 March 2006.

120

say)31 , and belongs to the political party in power, PDS, different from that

of the founding president. This shows how leadership in Senegal rural areas

is more and more tied to politics. The “modern” village networks such as

women’s groups and forest groups are generally headed by individuals

who claim their affiliations to the party in power. Villagers tend to choose

those people to be their leaders as they think the party in power could

grant them with privileges.

Policy and rule making

Biodiversity conservation

Even though the reserve has been presented by the forestry service

and the World Bank as being in the interest of the communities and

legitimized through participation, the first and real objective is to create a

buffer zone in the periphery of NKNP. The conservation actions and

strategies of PROGEDE lie within the scope of the International Convention

on biodiversity signed by Senegal in Rio in June 1992 and ratified in June

1994. The Forestry Service objective is to strengthen the buffer zone around

NKNP for a better protection of the fauna and flora of the park for tourism

and conservation. Indeed, during the rainy season certain animals migrate

out of the park to flee the seasonal white fly infestation. Animals reproduce

during that period and are often victims of poaching and harsh living

conditions in the periphery. The idea of biodiversity conservation through

community-based reserve aims to provide a favorable and safe

31 Author fieldwork, Dialamakhan, July 2007.

121

environment to the migrating fauna. Here, the real purpose is different from

the published purpose.

That is why the ecological outcome is considered by the forest

service as a success. Malidino community reserve has been an opportunity

for the World Bank and the forestry service to achieve biodiversity

conservation objectives. If there is one thing that the different actors

agreed with it, is that trees and other forest species (fauna and flora) have

been well protected, endangered species are regenerating, and there are

less wildfires. The populations find in the reserve much straw which is used

for the roofs of their houses, and fodder for the cattle. Participant

observation inside the reserve indicates that the reserve was well

maintained in comparison to nearby non-protected area.

However, biodiversity conservation is tied to land rights. Agriculturists

are no longer allowed to cultivate inside the reserve where lands are more

fertile, which decrease their agriculture production. Looking at the history of

displacements and creations of protected areas in the periphery of the

park, one witnesses the reduction of local communities’ agricultural and

residential land and their access to resources that constitute their main

livelihoods. Agriculture is the main activity in Dialamakhan and villages

surrounding the reserve.

Rural poverty alleviation

The forest service objectives: food, seeds, and equipments supplies

In pursuing its rural poverty alleviation objective, the World Bank and

Forest Service also outlined the rural poverty alleviation objectives that

122

were to be attained through improved resource management. They make

financial infusions and develop income-generating activities to enable the

villagers to better conserve forestry resources inside the reserve. Food and

seeds are donated during periods of acute shortage, such as the rainy

season. Modern equipment for beekeeping and wildfire fighting is also

distributed among reserve managers. Income generating activities relate

to the cultivation of vegetable gardens (where women are more involved),

orchards, tree nurseries, and the collection and selling of fruit and forest

products inside the reserve. The World Bank and the Forestry Service also

made promising initiatives such as the setting up of an animal park, an

employment-generating tourist camp, and a new road that can open up

the village to the other villages and Dialakoto administrative center.

The main reason for establishing rural poverty alleviation activities is

that the World Bank and the forestry service realize “it would not be

possible to redress the problems of forest loss unless social equity, income

redistribution and generation, natural resource tenure rights and

sustainability of the environment, as well as the economic and social

structures, were achieved (World Bank, 2005: 2)”. Although rural poverty

alleviation is expected to be the main development outcome; the project

delivers food, material supplies and economic in a gendered way, where

equity and equality are yet to come. The distribution of subsidies and

supplies is tied to identity, sex, class, kinship, and ethnicity. People are

excluded from the benefits and activities based on social and political

affiliation.

In reality, the vegetables gardens do not correspond to the

immediate needs of the women and it does not bring in much revenue, nor

123

does it contribute to the enrichment of their diet. The quantity of

vegetables produced is insufficient to feed many families in the village.

Vegetables are not part of their diet because of they are very poor to buy

it from the market instead they use leaves from the forest which are more

accessible and free. Generally, when women do collective vegetable

harvesting they have problems selling it at the market because of the lack

of transportation and an inaccessible road during the raining season. The

main problem villagers are facing is access to drinking water and health

care facilities. Therefore the objectives of fighting against poverty and of

securing food are still to be achieved. A youth leader from Dialamakhan

criticizes women’s association by saying:

“I flay Bamtare women’s association because there is no transparency. Their work could have been the king pin of the village development; also they could have had great income from the vegetable garden activities. Their first year of vegetables harvest they gain 300,000Cfa (i.e. approximately $600) now they even cannot have $200. This is due to the internal problems and the lack of transparency. Poor women do not benefit from any loan, credit, or support”32.

Context-based poverty issues

Both men and women live in poverty in Malidino, but it is worse for

women because they have less decision making and economic power.

Women’ social and economic needs and interests are different from those

of men, and the Forest Service and the World Bank. Men and the Forest

Service and the World Bank are focused on the reserve. Women are

32 Dialamakhan, July 12, 2007

124

concerned about a main road that can open up the area for them to be

able to go to the city to sell their vegetables garden products, a school for

their children, a maternity health care center, and free access to mosquito

nets against malaria and to potable water. Pregnant women have

difficulties accessing the nearest health center when they have

complications in labor because the roads are in bad conditions and there

is no midwife available. During a focus group33, women in Mansadala

village attested: “one woman in the village had problem giving birth; then

she was being evacuated to the health center in Dialakoto on a donkey-

cart. Due to this flawed means of transportation and the impracticability of

the road, the newborn had a leg fracture”.

Lack of access to health services

Men and women in the area face serious and widespread chronic

health problems including goiter, parasites (mainly for children), and lack of

adequate sanitation. The mortality rate of children is 34.86% and the

principal causes of death are presented in the following Figure 5.1.

33 Author interview, Mansadala, April 10, 2006

125

FIGURE 5.1 Principal causes of children death in Dialamakhan

40.0

1.7

33.3

3.31.7 1.7

3.31.7

6.76.7

0.0

5.0

10.0

15.0

20.0

25.0

30.0

35.0

40.0

45.0

Don't

Know

Diarheal Malaria Born died Abces Desease Ganglions Meningite Dogbite Tetanos

Perc

en

tag

e

The main cause of death is malaria. 33.3% of dead children died

from malaria.

Lack of access to formal education

Women are more interested in the improvement of their living

conditions through income generating activities rather than the reserve or

biodiversity conservation per se. Education remains a major issue since

many villagers in the area still do not have schools. In the village of

Sounatou, none of the inhabitants have gone to school; there are no

schools and no health centers, which is a common pattern in many villages

in the periphery of Niokolo Koba National Park.

126

TABLE 5.1: Gendered Level of Education in Dialamakhan

Male

Female

All

Formal school

10.0

3.3

6.0

Koran school

97.5

100.0

99.0

Literacy classes: Mandinka and Pulaar 35.0 26.7 30.0

For example, only 10% of male and 3.3% of female have frequented

a formal school. The level of formal education is generally primary school.

While large numbers 97.5% for male, and 100% of female, have frequented

a Koran school.

Given the critical poverty condition of people living in the Malidino

area and their lack of access to basic needs like many rural areas in

Senegal particularly in Tambacounda region which paradoxically have the

three quarter of Senegal natural resources but is the one of the poorest

region; there is a need for a critical thinking about the relationship between

poverty and environment. What is the relationship between rural poverty

alleviation and natural resource management? What kind of gendered

poverty alleviation policies will lead to better environment management?

In the case of Dialamakhan, access to basic needs such as adequate

health services, education, means of communication are core poverty

issues. Biodiversity conservation should be linked to these specific poverty

concerns, which are more important than the supplies generally unfairly

distributed.

127

The reserve management charter

The Forest Service called on the locals to set up a management

charter with their own rules and regulations. The inter-village committee

(IVMC) board held meetings to draft the charter. The charter states rules on

the reserve administration and monitoring, conflict management, and

wildfire prevention and alleviation. It was adopted in November 2002, was

signed by all village chiefs, and ratified by the reserve president, the

president of Dialakoto Rural Council, and the Forest Service regional officer

in Tambacounda. The charter stipulates that

“The IVMC board is the sole decision maker of the reserve management… the Wise-men council decides on fines imposed on violators… In case the violator refuses to pay the fine he/she is first referred to the Rural Council, which is the mediator, and if an amicable solution is not reached, the Forest Service invokes the provisions of the forestry law against the violator”.

In order to adopt the charter and reserve principles, three general

assemblies34 were held in Dialamakhan with delegations from the ten

villages. At the first meeting, delegates talked about the importance of

sustainable resources management and agreed upon decision rules

regarding biodiversity conservation in the reserve management charter, as

had been suggested by the Forest Service. The village delegations were

asked to go back to their villages and inform the people about the

34 A General Assembly is an open meeting held at a public space at the heart of the village with delegations from each village composed of the village chief, the Imam, youth

representatives, one or two women (generally the women’s association president), plus other individuals from the village with a general interest in attending.

128

principles and mechanisms of the reserve and secure their agreement to

participate in the project.

The second meeting focused on feedback from the villages, the

adoption of the charter and establishment of committees for each village.

During the third general assembly, village delegates involved in the

management of the reserve were invited to swear on the Koran and do the

‘Fatiya’—a ceremony held after Friday prayer whereby people are invited

to collective recitation of a verse of the Koran. In this particular case, the

people were asked to swear to respect the charter and to never set

wildfire. There is a strong popular belief that when you swear on the Koran

you are bound by your own wows and if you disobey, bad luck will befall

you. These meetings seem to be done through consensus and as described

it seems that everybody agree with the reserve president and the leaders.

But one needs to be caution and with Phillips (1991: 130) recognize that

“there is a significant overlap between politics and friendship, and in a

context of a face-to-face meeting this meant people could be intimidated

from expressing their opinions, for they did not want to offend and they

feared to disagree”.

The charter was adopted in November 2002 and signed by all village

chiefs and ratified by the president of the reserve, the president of the Rural

Council, and the Regional coordinator of the Forest Service in

Tambacounda.

The Forest Service agents involved in PROGEDE and the Rural Council

members were always invited to the general assemblies as observers and

facilitators; all decisions had to be taken by the villages however. But as

Mosse observes, projects influence the way in which people construct their

129

needs, and “project actors are not passive facilitators of local knowledge

production and planning. They shape and direct these processes (2001:

19)”. The Forest Service, the reserve president and the reserve committee

leaders urged the population to conserve the resources in exchange for a

pledge to set up an animal park and a tourist camp on its territory, which

would generate employment and improve livelihoods. The officials urged

the local people to cease cultivation and abandon their fields inside the

reserve.

GENDERED PARTICIPATION AND REPRESENTATION IN DECISION-MAKING PROCESSES

This section demonstrate how both the village committees and rural

electoral politics in the management of the reserve have had unintended

effects on gender equity and representation. Although Malidino Biodiversity

Community Reserve project is not specifically gendered in intention, it is

conceived and acts in a gendered ways at the local level. The objectives

of the projects, different activities, decisions, and the way men and women

participate and are represented create different opportunities, conflicts,

and power relations. Men and women are represented and participate

differently in the reserve committees. Women are involved in Malidino

reserve project, however, the degree and type of involvement should be

questioned.

Are women’s participation in the reserve implementation processes

participative, imposed, or there is no choice? When the Villages

Management Committees were appointed how issues of equity and

equality considered? How are men and women involved differently? How

130

the choices and recognition of the village committees have different

effects on men and women?

This section has three main analytical parameters: first, the gendered

participation and representation in village committees through women’s

membership and participation in decision making; second, how and

whether women are consulted in framing the reserve rules and regulations,

and their modes of participation in the relevant activities; It and third how

women and men’s voices, interests, constraints, and opportunities are

taken into account in access to land and forest resources and the project

policies.

Gendered participation in Malidino reserve policy making

An examination of Malidino reserve main policy documents, such as

the “Intervention Program of Biodiversity Management in the periphery of

Niokolo Koba National Park” reveals that there is no section on women and

gender issues in natural resource management. The notion of gender is in

fact entirely absent from this document. The one place where women’s

issues are mentioned is before the last paragraph of the document in the

section on secondary activities. It is stipulated that women will be privileged

partners in the alleviation of their workload and access to water (PROGEDE,

2002). In other documents, such as the Biodiversity Conservation Principles,

the Biodiversity Community-based Management Charter, and in the

Directorate Principles and Operational Modalities of the Biodiversity

Community Reserve Management, women and gender issues are likewise

conspicuously absent. The biodiversity intervention program also lacks an

elaborate statement on the gender issue. Most of biodiversity program

131

policies are gender-blind, with policy-makers considering women as a

separate category but without questioning the power relations that shape

their lives.

The question here is: how can the forestry service deal adequately

with gender issues when the main policy documents are gender-blind?

Environment programs managers (donors and recipient countries)

recognize the role of women in NRM in their communities but do not see

the necessity of including women as full partners in decision-making and in

programs inception and implementation. The fact of not having women in

policy making does not open up spaces for an effective and adequate

consideration of their needs in terms of trainings, organization around

income generating activities. Therefore, women’s needs and interests are

given values according to international institutions goals and objectives of

sustainable development and biodiversity conservation.

Different factors shape women’s lives and they live in a multi-layered

locality where issues such as class, age, power and gender relations

interact. Then, the forestry service will gain by incorporating these factors in

their policies for a better analysis and gender sensitivity in the field. Inserting

gender into project policies would help practitioners and forestry agents to

consider women and men’s different roles, responsibilities, and rights within

the communities. “If policy is to reach the grassroots with effective

prescriptions and action for sustainable management of resources, it will

have to address the concerns of men and women and the ways both

genders, individually and collectively, relate to the state, the economy and

the land” (Thomas-Slayter and Rocheleau, 1995:192-3). Gender

accountability and responsiveness rely on gender-sensitive policies. Also

132

mainstreaming gender into international and national environment policies

and programs remains problematic in the sense that women are generally

added on.

The methods and ideological orientations of intervening agencies

like the World Bank and the Forest Service shape participation in a

gendered way. Informal institutions, like village associations and networks,

women’s and youth groups, are not part of policy making or project

design. They are invited to “fit into” or “participate in” objectives already

made by external agencies.

Gendered participation in the reserve implementation processes

Women’s participation and representation in decision making in

Malidino has been low and ineffective. During the design and

implementation processes a meager group of women per village would be

invited by male leaders to participate as passive observers, but not as

active decision makers. No women leaders signed the reserve charter,

which further illustrates the shallowness of their involvement in public

meetings and in decision making regarding the reserve rules.

Social and cultural factors contribute in shaping women’

participation in the public sphere. In these rural settings, when there are

public meetings, men are in charge of the process and women are

generally invited as observers.

Men and women’s participation in the decision making processes

and the reserve implementation is linked to social and political parties’

affiliations in addition to sex (men versus women).

133

Gendered agreement and disagreement with the reserve creation

Agreement and accountability

TABLE 5.2 Gendered Agreements with the Reserve Creation and

Accountability

Did you agree with the creation of the reserve?

No Yes

No

response Total

Male 7 33 0 40

Female 8 51 1 60

Total 15 84 1 100

Why did you agree?

Promises

are for

the village

interest

Majority

decision

Part of the

reserve

association

Protection of

the forest Total

Male 30 10 0 0 39

Female 44 4 4 10 61

Total 74 13 4 10 100

Why did you disagree?

Many

interdictions

in the area

Did not

see an

interest

on it

My life

depends on

the forest

People

loose their

lands Total

Male 0 38 0 15 54

Female 8 8 8 23 46

Total 8 46 8 38 100

134

TABLE 5.2 Gendered Agreements with the Reserve Creation and

Accountability (continued)

Were you able to do something if you disagreed?

No Yes Total

Male 58 0 58

Female 42 0 42

Total 100 0 100

Why were you not able to do something against the creation of the reserve?

Majority

decision

Were

minorities Total

Male 50 0 50

Female 30 20 50

Total 80 20 100

The table above shows that the majority of the villagers in

Dialamakhan, 84%, agree with the creation of the reserve. 15% disagree,

which represents an important number. The agreement is mainly tied to the

economic interests related to the reserve. 74% (men and women) agree

because of the promises made by the forest service to build an animal

park which can generate employment and tourism. The disagreement is

based on the cultivation land abandonment. All the people who

disagreed could not do anything to stop the process because they are

minorities. This shows the lack of accountability mechanisms. While those

who disagree were not able to sanction the leaders and the leaders were

not able to respond to the villagers needs of keeping their cultivation land

inside the reserve.

135

Agreement and electoral politics

FIGURE 5.2 Political Party before 2000 Presidential Elections and Agreement

with the Reserve Creation

35

13

24

42

5

15

8

5

21

3

20

5

19

21

2

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

PS PDS None PS PDS None

Agree w ith the reserve creation Don't Agree w ith the reserve creation

Population

Male

Female

The figure above shows the cohesion in agreement with the reserve

creation, before the political regime change. PS members who belong to

the same political party of the reserve president agreed the most. Globally,

people agreed with the reserve creation despite their political party

affiliation before the 2000 presidential elections. One needs also to

acknowledge that most of people in the rural area at that time belonged

to PS the political party in power (see table below related to political party

affiliation before the 2000 elections). In the Socialist party more women (20)

agreed than men (15). In the PDS more men (8) agreed than women (5).

There is a big gap in the agreement of those who were not affiliated in a

political party (19 for women and 5 for men).

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84% of the population, men and women agreed to have the reserve

and among them 74% stated they agreed because of the economic

interests tied to the reserve such an animal park for tourism and that can

generate employment, the road, the food and seed supplies, and

equipments. These interests were given priority over land rights. But 15% of

the villagers disagree with the reserve creation because of land loss.

The agreement is almost equal between men and women. 86% had

land in the reserve and more women did 54%. Even though women were

more affected by the land appropriation they agree with the reserve

creation. This situation is due to the fact that women follow their husbands

in their decisions even though it could jeopardize their interests. Men are

also more concerned with economic interests than women’s rights in

access to land.

Agreement and social affiliation

FIGURE 5.3 Social Affiliations and Agreement with the Reserve Creation

11

4

0

50

28

6

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Bamtare Balal Alal None

No

Yes

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The agreement with the reserve management processes and

practices is tied to a mix of social affiliation and political affiliations.

Villagers who belong to Bamtare, the main group tied to the reserve

president and that claim PS affiliation before the elections mostly agree

with the way the reserve is managed. People affiliated to Balal Alal group

created after the 2002 local elections by the newly elected PDS councilor

less agree with the way the reserve is management.

Gendered agreement or disagreement with the reserve charter rules and prohibitions

For a better protection of forest resources, the villagers put in place

rules and prohibitions in the charter: not to set fire in the reserve, not to use

fire to collect bee honey, not to walk around the reserve smoking

cigarettes during the dry season (from November to June), no hunting, no

tree-cutting, and no farming. When people were asked about their

perceptions of the rules in charter, they generally agree with the rules that

can help better protect the forest resources. However, the majority 97.5%

men and 98.3% women are against the land appropriation for biodiversity

conservation purposes. Villagers are primarily farmers. 98% of the

population had land inside the reserve of which 55% women and 32% men.

How to make the balance between people’s land rights and biodiversity

conservation objectives is a question that the forest service should think of.

How can we reconcile sustainable development and environment

protection?

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FIGURE 5.4 Gendered Agreements with the Reserve Charter Rules and

Prohibitions

64.5

35.5

75.0

25.0

0.0

10.0

20.0

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0

80.0

Yes No

Male

Female

The table above shows that men and women are very concerned

with both biodiversity conservation and their rights to access to land for

cultivation. Conservation of forest resources is important for the population

because their livelihoods depend on that. Therefore, no matters their

political or social affiliations and differences, men (64.5%) and women

(75%) agree with the reserve rules and regulations. The message by the

forest service and the reserve leaders of the importance of biodiversity was

well accepted by the population. The population knows if the forests

resources are protected they can have more straw and fodder for their

livestock and habitats; they can also use the forest products for family

consumption and for sale. In addition to the economic interests tied to the

reserve (promises made by the forest service), biodiversity conservation was

another aspect that made the population agree with the reserve creation.

Although the charter includes sanctions and prohibitions against the

population, it does not include mechanisms for the populations to sanction

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the reserve leaders—traditional authorities, political party leaders, and

notables. The reserve management charter is guided by traditional norms

and rules, which give discretionary powers to traditional leaders who are

not accountable and responsive to the population in a gendered way.

Gendered membership and representation in the village committees

Gendered composition of village committees

Membership in the village committees is in principle open to anyone

as long as it meets some basic criteria established by the village

community. A villager is designated as a committee member or leader

when there is an agreement on that person being “dynamic”, “devoted to

the village cause”, and being generally an “activist” type.

The very fact of membership openness however generates

opportunities to shape gender distribution of voices in ways that are

influenced by traditional hierarchies, social and political institutions. As

Cleaver (2001) rightly argues, we need to interrogate the ostensibly

participatory fora of socially embedded institutions. Did women have a

say? Did they participate and are they effectively represented in the

decision-making process? What we observe in practice is the nomination

of committee members through manipulation, friendship, kinship, ethnicity,

and party political patronage.

The same individuals who hold leadership positions in village

associations and social networks sit as decision makers on the reserve

committees and have dual functions of committee members and leaders

in the local social hierarchies. The ex-officio members at the decision-

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making level are the village chiefs, the village spiritual guides or Imams,

traditional doctors, ‘notables’, and presidents of women’s associations.

All major existing power structures are therefore reproduced in

reserve management. In the VMDCs village chiefs hold the reserve

presidency and sub-committee memberships (Boutinot, 2004). The IVMC is

composed of representatives from each village; however those

representatives are traditional male leaders. The chairs of the VMCs are

selected from pre-existing traditional authorities and leaders that are

nominated, designated, or co-opted. Ribot (1999) asserts that village chiefs

in Sahelian countries are not necessarily representative of or accountable

to the populations over whom they preside.

The decision-making is centralized and power is concentrated in the

hands of certain categories of people. There is a problem of equitable

representation and participation in the committees because there is not a

good allocation of decision-making centers. Out of the fourteen members

of the IVMC executive and decision-making board, there is only one

woman, the president of a women’s association appointed as treasurer

(see Goetz and Hassim, 2003). The VMDC in Dialamakhan has twenty

members, including five women. The executive committee is composed of

two women and five men.

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TABLE 5.3 Gendered Composition of Dialamakhan Village Management

and Development Committee (VMDC)

Positions Sex

Executive board

President M

Vice president M

Secretary M

Vice- secretary M

Treasurer F Two finance inspectors F & M Surveillance committee

Chair and two members M

Wise men committee

Village chief, marabout, traditional doctor, and notable

M

Management and development committee

Chair, vice-president, secretary, and vice-secretary

M

Forestry committee

Chair and two vice-chairs M

Farming committee

Chair F 1st vice-chair M

2nd vice-chair F Pastoral committee

Chair M

1st vice-chair F 2nd vice-chair M

Most of the VMDC in the other villages surrounding the reserve are

structured in almost this way and generally with fewer women.

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TABLE 5.4 Gendered Composition of the Inter-Village Management

Committee (IMVC)

Positions Sex Villages

Management committee

President M Dialamakhan

Vice president M Sounatou

Secretary M Binguel

Vice- secretary M Sitaouma

Treasurer F Diakaba Peul

Two finance inspectors M

Kegnekegneko Tambacoumbaboulou

Chair of forest committee M Mansadala

Chair of farming committee M Thienel

Chair of pastoral committee M Darou Idjaratou

Surveillance committee

Chair and vice-chair M

Dialamakhan Dikhaba Peul

Wise men committee

Chair and vice-chair M

Dialamakhan Diakhaba Peul

Generally, the women that one finds in the village committees hold

positions that are secondary or marginal in importance. They tend to be

leaders of women’s associations confined to work in the sub-committees

rather than the more powerful decision-making board.

Furthermore, the positions that women occupy on the committees

are frequently only on paper. Personal interviews with female committee

members suggest that women are often unaware of their supposed

memberships on village committees. These fictional positions are often

created to satisfy donor requirements with respect to gender equality, and

they do little to substantively improve women’s involvement in key decision-

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making processes at a local level. As stated by Cornwall (2003), women’s

opportunities to influence decision-making in VMCs, rest not only on getting

women into these committees, but on how or whether women represent

women’s interests. Whether they raise their voices and, when they do

whether there is a discernable effect on policy. Increasing the number of

women involved may serve instrumental goals, but not address the issues of

power. Having women in Villages Management Committees can open up

space for women’s voice but it is not sufficient. Moreover as Mohanty

(2002: 1) contends, “the mere presence of women in the decision-making

committees without a voice can be counter-productive in the sense that it

can be used to legitimize a decision which is taken by the male members”.

Cornwall (2003) rightly suggests that women’s opportunities to

influence decision making in Village Management Committees will not

come from a simple placement of women on the various committees, but

will depend on how or whether women represent other women’s interests;

on whether women so empowered raise their voices and, when they do,

whether there is a discernable effect on policy. Increasing the number of

women involved may serve instrumental goals such as legitimizing men’s

interests, but may not change power dynamics. True, having women in

Village Management Committees can open space for women’s voices to

be heard, but such an opening is necessary but not sufficient for bringing

about substantive change in female positions in the local social hierarchies.

Women’s presence in the reserve committees is also based on

kinship and friendship. The women are not elected by their peers but are

co-opted by male leaders who are their parents, husbands, or friends. The

same women who occupy leadership positions within the village

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associations also sit on the reserve committees. The wives and other female

family members of VMDC leaders hold positions of authority over other

women. Generally they are also in charge of finances. For example, the

mother of the reserve founding president, considered to be an elder, holds

a managerial position on VMDC. She is in charge of finances related to the

women’s vegetable garden and also of regulating the distribution of food

supplies and seeds. As another family head stated, ‘it is because she is the

mother of the president that she is given the privilege of collecting the

money’. The president’s wife is the treasurer of the VMDC, and her aunt is

responsible for the agricultural committee. These findings resonate with

Cornwall’s observation that “the essentialisms that lurk behind well-

intentioned efforts to increase women’s participation as women are

dangerous as well as wrongheaded: these can deepen exclusion while

providing reassurance that gender inequality has been addressed”

(Cornwall, 2003: 1330). When leaders’ wives occupy leadership positions on

the committees, they largely legitimize men’s decisions rather than giving

voice to the concerns of other women. Increasingly, the village committees

have become fora for addressing matters of concern to men rather than

the broader citizenry.

Working with women as privileged partners: a mismatch

The empowerment and the privileging of traditional authorities serve

to further inhibit women’s participation and representation. Contrast this

problematic situation on the ground with the World Bank’s upbeat project

reporting statement: “PROGEDE recognized and promoted the role of

women within the village structures, and provided substantive capacity

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development and revitalized all women’s groups and associations.

PROGEDE gender activities in fact resulted in some of the project most

important social development impacts” (World Bank Report, 2005: 12).

The Forest Service and the World Bank claim to work with women as

privileged partners in these conservation activities. The World Bank

consultant Faure (2004) who did a social impact assessment of PROGEDE

stated, “there has not been any negative impact; all the social impacts are

positive. Regarding the different actors involved in the project women

benefited more, after young men and the youth in general because of the

training and production support”.

These success stories challenge us to question the meanings

attached to “working with women as privileged partners” and “women

benefited more”. Is it appropriate to claim that gender issues have been

addressed adequately short of a thorough appraisal of the differences

between men and women in access to and control over resources; the

power relations in natural resource management; and the variable access

of men and women to institutions of power? Does working with women in

the field mean that they are equal partners? One needs to go beyond the

established and visual partnership. What is the basis of this partnership? Is it

participative, imposed; or is there no choice, and the partnership is

unavoidable? What are the levels of disconnections regarding women’s

issues within the activities, decision making, and material benefits?

Such a mismatch between local outcomes and World Bank reporting

may not be so much representative of a well-known donor impulse to

sugar-coat project results (see Baviskar 2005), as it is of the actual faith in

the presumption that increasing the number of women in local

146

management structures will promote gender equality. Unfortunately, these

misguided policies do little to address fundamental issues of unequal

power. However, the World Bank Quality Assurance Group (QAG) report

(cited by Francis, 2001: 86) a review of the Bank hundred projects notes

that “basic questions of social attributes were quite marginal in a large

number of projects. Even on gender, an issue to which the Bank has for

years given attention and resources and regarding which it has an

operational policy, progress in implementation was found to be

disappointing”. The report finds that ‘gender issues were widely neglected.

GENDERED DECISION MAKING IN ACCESS TO LAND AND FOREST RESOURCES

Gendered decision making over prohibition of cultivation in the reserve area

The populations in the periphery of the Niokolo Koba National Park

are wedged between the parks, Diambour classified35 forest, and the

Malidino reserve, reducing their access to land for cultivation. Even before

the Forest Service informed the locals of the project, villagers raised

concerns about the reduction in available land and called on the

Senegalese Government to allocate a portion of park land for cultivation.

Their concerns and protests notwithstanding, the Dialamakhan villagers

were asked to abandon their lands in Malidino for conservation. Not

everyone agreed with the idea of clearing new land outside the reserve,

including women who owned lands in the Reserve.

In the village tradition, mainly in Pulaar and Mandinka ethnic groups

women follow their husband decisions. The lack of women’s decision

making power is also based on their village of origin: 25% of women

35 A ‘classified’ forest is an area of forest set aside for conservation.

147

involved in the reserve activities are not born in Dialamakhan but come to

the village for marriage. Therefore their double status as wives and

foreigner do not allow them to raise their voices. As a woman, they are

under the control of their husband (as it is in rural Senegal). In addition the

fact that they come from another village does not allow them to take

leadership positions in the community.

In Malidino while men inherit land, women have access to land

through their husbands. In the remote villages even though the Rural

Council has the right to allocate land with legal documents, which show

the ownership; women, still do not perceive the sense of land ownership.

Women’s collective lands in the surrounding villages of Malidino are either

lent by the village chief or a powerful man in the village with no guarantee;

and are small generally less than 1ha, comparing to the number of

members. In Dialamakhan, the women’s orchard is ‘donated’ by the

founding reserve president family; and in Binguel, by a man from the

village.

Conflicts in prohibition of cultivation in the reserve area

The displacement of population’s agriculture lands from the reserve

for conservation purposes created conflicts in Dialamakhan village. As

abandoning the fields was not in the best interest of the farmers, not

everyone agreed with the idea of using new land outside the reserve.

People living in the periphery of NKNP are mainly farmers, in Dialamakhan

86.73% of people interviewed have agriculture as their main activities; 30%

are male and 46% are female. Beside agriculture, men and women are

involved in small income generating activities (poultry and livestock) and

vegetable gardens activities and household work mainly for women. Most

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of the local populations’ economic resources and livelihoods depend on

agriculture and forest resources. Therefore, access to land and forest

resources are keys to their survival.

At Sounatou, abandoning the land inside the reserve was a big issue

because the village is one of the main cotton producers in the area. For

the year 2007, the small village of Sounatou with less than 200 inhabitants

has produced 100 tons of cotton. Men stated during a focus group36:

“The villagers have been very clear with their position about abandoning their lands inside the reserve. After several meetings we (the villagers, the reserve leaders and the Forest Service agents) decided to use 1km2 inside the reserve for agriculture land. The main constraint, the village is facing now is the smallness of the land; but there is nothing we can do because that is what we agreed on at the beginning”.

Women echoed during a separate focus group37,

“We [women] used to have our fields of millet, peanuts, okra, cotton, and sorrel inside the reserve. At the creation of the reserve, some of us were for abandoning their lands, others not. But even though a woman refuses and the husband agrees; she is obliged to follow him”.

In Dialamakhan, there are two distinct camps: the people who are in

favor of the reserve because of the hope for future economic interests and

36 Author interview, Sounatou, March 30, 2006 37 Author interview, Sounatou, March 30, 2006

149

those against because they are loosing their land. The latter group, which

had been against the reserve project from the outset, is making land rights

a priority over any financial benefits; they are also demanding that lands

be returned. Despite their loss of title to, and control over their lands and

forestry resources inside the reserve, some members of the communities

agreed with the reserve president either because of shared views, or by

virtue of being members of families and political parties fearing retribution

or exclusion should they fail to support the reserve agenda.

The farmers saw similarities between the request for the reserve and

what took place during the colonial period and just after the

Independence in 1960’s, as dozens of villagers were forced out of the park.

“Politics can recreate past struggles in contemporary contexts”

(Sivaramakrishnan, 2000: 439). Like the colonists and the post-independent

government members, the reserve leaders imposed their point of view. The

forced relinquishing of the fields created many conflicts between the

people and creating frustrations because agriculture is one of the main

activities. The farmers preferred these lands, as they were more fertile. In

demanding that the farmers cultivate other fields it reduced their

production and, or required the use of chemical fertilizers. They have been

farming in the reserve for over 70 years, as they know that the land on the

other side is rocky and difficult to exploit.

A farmer stated, “Last year I cultivated 1, 5 hectares of new earth but

I was unable to even harvest 1/3 of the normal production. I was not able

to pay back the loans that I took to plant”. A 70 years old man contests, “I

did not agree with the creation of the reserve because I’m a peasant and

a hunter; and my life depends on the forest, therefore I cannot do

150

anything. I cannot accept to be deprived from the forest benefits”.

Another old man in his sixties echoes: “All our cultivated lands were inside

the reserve. We asked for one kilometer of land inside the reserve but they

[the reserve leaders and the Forest Service agents] refused”38.

Power relations in decision making prohibition of cultivation in the reserve area

Gardido’s political affiliation and dependence on the Forest Service

explains why when some villagers resist abandoning their lands inside the

reserve for biodiversity conservation purposes, their preferences are not

reflected in reserve decision making. According to Gardido, “if we

abandon these fields in the reserve we will be conserving the resources in

compliance with the wishes of the Forest Service, and there will be

additional projects that will benefit the population. I too had fields that

were in the reserve and I was the first one to abandon them”.

As a man of influence in the village, he “colludes in translating

idiosyncratic local interests into demands that can be read as legitimate

(Mosse, 2001: 21)”. A male head household, states: “If someone is stronger

than you are and demands that you give up something you are obliged to

do it. Even if I do not agree to abandon the land, I never had a choice”.

This statement shows how “exclusive decision making is often rooted in

power inequalities in society” (Patterson, 1999).

Kodo, one of the villagers who abandoned his land, indicated that

the entire village was afraid of Gardido. One interviewee’s explained, “we

abandoned our lands contrary to our own wishes and without any

compensation”, reflecting the experience of many in the village. The

38 Dialamakhan, July 13, 2007.

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reserve was presented as if it was in the best interest for everyone from a

financial standpoint that would create a bond between the administration,

traditional authorities, and the community. Anyone who did not accept the

ideas presented by the reserve leaders mainly the president; who refused

to collaborate with the majority that was guided by propaganda and

manipulation, or who developed control mechanisms over reserve

management were excluded or marginalized.

On can argue on instrumental objectives at two levels; on the one

hand, while the World Bank and the forestry service are using traditional

elites as to achieve their biodiversity conservation politics; on the other

hand, traditional elites at the village level are using this intervention as an

opportunity to gain more power. Even though the World Bank recognized

that “PROGEDE did not create new institutions as such within the villages,

rather it revitalized and rendered fully operational and performing largely

dormant structures such as the “Village Committee for Development

Management (CVGD) and Inter-village Committee for Development

Management (CIVGD)” (World Bank Report, 2005: 12).

The revitalization of traditional authorities have created exclusion

and marginalization, political rivalries, favoritism, and the deepening of

women’s exclusion in decision-making processes, income distribution, ad

labor burdens.

The politics of choice and recognition of village committees have

created a “tyranny of the majority”39 in three ways. First, the recognition of

39

Here when I talk about the tyranny of the majority, I refer to Karl Popper, Austrian

philosopher. According to Popper, if the majority is tyrannical i.e. is not in favor of the

community no matter how many people vote for the decision, there is no democracy. Lani Guyer (1994) in his book, The Tyranny of the Majority, analyzes how the principle of

152

family status and prestige of an individual, the president of the reserve,

gives him power over the entire population (the majority) in land tenure

and resources property rights. Therefore he becomes the only respondent

to the forestry service and the World Bank and the person without whom no

decision can be made. Second, the committee leaders are making the

majority (i.e. the communities) accept the nominated leaders with any

accountability and responsiveness mechanisms. By defining the kind of

majority, the reserve leaders exclude or marginalize the people who resist

or challenge them. Third, according to the local populations, ‘majority

equals democracy’.

GENDERED SOCIAL AND POLITICAL EXCLUSIONS

Electoral politics in villages surrounding Malidino reserve

Focus groups in villages surrounding the reserve revealed the

“interests game” the villagers (men and women) play with local elected

officials. In Mansadala40, men confess relating to the political party in

power to benefit from favors. During a focus group in Binguel41 men explain

that besides the elections, they do not have any relationship with the Rural

Council. The rural councilors contact them for tax collection and payment;

also they do not go to the rural council headquarters in Dialakoto

administrative center because it is too far. Women in Kegnekegneko42 and

Binguel43, claim being affiliated to PDS political party since it won the

presidential elections because they might gain from that affiliation. Women

“majority” can be unfair in representative democracy like in the United States of America context. 40 Author interview, Mansadala, April 10, 2006 41 Author interview, Binguel, March 20, 2006 42 Author interview, Kéniékéniéko, April 6, 2006 43 Author interview, Binguel, March 20, 2006

153

in Sitaouma44 confess during a focus group: “we voted for PDS because the

politicians gave us rice”. Women in Mansadala45 make the same link

between electoral votes and their interests. “Before the 2000 presidential

elections we were not involved in politics; but we now are all for President

Wade because he helps the peasants. It is true we have not received

anything yet, but we have seen villages which received agriculture

materials because of their political commitment”. Here one witnesses the

double edged sword of ‘instrumentalization’ with both the Rural Council

and the rural population (men and women).

The political “transhumance” phenomenon, i.e. when people shifted

from PS to PDS the new party in power mostly seeking for privileges and

favors, which happens nationwide, is revealed in Dialamakhan. There is a

change in the political party affiliation comparing the situation before and

after the presidential elections in 2000. Particularly people shifted from the

Socialist Party (PS) to the Democratic Party (PDS) who won the elections. In

a total of 17 men who were affiliated to the Socialist Party, 16 shifted to the

Democratic Party. While in 22 women, 15 shifted to the Democratic Party.

No major change is observed in the Democratic Party where almost

everybody (men and women) did not change their political affiliation. 3

women, who were not affiliated, shifted to the Democratic Party. Still there

are a non negligible number of women (19) who are not affiliated to a

political party. The same political change dynamics happens during the

local elections in 2002. The tables below shows how people in Dialamakhan

shifted from PS to PDS after the political regime change in 2000.

44 Author interview, Sitaouma, March 25, 2006 45 Author interview, Mansadala, April 10, 2006

154

TABLE 5.5: Gendered Political Party Affiliations in Dialamakhan before the

2000 Presidential Elections

Political party before 2000 presidential

elections PS PDS None Current political party Male Female Male Female Male Female PS 0 6 0 0 0 0 PDS 16 15 8 6 0 3 Other 0 1 0 0 0 0 None 1 0 1 0 8 19

Total 17 22 9 6 8 22

TABLE 5.6: Gendered Political Party Affiliations in Dialamakhan after the

2000 Presidential Elections

Political party affiliation after the 2000 presidential elections

Socialist Party

Senegalese Democratic Party Other None Total

Male 1 28 1 10 40 Female 6 34 1 19 60 Total 7 62 2 29 100

TABLE 5.7: Gendered Political Party Affiliations in 2002 Local Elections

Socialist Party

Senegalese Democratic Party Other None Total

Male 9 14 1 1 25 Female 10 9 0 10 29 Total 19 23 1 11 54

During the 2002 local elections, PDS has become the slightly majority

in Dialamakhan village, which puts the reserve founding president in a

secondary position and allowed the new PDS councilor to be voted in. This

155

change in political affiliation has created divisions among villagers and

exclusions in access to the reserve material and economic benefits. It also

shows how almost half of the villagers men and women who belonged to

Bamtare and the village committees before the elections have shifted to

PDS and Balal Alal.

Favoritism and manipulation over material distribution and economic

activities

The political quarrels and rivalries between the president of the

reserve and his opponent in the village negatively impacted the reserve

management. The inclusion in or exclusion of the population from the

reserve benefits (food and seeds donation during period of shortage and

material support for beekeeping and wildfires fighting by the forestry

service) and activities (market gardening, orchard, tree nurseries, local fruits

and straw collection inside the reserve) depend on which leaders’ political

party they belong to. It shows how “[on the one hand] state actors may

cause inequalities in communal decision making, [on the other hand]

outside agents – and the resources they bring to the community and its

members – can shape how individuals view their obligation to the social

contract (Patterson, in Africa Today: 7)”.

Provision with alternative source of power and authority

Because of the entire role he played in the process of implementing

the reserve, Gardido was obviously presumed by the forestry service and

some of the village leaders to be the president of the reserve. Therefore he

becomes the only respondent to the forestry service and the World Bank

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and the person without whom no decision can be made. When he is not

available46, the management of the reserve is not functioning as it should

be. In Dialamakhan village, one sees an authority figure, the president of

the reserve, who is above all other authorities. Even though the president of

the reserve is devoted to the cause and has an environmental

consciousness, his power results in the power given to him by the Forest

Service. He is the primary coordinator and decision maker in generating

activities such as vegetable gardening and the collective orchard, and

distributing the food supplies and seeds. He has the sole power to decide

who is to benefit.

The village of Diamalakhan is a rare rural example of traditional

authorities collaborating in harmony with political institutional ones. This

collaboration is based on mutual exchange of favors benefiting only a

select group of local actors. The Dialamakhan village chief was designated

by and put forth as a candidate before the Village General Assembly by

the father of the reserve president and other male elders who asserted that

he possessed the qualities of a chief. Accordingly, should the reserve

president act undemocratically and in ways that are perceived to be

unfair, the village chief would not be in a position to criticize or sanction

him.

46 According to the population, since his departure to Spain the forestry service and the

World Bank agents in charge of the reserve come to the village very rarely.

157

Exclusions and citizenship

The exclusion and marginalization are also tied to citizenship through

ethnic group belonging, the origin of birth, and the social structure in the

locality.

Interviews reflect the perception among those involved that the

president of the reserve, Gardido, and his relatives are the sole or key

beneficiaries of these ostensible poverty-alleviation activities. While some

families are partially or completely excluded from food and seed supplies,

each individual member of the president’s household and those of other

families enjoying his favoritism receive fifteen kilogram’s of maize, or millet,

three liters of oil, and five kilogram’s of peas per distribution twice a year, at

the beginning and the end of the rainy season. The appalling discrimination

in the distribution of donor-provided resources helps the enrichment of

some families, while impoverishing others: during the rainy season many

households feel lucky if they could afford one meal per day, while facing

enormous obstacles in obtaining a loan that would allow them to purchase

seeds. After the split of the reserve members due to political problems, one

of Djoguido’s wives (i.e. the successor of the founding president) and his

brother become the account inspector of the reserve association; the

younger brother of Djoguido has been nominated the financial

administrator of the women’s millet-grinder, a piece of equipment

provided by the Forest Service and the World Bank.

Cases of exclusion and marginalization observed in the

management of the reserve would not solicit a reaction from the village

chief or Imam who are the administrative and religious authorities in the

village. As Ndioumry, one critic of the reserve put it, “the village chief and

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the Imam are on the same side as the president of the reserve because

each time the food and seed supplies arrive they get their share. Therefore

they are careful not to criticize anything”.47

The president and reserve leaders suffer no disciplinary action,

irrespective of abuse of power. In fact, it is these individuals who set rules

facilitating control and the sanctioning of potential dissenters. The village

chief, the Imam, and the president of the reserve justify their collaboration

by pointing out the significance of the reserve for the community as a

whole.

Ethnicity also comes into play in food distribution. The reserve

president is from the main ethnic group in the village, the Pulaar. A head of

a Wolof family, Kodo, who lived in the village but not originally from there,

was also excluded from access to seed and food supplies. Says the

migrant, “I pay taxes all right so I am part of the village even if I am a Wolof

and I migrated here not so long ago. The distribution of food supplies and

seeds is done among parents, friends, and family, and between the people

who are part of the political party of the reserve president”.48 As a migrant,

he is the only Wolof in the village.

Although, the Mandinka and the Pular are the main ethnic groups in

the periphery of the Park and while some villages have Mandinka

majorities, there are few Mandinka households in Dialamakhan. Members

of the Mandinka households that I interviewed likewise complained of

marginalization and exclusion. Here, one witnesses how identity is shaped in

47 Author interview, Dialamakhan, 5 March 2006. 48 Author interview, Dialamakhan, 5 March 2006.

159

“multidimensional political practice of cultural hierarchies- political

processes- and ethnicity (Sivaramakrishnan, 2000: 438)”.

A youth leader emphasizes that they are systematically excluded

from the reserve activities and from the financial returns and materials

because they do not belong to the same political party as the reserve

president. The reserve is helpful to one political party and a minority of

families. The political problems have destabilized the village committees. All

of the members who still belong to the reserve committees after the 2002

local elections are affiliated with the political party of the reserve president,

the Socialist party. However, with the effect of “political transhumance” i.e.

people joining massively the party in power, and the fear of being labeled

as opponents, many villagers who use to belong to the Socialist Party will

refer to being affiliated, at this time, with the Democratic Party now in

power.

These types of exclusion are not only happening in the Malidino area

or in Senegal community forest-users. “Similar exclusionary processes have

also been observed in other collectivities, such as water users associations,

village councils, and the many new governance structures being

promoted today in the name of decentralized institution building”

(Agarwal, 2001: 1645).

The effects of men’s political rivalries on women’s solidarity

These different types of exclusions and marginalization led to the

creation in 2004 of a new social and political association, Balal Alal which

means ‘God Help’ in Pulaar. The initiator and president of this new

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association is the newly elected liberal rural councilor. Interviews49 with

individuals who still belong to the reserve association and those in Balal Alal

reveal how in one camp people are in favor of the reserve, praise the

president and belong to his political party; while in the other one they were

very critical of him and belong to the opposition liberal political party, PDS.

The husbands dictate the wives political and social affiliations based on

their belonging to a political party. By doing so, women are trapped into

men’s political rivalries and oppositions which contribute to the division of

women’s associations and social networks traditionally based on solidarity.

Here one can also argue with Agarwal (2001: 1640) that the fact that rural

women typically are seldom well connected politically has contributed to

reducing the weight of women’s opinions in Dialamakhan village. No

woman in the village is involved in politics.

Division in women’s group

This division was reproduced among women—following the lead of

their male relatives—splitting the women along the same party lines and

fragmenting their traditional solidarity. Women were dragged into these

political conflicts as wives of husbands with certain political affiliations. The

first and the oldest one of the women’s associations called Bamtare, the

Pulaar word for development, had been established thirty years back. It

was the only women’s association to participate in reserve activities and to

benefit from it financially because of its support to the president of the

reserve and his Socialist Party. Because of political conflicts among the

reserve’s male leaders the Bamtare association, which boasted over fifty

49 Author interviews, March-April 2006.

161

active participants, lost over half of its members. The women who ceased

to be members because they felt excluded and marginalized rallied

around the alternative association Balal Alal, which was created in protest

against the reserve president and his political party.

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Exclusions and conflicts among women

Some women were excluded from the food and seed grants and

income generating activities by women leaders or their peers from

Bamtare. According to female leaders of Bamtare, in order to benefit from

the food and seed supplies, women must be active in both the

maintenance of the shared orchard and the vegetable garden, and in

wildfire fighting activities. Although some women physically cannot

participate in these activities due to an overload of domestic work, they

are denied access to vital resources. This situation is what Patterson (2003)

calls “the cost of participation”, which is generally very high. Women’s

extra work within the household does not allow them to be active agent

like men. A 20 years old woman in Dialamakhan explains her frustration, “I

do not participate in the vegetables garden activities anymore because I

resigned. I could not stand it anymore”50.

These forms of exclusion show that the gender problematic does not

only imply power relations between men and women, but imbalances in

power relations among women as well. The fact that women’s associations

are looked upon as homogeneous groups with no differentiations obscures

a finer appreciation of power relations among women along caste, class,

ethnicity, age, and political party lines. At the very least, these facts merit a

disaggregating of the category of “women” or “women’s associations”

because women who are part of the respective groups do not share the

same gender identity.

Giving voice to elite women who may have little interest in their

‘sisters’ can deepen the gendered exclusion of others, notably younger,

50 Dialamakhan, July 12, 2007.

163

poorer women (Cornwall, 2003). Donor perceptions of women’s

associations as homogeneous groups enable elite women to use the public

domain to gain power over resource use and access. An as rightly argues

by Oyewumi (1997 cited by Cornwall, 2007: 162), “the unitary construct

‘woman’ occludes the lack of common interests women may experience

with other women. It also most potently of all, misrecognizes the power that

women can and do exert over women”. Cornwall (2007) suggests going

beyond the “social imagery of women’s solidarity” and the assumption that

women are inherently more co-operative and if only women had a voice

they would use it in favor of women as group. And as pointed out by Fraser

(2000: 113), “what requires recognition is not group-specific identity but the

status of individual group members as full partners in social interaction”.

However, one needs to be aware of the fact that given women’s

marginalization from existing national level systems and little participation in

organized national politics, they have much to gain and little to lose by

acting collectively in organizations and networks designed to secure the

conditions they need for survival” (Rocheleau and Thomas-Slayter, 1995:

11). The creation of the reserve has allowed ten villages to focus on a

common property in forestry resources management, and women’s

associations to diversify their activities and include environment

management in their activities. Besides the traditional credit revolving

among them, women are involved in vegetable gardening, orchard

management, wildfire fighting, and tree nurseries. “Women’s groups remain

the chief means by which rural women empower themselves politically and

economically within the community (Stamp, 1989: 87)”. And as echoed by

Rocheleau and Thomas-Slayter (1995), women have much to gain and little

164

to lose by acting collectively in organizations and networks designed to

secure the conditions they need for survival. In forest resource

management, women’s networks “provide a foundation for women’s

solidarity also a basis for organizing environmental collective action. It is

likely that women’s forest protection groups could successfully be built on

such networks (Agarwal, 2000)”. Therefore when women’s social networks

and solidarity are disrupted by political factions, their participation and

representation in decision-making may not be as effective or

representative.

Family pressures

How family pressures become superimposed on, and exacerbate,

extant political cleavages is well illustrated by the confession of Souko

Debbo,51 one of the association members:

“I am not a member of the Bamtare association which is affiliated with the reserve because my husband did not want me to participate. He asked me to participate in the new women’s association affiliated with PDS. I have no regrets because I am proud to follow my husband’s orders. Without my husband’s authorization I do not participate in any political or association activities”.

A male head of a family echoed these sentiments: “Here, according

to our traditions, wives blindly follow their husbands”52. As a result of these

political divisions, the reserve has been helpful to one political party and a

minority of families affiliated with it, while excluding others. The political 51 Author interview, Dialamakhan, 8 March 2006. 52 Author interview, Dialamakhan, 7 March 2006.

165

conflicts have destabilized the committees, forcing out opposition

members, and having only the community members related to the reserve

president political party as the reserve committee members.

GENDERED RESISTANCES

Given the lack of mechanisms to hold the reserve leaders

accountable and responsive, the villagers developed alternative resistance

strategies, such as verbal abuse, other outward shows of disrespect,

opposition to imposed rules, or a failure to participate in reserve activities.

Jarga, a Pular male head of a household resisted the

implementation of the reserve project by showing his disagreement during

public meetings. He was labeled as a trouble-maker, one who is never

satisfied. When the reserve was just being set up, some people from among

the Mandinka group refused to abandon their farms. Herders whose

livestock were not allowed access to hay inside the reserve resorted to

non-compliance by allowing their cows and goats sporadic access to

restricted areas. When the reserve leaders asked them to pay fines,

because they broke the charter rules, they refused to pay and no sanctions

were enforced. Some women also attempted to develop control

mechanisms and sanctions to ensure that no financial mismanagement in

the reserve happens, even though they knew they would be excluded and

marginalized.

Debbo, a woman who holds the position of account inspector of

Bamtare, attempted to set up a system of control of treasury funds. The

other female leaders expelled her from the association and activities of the

vegetable garden. She was also excluded from receiving food and seed

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donations. Other women resigned from reserve activities as a show of

disagreement and frustration with their discrimination and marginalization.

Most of the Mandinka women no longer want to belong to the main

women’s association because of fundamental disagreements over its

modus operandi.

In the village of Sitaouma, women’s associations mainly the leaders

have forced the village chief to write and sign a letter denying the village

intention on joining another reserve because it could jeopardize women’s

interests. In fact, Mansadala reserve has been created in 2002 by the Park

Department as part of the buffer zone project in the periphery of Niokolo

Koba National Park. Mansadala reserve is seen as a competition to

Malidino reserve due to its location, and the co-optation of villages already

involved in the management of Malidino reserve, having the same

activities as Malidino, plus a micro credit program. The women of Sitaouma

knew that if their village joined the new reserve they would lose the food

and seeds supplies from the Forest Service.

These forms of resistance and control are akin to what Fraser (1987)

qualifies as ‘unruly practice’. The latter highlights the ways in which rules,

norms and practices that characterize different institutional arenas can be

subverted, ignored or bypassed in explicit and implicit instances of

resistance by less-powerful social actors. These kinds of resistances have

been analyzed by Thomas-Slayter (1994) who talks about women de-

registering groups in Kenya in protest over their over-work with no benefits in

soil conservation programs. Although, as Ntsebeza (2005) argues, rural

residents dependent on hereditary traditional leadership are not citizens

but subjects, one could also argue that rural people—men and women—

167

are not passive agents, and their resistance demonstrates their claims to

rights and citizenship.

GENDERED PERCEPTIONS ABOUT THE RESERVE

Even though the population disagrees with the reserve management

practices and processes based on favoritism and exclusions; they found

the reserve. This general positive perception is related to the fact that the

population believes that the protection of forest resources is important and

they hope that the reserve will generate employment in the entire village of

Dialamakhan, nobody has a paid job. They all rely on farming and cattle

breeding.

FIGURE 5.5 Gendered Perceptions about the Reserve

9

24

2 2 2

34

5

24

0

5

1

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Very useful Useful Little useful Less useful Not useful Don't Know

Male

Female

The economic interests from the reserve that were presented to the

population and. which made them adhere to the project of reserve, are

still not fully honored. The promises to create an animal park inside the

reserve, and tourist camp that can generate employments are yet to be

168

achieved. The main road53 to open up the area is being realized. 100% of

the population believes that the road is one of the main priority and

concern for the population because it would help them for medical

emergency and for pregnant women. Some people are still optimistic and

hope that one day the promise of paid employment will be realized

through the Animal Park and tourist camp inside the reserve; while many

regret having the reserve since there is no financial gain.

53 During my fieldwork trip to Dialakoto Rural Community in June-August 2007, one can see the new road starting to be built. Even though it took seven years for that promise to be honored, the populations of Dialamakhan and the villages surrounding the reserve are very happy because it will help them in transportation, communication, and commercial activities; mainly for pregnant women to easily get to the main hospital when they are

having difficulties while in labor. It brings new hope to the population that the tourist camp will be built and will generate employment.

169

Chapter conclusion

The gender analysis of men’s and women’s participation and

representation in Malidino reserve management shows how the forest

service and the World Bank “village-based approach” has contributed to

reaffirm the power of traditional authorities. In the name of participation,

the village social hierarchy is not being challenged; rather, existing

structures and dynamics of gendered power and exclusion are being

reproduced. Biodiversity conservation was also privileged to land rights.

Although the charter includes sanctions and prohibitions against the

population, it does not include mechanisms for the populations to sanction

the reserve leaders—traditional authorities, political party leaders, and

notables. The reserve management charter is guided by traditional norms

and rules, which give discretionary powers to traditional leaders who are

not accountable and responsive to the population in a gendered way. This

situation creates an absence of downward accountability.

Participation and representation did not obey to democratic norms,

rather men and women were nominated and co-opted through

manipulation, friendship, kinship, ethnicity, and party political patronage.

Women’s participation and representation in village committees as

secondary or marginal in importance are a result of combined of local

electoral politics patron-client relationship and cultural norms. The different

forms of exclusions and inclusions in the reserve decision making processes,

activities, and subsidies are shaped by political party loyalty and affiliation.

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TABLE 5.8: Summary of the Main Findings in Malidino Reserve

Processes and practices Gendered outcomes of the “village approach”

- Modes of choosing leaders: o co-optation by the forest

service o nomination of committee

members through manipulation, friendship, kinship, ethnicity, and party political patronage

o Self nomination by traditional leaders: were the village chiefs, the Imams, women’s associations’ presidents, political parties’ leaders

o Criteria: able to defend the village interests, devoted to the village cause, dynamic

- Primary objective: biodiversity

conservation - Management charter: local

rules and regulations

- Power given to traditional leaders in decision making: traditional hierarchy, centralization, power given to the already powerful

- Decision making processes tied

sex, social and political parties’ affiliations

- Reproduction of existing power structures

- Provision with alternative source of power and authority to those deprived of legitimacy in the context of electoral politics

- Reaffirmation of traditional authority and power

- Women’s participation and

representation in decision making in village committees has been low and ineffective: women as observers in public meetings, men in charge of the process, no signing of the charter, secondary positions or marginal in importance

- Use of the reserve as a party

instrument

- Enrichment of some families and a certain category of people, while impoverishing others

- Women follow their husbands’

decisions, their exclusion is based on their husbands’ as they follow them

- Women’s leaders legitimize

men’s decisions rather than giving voice to the concerns of other women

- Agriculture land appropriation:

economic and conservation interests over land rights and resource property rights (statistics land inside the reserve; population mainly farmers

- Mutual exchange of favors benefiting only a select group of local actors.

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Processes and practices Gendered outcomes of the “village approach”

- Co-optation of women’s leaders by male leaders: kinship, friendship, political party affiliations

- Exclusions from decision making

based on social and political affiliations

- Exclusions from the reserve

benefits(food, seeds, and material supplies) based on sex, kinship, and ethnicity, social and political party affiliation

- Lack of accountability

mechanisms; absence of downward accountability

- Consideration of the village and

women as a whole: no gender disaggregated data along the implementation process of the reserve

- No questioning about power

relations

- Gender neutral management policies;

- the president and reserve leaders suffer no disciplinary action, irrespective of abuse of power

- The husbands dictate the wives

political and social affiliations based on their belonging to a political party.

- The division of women’s

associations and social networks traditionally based on solidarity.

- Women were dragged into these

political conflicts as wives of husbands with certain political affiliations; family pressures

- Exclusions and conflicts among

women: economic benefits , vegetable gardens

- Resources (food, seeds,

equipments) used to channel patronage and punish political opponents

- Failure to rectify extant

inequalities between men and women and among women

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CHAPTER 6: GENDERED MULTI-PARTY COMPETITION IN DIALAKOTO

RURAL COUNCIL

This chapter analyzes the political, social, and cultural factors that

shape men’s and women’s different participation and representation in

decision making in Dialakoto rural council. It shows the processes and

practices of party politics based on patron-client relationships, the

entwined of party appointments and elections tied to the electoral system

and how it works against women. This chapter also explores the tricks and

subterfuges of male rural councilors to promote their personal and party

interests; and how it has contributed to create women’s loyalty to their

party instead of their constituencies, after the political change in 2000, and

to weakening women’s traditional solidarity and to their lack of access to

forest resources and land.

Does the 1996 decentralization reform contribute to gender equity in

decision making in Dialakoto Rural Council and to local elected officials’

accountability and responsiveness to women’s needs and interests in

access to natural resources? What are the processes and practices

through which power transfer to local elected officials shape gender

relations in access to decision making and natural resources? How do the

nature of party competition, system, ideology, and culture in Dialakoto

rural council influence women’s representation? Do formal democracy/

decentralization equate direct democracy, and direct and fair

representation?

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GENDERED REPRESENTATION IN DIALOKOTO RURAL COUNCIL

Gendered composition of Dialakoto Rural Council

Political parties’ representation

The rural council of Dialakoto is made up of 28 councilors with

representation from four political parties. PDS in power since the

presidential elections of 2000 constitutes the majority with twenty one

councilors occupying the key decision making positions, the President, the

second vice-president, and the leadership of the committees. PS, the party

in power for 40 years and deposed in 2001, has 5 councilors. LD/MPT) and

AJ/PADS are represented by one councilor each. The composition of

Dialakoto rural council is the reflection of the national tendency with PDS

victory as well for the presidential, legislative, municipal, regional, and rural

elections. The key decision making positions in these decentralized

institutions nation-wide are generally occupied by the representatives of

the party in power.

Village representation

Among the thirty four villages of the Dialakoto Rural Community, only

seven villages have councilors. Twenty councilors are from Dialakoto

administrative center, whereas the other villages present (Diénoundiala,

Soucouto, Gamon, Madina Niéméniéké, Bantankoly, and Dialamakhan)

do not have more than two councilors. The high number of councilors from

174

the administrative center is due to the fact that it has a larger population

and consequently many more political actors.

Women’s representation

Among the twenty eight councilors in Dialakoto rural council, there

are three women, of whom two are from the party in power PDS and the

other from PS the outgoing party.

The two PDS women councilors are from Diénoundiala village

and Dialakoto administrative center. They both entered politics with the

regime change in 2000, on which date they also decided to create

Women’s Promotion Groups (Groupement de Promotion Féminine- GPF)

named Benkaouli (in Dialakoto) and Tessito (in Diénoundiala) whose

members in general claim PDS affiliation.

The PS woman councilor has been in politics for more than ten years

and is in her third mandate as councilor. She is simultaneously the president

of the oldest GPF in Dialakoto, Loumbécoula 1, created since 1986. She is

at the same time the president of Dialakoto Rural Community GPF

federation. In addition to its political and community activities, she works as

a matrone54 in Dialakoto health center.

54 . Originally, a "matrone" (from the Latin matrona), is an older respectable woman who helped women gave birth when there were no medical doctors or midwives. In many rural areas (where there are either no health services, or lack of medical staff; also remote areas) in Africa the matrones still exist and play the role of midwives (sage-femmes)

without the medical diploma but receive short medical trainings in many issues with certificate of participation. The PS councilor is a matrone since 1982.

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TABLE 6.1: Gendered Representation in Dialakoto Rural Council

Positions (28 councilors)

Sex

Political parties

President

M

PDS

First vice-president

M LD/MPT

Second vice-president

M PDS

Conflict resolution committee

M

PDS 2 PS members

Development and Planning committee

M 1 F

PDS (chair) 2 PS members

Environment Committee

M

AJ/PADS (chair) 1 PS member

Finances committee

M

PDS

Gender

committee

2 F PDS

Health committee

M PDS

Land committee

M

PDS

Education committee

M PDS

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All these variables: political affiliation, sex, village of origin, and the

positions in the council have impacts on decision making and women’s

participation and representation in the council. Being part of the executive

board and having a leadership role in the committees is very important in

terms of decision making, access to economic resources, and political

recognition by the population and state officials. Consequently, it creates

electoral maneuvers, exclusion, discrimination, and party competitions.

Every party wants to occupy the key decision making positions, however

disproportional representation favors the party with the majority of

councilors, here the PDS. Women are numerically less represented. Does

numerical representation have impacts in decision making? Beyond

numbers, what are the social, cultural, structural, and institutional factors

that shape the electoral processes of local elected actors and the

gendered participation and representation in the council?

GENDERED DECISION-MAKING PROCESSES: WHOSE VOICES? WHOSE INTERESTS?

Decision making in the council by the “majority”: what if the majority is “tyrannical”, discriminatory, and exclusive?

The party in power as the majority

The PCR, as the main political leader and decision-maker in the

council has the prerogative of calling councilors for meetings. According to

article 223 of Local Collectivities Code (Rds, 1996), “The rural council can

adopt decision only when the majority of its members attend the meeting.

When, after two successive convocations regularly made, the quorum is

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not reached any decision made after the third convocation is valid, as

long as at least the quarter of the council members is present”.

This process of vote with the majority in decision making can seem to

meet the democratic standards. But such term as “majority” or

“democracy” are nebulous and general. Therefore, these terms must be

questioned: who is the majority? Who does the majority represent? What if

the majority is tyrannical (Popper, 1992; Guyer, 1994)?

The power over decision making given to the PRC in decentralization

opens spaces for political maneuvers. Although decisions in the council are

made by vote among councilors, this vote is a condition of political

affiliation. Aware of his power of calling his peers to meetings, the PCR

decides who to invite or not depending on the agenda of the meeting

and how the presence of the other parties could jeopardize his interests

and that of his party. The party that has the most representatives in the

council determines the types of decisions to approve according to the

party interest.

There is a domination of the party in power over decision making

and an exclusion of opposition parties. Because PDS represent the majority

in the council (21 out of 28) the decisions based on the number of people

who vote (i.e. the majority) are most of the time in favor of PDS. Even when

the opposition parties, mainly the PS councilors who have experience in

local governance, propose ideas that could be useful for a better

functioning of the council, they are not taken into account. For example,

the former PCR allowed villages that do not have representatives in he

council to have a delegate for each meeting of the council to promote

participation of all villages in the decision making process. However, when

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the new elected PCR took office in 2002, he suppressed that participatory

practice because it was put in place by the former president. When I asked

the former PCR (of more than fifteen years) how he puts his experience to

work in the council, he regrets that because he is affiliated to PS, his voice

does not count in decision-making. Another councilor recounts with

bitterness:

“As a PS councilor, I am not part of the decision making. The PCR convenes the meetings, very often he does not convene us [PS councilors] therefore we do not know what is going on. Several meetings were held among seven to eight PDS councilors. The other minority parties encounter the same problems. When one complains at the PCR, he only finds excuses. The PCR misuses his authority” 55.

He is echoed by an old PS militant (since 1965) and community

member. “The PCR reminds me of the chef de canton (i.e. colonial

governor) during the colonial period. He does not agree to be criticized

and nobody can do anything against him”56. Considering the political

factors that shape decisions and the misuse of authority in decision making

by the PCR; the majority in the council is a PDS majority and not the full

range of different political parties represented.

A discriminatory and exclusive majority

Women also face the same problem to be fully part of the decision

making. The PS woman councilor complains of not being included by the

55 Author interview, Dialakoto, February 28, 2006 56

Author interview, Dialakoto, February 26, 2006

179

PCR in many meetings because she is from the opposition party. This

woman, who is the only one standing for women’s rights in the council,

misses many meetings because of the PCR decisions not to invite her.

Women’s interests will not be acknowledged.

The lack of recognition of women’s work schedules has also had

effects on women’s absenteeism as observers in the council meetings

(have noted the council meeting is public). Women in rural community are

in charge of the domestic work: they are involved in farming and they

have their own income generating activities. Because of the domestic work

load more men than women from the community participate in the council

meetings as observers. Council meetings fail to acknowledge women’s

gendered responsibilities (Mbatha, 2003). Therefore, even though an

apparent “majority” of the actors (councilors and observers) are present in

the council meetings, it is discriminatory and exclusive. When women are

marginalized in decision-making procedures, they are denied the

“recognition of their social status” (Fraser, 2002). Representative

democracy does not necessarily ensure women’s equal participation. For

women’s citizens in most democracies, there is a problem of both

representation and accountability (Phillips, 1991; Young, 1990; Williams,

1998). Considering that, Fraser (2000) suggests that individual group

members should be recognized as full partners in social interaction for

“participatory parity”.

Lack of accountability mechanisms

The power over decision-making is reinforced by the lack of

accountability mechanisms governing the PCR and the political party in

180

power. And as it is stipulated by the PCR, “as long as my term is not over,

nobody can do anything against me”57. In fact, it is the population and

the councilors from the opposition party who are likely to be sanctioned as

stipulated by the decentralization law. “Any insult and offense made

towards the President of the Rural Council [PCR] or the chairman of the

meeting [who is generally the PCR] in the performance of his duties, is

subjected to punishment as mentioned in the penal code” (Article 229 Rds,

1996). That is why, as stated by Hirst (1990: 2) even if representation is

significantly increased, representative democracies fail to deliver

accountability. Phillips (1991) regards this as a fundamental weakness in

democracies and suggests that without representation in legislatures [and

in the rural council], women citizens have a diminished ability to hold

government [for the case of Dialakoto, the rural council] accountable.

A democracy cannot be based on an apparent majority that does

not actually represent the entire population because it can be tyrannical

and discriminatory as is the case in Dialakoto. But, as David Miller asserts

(1995 cited by Patterson, 1999: 4), “if political decision making is inclusive,

incorporates compromise and consensus building, and values the ideas of

all participants, individuals may feel that their rights as members of the

community have been acknowledge, and they may continue to meet

their obligations to the common society”. If there is an important decision

which must be taken, the majority should not be required in terms of

numbers but in quality based on an equitable presence of the various

political parties, women, and the different categories of the population

which have specific needs deserve to be taken into account. The majority

57

Author interview, Dialakoto, February 25, 2006

181

in the council is generally that of the political party in power, and in the

case of Dialakoto, it is that of the PDS. The decisions are endorsed for

political reasons and not in the community’s interests.

When the political leaders are also the community leaders, nobody

can hold them accountable because they are the elected and part of the

population at the same time. They are both the judge and the defense.

Whereas, if local associations are managed by non political actors who

can participate in the council meetings as observers; they can bring local

people’s needs and concerns to the council and demand a reasonable

response. Indeed in Dialakoto, rural councilors all included (the party in

power and the opposition) use their political power to control local

opportunities. They have the double role of political and community

leaders, which makes them not accountable. In Dialakoto, the main local

associations are led and overseen by the rural councilors: the Nature

Friends Association (Association des Amis de la Nature- ASAN), Students’

Parents Association (Association des Parents d’Elèves- APE), Wildfire

Alleviation Committees (Comités de Lutte contre les Feux de Brousses-

CLFB), the presidency of the main Women’s Promotion Group

(Groupement de Promotion Féminine- GPF) ; the main paid positions at

Dialakoto administrative center tourist camp are held by the young rural

councilors.

Political and personal interests over the council leadership and strategic positions

To be a member of the council board (president and vice-

presidents) or responsible for committees is of major importance to the

councilors because power, leadership, and economic interests are tied to

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these positions. These positions fuel political calculations and manipulations

in election time. Each party wants to occupy the key decision making

position, the presidency and the two vice-presidencies and strategic

committees58 that are related to land, health, education, finances, and

environment.

The positions of president and vice-presidents are of major

importance based on the responsibility of leadership in decision making

which is granted to the PCR in decentralization laws. “The PCR is in charge

of the budget, scheduling the expenditure, and managing incomes”

(Article 213 CCL. Rds, 1998: 63). Because of all these financial interests, the

PCRs are always from the party in power and represent the main political

leader of the Rural Community who supervises and coordinates all the

political and community activities.

The committees are considered strategic because of the finances,

networking, and partnership opportunities tied to them. For example, the

person in charge of the land committee always takes part in all

transactions relating to land allocation. The environment committee takes

part in tax collection on forest resources. And the finance committee

collects royalties, rebates, and takes part in procurement of transactions.

The gender committee is the least coveted by men who see it as a

management space for women’s problems and they believe it should be

led by women.

The political and economic interests tied to council board and

committees open space for political maneuvers and calculations. In

58 These committees are put in place according to the nine functions transferred to the Rural Council with the 1996 decentralization reform.

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Dialakoto, before the meeting to electing the council board and

committee leaders, the PDS councilors who are the majority, met to see

which positions should be taken and how the vote should proceed.

Normally it should not be that way, but this is part of the political tricks and

manipulations in decision making. Strategies are developed ahead of time;

the positions are already determined before the elections. “During the

meeting”, mentions a councilor, “The elections are done so quickly that the

Sub-prefect did not fail to stress that the dices were already thrown”59.

The people who are relegated to the second tier in these strategic

committees are the opposition parties and women. Among the councilors

from the opposition parties only the LD/MPT councilor occupies a key

position, that of first vice-president. This situation was possible because of

the coalition of the opposition parties during the local elections in 2002.

However, because of political competitions and rivalries, the PCR does not

collaborate with his first vice-president. He regards him as a political rival

who wants to take his place, even if that can be only done legally during

the next local elections. He does not include him in the decision making

and when ideas come from him he will do all in his power not to take them

into account (according to testimonies of teachers during an informal

meeting).

59

Author interview, Dialakoto, February 28, 2006

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Engendered and exclusive positions and committees

Sexism and party affiliation

No woman is a member of the council board, nor in charge of a

committee. In Dialakoto, the woman PS councilor, in spite of her ten years

of political experience in the council which gives her a greater political

maturity than much of the councilors, was relegated to being a member of

the planning and development committee. She also ran as a candidate

for the vice-president position, but the majority of PDS councilors voted for

a member of their own party. This lack of inclusion is due to two factors: she

is from the opposition party and she is a woman. When I asked her about

the fact that she was not elected to key decision making positions, she

explained the political factors which keep her in this situation.

“I am a member of the planning and development committee because it was the only remaining committee where I could become involved. Before the meeting, the PDS councilors already knew for whom they would vote for and since they are majority, they are the decision makers. The PCR said to me since I am not from PDS there is no position for me. Actually, the title of woman councilor is only in name because local elected women occupy the secondary positions and do not have any influence in decision making. Men do not want women to understand what they understand”60.

This lack of women’s representation in local government decision

making positions is very common in African countries. Even South Africa,

which is often seen as amoral in terms of women’s political representation

60

Author interview, Dialakoto, March 1, 2006

185

at the national level suffers from women’s low representation at the local

level.

Although women’s numbers in local councils are increasing they are

still low in comparison with the male numerical domination of councils,

committees and executive councils. Women are less likely to occupy

important seats in the executive structures of local councils, are less likely to

be supported in their work by their peers and by their political parties. Due

to women’s low representation in council, they are spread thinly in the

different committees of the council (Mbatha, 2003).

Exclusion from the newly created health committee

In 2006, a health committee was put in place to allow collaboration

between the rural council and the health institutions in Tambacounda

region. When the health committee was set up, the three women rural

councilors were not convened. The Sub-prefect as the State representative

mentioned the lack of women’s involvement and noted metaphorically to

the presence of the “scarves” meaning women. But according to the

decentralization law the Sub-prefect as the state representative is an

observer at the council meetings and “can neither take part in the vote,

nor chair the meeting” (Art. 227 CCL; Rds, 1996: 67). However, in case of

irregularities, he can make recommendations. In spite of the Sub-prefect

observation about women’s lack of participation, the meeting was held

without them. And it was a male PDS councilor who had no training in

health and did not know much about population issues, who was elected

chair of the health committee.

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The women, particularly the woman PS councilor, were excluded

from the health committee set up for political reasons. The woman PS

adviser has been the matrone of Dialakoto administrative health center for

twenty five years. Consequently, she knows very well the health issues with

which the population is confronted, particularly the women. Based on her

profession and her community leadership experience, she is the most

qualified in the council to be in charge of the health committee. In an

interview, a male PS councilor states “the PCR is the principal core of

women’s exclusion. As the sole decision maker in charge of convening

people to meetings, he has decided not to invite women at the time of

setting up the health committee”61. As echoed by another male councilor,

“the setting up of the health committee was a political manipulation,

because the members of that committee were elected well before the

meeting. The meeting was taken under the pretext of a semblance of

following the rules, but in reality the members were already chosen”62.

Women’s resistance: claiming right for inclusion

Even though women are minorities in the council and struggle to get

their voices heard; they are not passive agents. Women have developed

means of pressure and resistance vis-à-vis this discrimination and exclusion

in the health committee. Five women from the community including the

woman PS councilor went to see the Sub-prefect who is the State

representative to question him on the government gender policies. The

woman PS councilor stated:

61 Author interview, Dialakoto, February 26, 2006 62 Author interview, Dialakoto, February 26, 2006

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“How come a man who does not know the population health issues and women’s health problems can be elected to be in charge of the health committee? As the matrone of the health center since 1982, I know the health issues in this area very well. We [the women] are claiming for our right to be in charge of the health committee and be fully involved”63.

In spite of the problems she encounters with men because of her

political and community leadership, the woman PS councilor always

develops resistance mechanisms and strategies. “I never get discouraged. I

am used to fighting with the men. I also sensitize women in the community

to develop resistance strategies”64. It is true that structural constraints

cannot be ignored and they shape women’s political representation

(Banerjee, 1998). Yet, women develop resistance mechanisms against

these structural constraints (social and political norms) as an exercise of

political leadership. The woman PS councilor in Dialakoto has used her

agency to move from being a spectator in council meetings to exert

influence on decision-making and challenge the dominant power.

The Sub-prefect recognized that women were right to demand to be

fully integrated in the health committee. Even though he cannot be a

decision maker in the council, as the State representative he can influence

the decision and appeal for certain issues to be taken into account

according to government policies. Then, after meeting with the five

63

Author interview, Dialakoto, March 1, 2006 64

Author interview, Dialakoto, March 1, 2006

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women delegates, he asked the members of the council to see how they

could include the women in the health committee. After the Sub-prefect’s

request, the male councilors proposed to the three women councilors the

position of third vice-president and third vice-treasurer of the health

committee. According to the women councilors, these positions do not

carry any leadership and authority and are of no utility.

They simply insisted that the committee cease to function until there

is an equitable and effective involvement of women. Because of the

conflict and lack of recognition of any leadership, the health committee is

not officially recognized by the health district of Tambacounda which is the

head institution. As long as the committee is not officially recognized by

the district, the Dialakoto Rural Community will not be able to profit from

the pharmaceutical subsidies, nor take part in regional meetings where the

health issues of the zone are discussed. This exclusion denies women their

right to take part in decisions concerning local affairs and their rights to

access to health services.

This situation shows that “voice does not easily and simply lead to

better outcomes for women, because political institutions can have strong

gender biases which undermine the impact of women’s ‘voice’ and

presence in public office” (Goetz, 2003: 73). The fact that rural women are

also seldom well connected politically reduces the weight of their opinions

even when expressed (Agarwal, 2001)

That is why a critical mass of vocal women, a sense of group identity,

and enhancing women’s bargaining power vis-à-vis the state, community,

and the family (Agarwal, 2001) are needed inside political institutions such

as the rural council. Dahlerup (1988) in her study of Scandinavian women

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politicians found that gender stereotyping and even openly exclusionary

practices were common when women were few in numbers. But once

women became a significant minority (passing a threshold of some 30% of

seats in Parliaments or local councils), there was less stereotyping and open

exclusion by men, a less aggressive tone in discussions, a greater

accommodation of family obligations in scheduling meetings, and a

greater weight given to women’s concerns in policy formulation.

Theorists on resistance (Scott, 1985; Fraser, 1981 and1989; Pickett,

1996; Heller, 1996; and Brown, 1996) instead of focusing on Foucault’s

concepts of power, subjectification, and resistance, could learn more by

focusing on how resistance is gendered and how it contributes to

reshaping traditional powers. One needs to recognize with Brown (1996:

729):

“Feminist ethnography, with its scrutiny of the micro-politics of gender in a range of societies, has been especially influential in moving anthropology towards concern with resistance. Once the personal is redefined as political, the everyday survival strategies of our interlocutors can be reconstituted as subtle forms of subaltern rebellion”.

Playing the gender card

The male councilors know how to play the game of pretending to

integrate women to attract projects and funding. “If you do not have

women in your organization you will not have funding”65 (a councilor). The

Dialakoto rural council praises itself for having three women councilors.

They should not be proud of such as small number of women but they

65

Author interview, Dialakoto, February 28, 2006

190

compare themselves to many rural councilors in Senegal where there are

no women or just one female councilor. Yet, even these women in

Dialakoto do not have any influence because they are a minority. In

addition, male councilors are more concerned with their own political

interests than with women’s effective participation and representation. The

two women PDS councilors are relegated to the gender committee which

men consider as a women’s committee.

Lack of gender mainstreaming

Gender as a sectoral and transversal issue, should be taken into

account in all the council committees. However since the gender

committee was created to handle women’s issues, the other committees

do not see any utility in dealing with women’s needs and constraints. For

example, the education committee does not have any programs or

activities regarding girls schooling and women’s illiteracy which are the

main problems in the locality. The environment committee also does not

deal with women’s problems in access to forest resources in Niokolo Koba

National Park. Women’s needs and interests are not taken into account in

any committee, or by the PCR who is unaware of and insensitive to gender

issues.

The gender committee: domesticity and instrumentalization

Setting up the gender committee was proposed by the chair of the

Rural Family Home (Maison Familiale Rurale) who was invited as an

observer during the election meeting of the council board and committee

leaders. This proposal was automatically endorsed by the male councilors

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who saw an obvious management of the gender committee by women.

“We [male rural councilors] told women to take the gender committee. I

believe all the women must be in that committee. The men cannot be a

member of the gender committee whereas they can be in other

committees”66 (a councilor). Thus men will not have to fear women’s

competition; or the need for having at least a woman leader of a strategic

committee to appear to be compliance with government requirements to

include women in decision making.

Allocation of positions in the councils is generally based on sex-typed

concern and female attributes and appropriate activities (Ahikire, 2003).

Among the three women councilors the two PDS women were proposed to

lead the gender committee, which they accepted without knowing the

causes or consequences. A councilor states: “we did not even ask about

the necessity of such a committee. In addition, I do not see what a man

can do in a gender committee, unless he is really a feminist and ready to

sweep the causes of the men from his head”67.

The woman PS councilor notices “the gender committee exists only in

name. The council is in its fifth year of activities and nothing has been done

regarding gender issues”68. The creation of the gender committee does not

allow women to be fully and effectively part of the decision-making

because they have been sidelined from the mainstream decision-making

process. One witnesses here a “ghettoization” of the women in the gender

committee which leaves male council members free to monopolize the

66

Author interview, Dialakoto, February 28, 2006 67

Author interview, Dialakoto, February 27, 2006 68

Author interview, Dialakoto, March 1, 2006

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strategic committees. Excluding women from the strategic committees is

also excluding them from decision making regarding the main challenges

they face: access to health care, to fresh water, and to forest resources

and land.

The gender committee has been used as an instrument to

achieve political and development objectives. The PCR has relegated to

the gender committee the role of preparing food and of mobilizing women

when government members or partners come to visit. “Whether the motive

behind the practice of women politicians taking on domestic service roles

is to build political capital or to protect the visitors, it reflects a tendency for

society to seize every opportunity possible to facilitate women’s backsliding

into domesticity” (Ahikire, 2003: 233). Using the case of Botswana and

Zambia, Geisler (1995: 547) describes women’s participation in party politics

as “another kinds of kitchen”. Women’s political participation is indeed little

more than an extension of their submissive domestic role.

Volunteer activities are also given to the gender committee. For

example, the gender committee has been given the role of taking

inventory of the households within Dialakoto administrative center that

want to profit from electricity from the government project of rural

electrification. This inventory was done over two months with a three days

work per week in spite of women’s housework and farming activities

overload. The PCR justifies this choice of women by the fact that he trusts

them more than men. However, men are put in charge of the

maintenance and the management of the power plant, which is

remunerated work. The PCR believes that men are more competent than

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women regarding the power plant maintenance69. In this case, the gender

committee and women have been “instrumentalized” and used as free

labor.

The personal is political: cultural norms impacts on women’s decision making in the council

Phillips (1991:19) observes that there are many meanings attached to

the idea that ‘the personal is political’ and most of these have implications

for the way we think of democracy. What counts as public concerns has

transformed the opportunities for women to become politically active.

Submission and subordination at home undercuts our equal development

as citizens (Phillips: 95). Women’s access to power and the extent to which

they are seen as legitimate representatives in rural areas are highly

dependent on the power and attitudes of traditional leaders (Mbatha,

2003: 189).

Women’s lack of effective participation and representation in

Dialakoto rural council decision making is in addition to political norms also

linked to cultural norms in Mandinka and Pular societies where men are the

household head’s and community leaders. The description of the private

sphere as a female domain and the public sphere as a male domain,

backed by recourse to ‘tradition’ and ‘custom’ create barriers for women

to be politically involved. What society views as acceptable behavior for

women may not be conducive to participatory decision making

69 For similar case in United States context, see Venice Miller, Moya Hallstein, and Susan Quass. (1996). “Feminist Politics and Environmental Justice. Women’s community activism

in West Harlem, New York”, in Rocheleau, D. et al. Feminist Political Ecology. London and New York: Routledge.

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(Patterson, 1998: 427). Cultural and traditional perceptions and beliefs

about women’s status and roles have effects on their authority within the

council. One witnesses a reproduction of the belief of women’s secondary

place in the household in the public and political arena. When women

reclaim their rights or impose their points of view at the meetings, the male

councilors dismiss this revolutionary spirit under as women’s desire for

emancipation. As pointed out by Goetz and Hassim (2003: 6), in most

societies, gender equity concerns are counter-cultural. They challenge the

interests of individual men, and of groups constituted on the basis of

patriarchal privilege.

GENDER INEQUALITY IN LOCAL ELECTORAL SYSTEM: THE PARTY LISTS

This section questions and analyzes the ways in which the Senegalese

electoral system is gendered. It focuses on party lists candidates selection

and nomination processes and its effects on women’s numerical

representation in the council and participation in decision-making.

Customary processes of putting favorite leaders on top of the list and giving

women ornamental appointment and cosmetic representation at the

bottom of the list are the major obstacles that prevent women being

effective political leaders.

Electoral systems effects of women’s representation on national and

local government have been of interest for feminist political scientists who

argue that political parties’ ideologies and practices do not promote

gender equity in representation. How are women represented in the

Senegalese electoral system of majority and proportional lists? Aside from

the failure to institutionalize women’s representation through quota or

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parity, how does the rural council electoral system participate in lowering

women’s political representation at the local level?

Even though Senegal is trying to democratize its electoral system with

the agreement from many political parties for a quota of 30% women’s

representation in the next elections (however it is not adopted yet) and the

proposition by the President for a law on full gender parity (which was

adopted by the Senegalese National Assembly but rejected by the

National Court), women are still underrepresented in political parties and

decentralized institutions. No gender equity laws have been adopted and

enforced.

Undemocratic processes: a mix of nomination, co-optation, and elections

Even though it is not stated by law how the candidates on the lists

should be selected, there are informal and cultural norms that influence

the choice of candidates on the lists. Legally, there are no particular rules

on how to choose the candidates on the majority or the proportional list.

That is why, according to Norris (1993: 319) we need to take care to

observe the complex interactions of political culture, the party system and

the electoral system. We also need to go beyond simple clarifications of

party competition, to see how party ideology and party organization also

play a role. As rightly stated by Lovenduski (1993: 12), all political parties

have decision-making procedures consisting of formal rules, informal

practices and customs.

People who are on the majority list are generally chosen based on

the following criteria: ability to bring voters, dynamic, to have money to

convince the political clients, and have good relationships with the political

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leaders; and sometimes a family member is chosen to award a deceased

party militant.

It is more interesting to be on the majority list because winning party

sweeps the majority of seats. So being on the majority list gives more

chance to be elected as soon as the party wins. There is immense

competition to get on the lists because many people would like to have a

chance to be elected (to be on the majority list) whereas the number of

seats is limited. All these criteria are related and shape the choices of

political leaders. Their politics of choice are based on clientelism and

patronage, which has negative effects on women’s nominal

representation and collective ability to address their own interests.

Gender inequality in recruitment strategies

Gender inequality in selecting the candidates to be on the lists

explains women’s low representation in the council. The majority and

proportional selecting mechanisms are based on clientelism, patronage,

and favoritism. Women’s representation in the council is the consequence

of their presence and position or not on the majority list as tenured,

substitute nominees, and the willingness of their party to put them in first

priority positions on the proportional list. The tenured and substitutes are

generally the key leaders of the party and it is very rare to see women

among them.

Critical factors to consider when assessing the impact of party

structure on women’s access, presence, and influence, are recruitment

strategies. How are women encouraged to join? Are they elected

democratically or selected personally by the leader? Variations in these

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aspects of party structure will affect the ways women within the party

organize to influence party policy, and the extent to which they can build

links to the autonomous women’s movement (Goetz, 2003: 55).

Therefore, there is a necessity for considering the “ways parties

selectively recruit and socialize women to politics” (Goetz, 2007).

The male party leaders are the ones who make the lists and they are

the tenured and substitutes. Political parties organized as “old boys’ clubs”

have been hostile to women’s inclusion (Goetz and Hassim, 2003). They also

use decision-making procedures consisting of formal rules, informal

practices and customs (Lovenduski, 1993: 12). The people who are on top

of the lists are not only the ones close to or friends with the party leaders;

they are also, those who represent electoral voices and people whom the

party leaders need as allies. Even so, women political leaders who have the

capacity to mobilize voters are located at the bottom of the party lists. The

PS woman councilor notes: “men are the party list makers and it is the lists

that create problems for us [women]. One person, the political leader of

the area, makes the list according to his goodwill and his interests”70.

It is even more difficult for women from the opposition parties,

because the choice of elected actors is done by proportion which already

limits the choice of the candidates on the list. From the local elections of

2002 in Dialakoto, there is only one woman councilor from the opposition,

and before these elections under the PS regime no opposition party

women were on the council.

70

Author interview, Dialakoto, March 1, 2006

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Generally, one or two women are at the level of the first ten

candidates on the lists and the others are located at the bottom of the

proportional list. The bottom half are not likely to be elected. This situation

corresponds to what Haavio-Mannila et al. (1985) call the “ornamental

positions”. The fact that “at least” one or two women appear in the first tier

list is explained by two factors: on the one hand, women political leaders

fight for better positioning with lobbying and claim their rights. They

understood that power is not given, it has to be taken. On the other hand,

the male political leaders know that their interests will be threatened if the

name of at least one woman does not appear among the first candidates

on the list. They know women’s electoral power in mobilizing large numbers

and they do not want to lose the women’s vote. When women complain

about their low representation, male political leaders manage to explain

that there are not many women leaders to choose from, and women

should be grateful because at least some women are on the list, which is

better than nothing.

These selection processes of two party lists (majority and

proportional) with no accountability mechanisms, no enforcement for

gender equity, and election based on the party and not the candidates,

are undemocratic. There are elections of course, but it does not mean

there was democracy. According to Hassim (2003: 85),

“the possession of formal political equality, the vote, does not necessarily translate into representation even into the broadest sense of the presence of women in representative institutions. Elections which are free and fair in the procedural sense do not necessarily

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produce outcomes which reflect either the diversity of interests or identities in societies”.

Democracy becomes, then, a nebulous term when applied to

certain contexts. What makes an election democratic? How are electoral

processes democratic? Regarding the low representation of women in

political institutions and in decision-making, one needs to know that

“women’s exclusion is not just a deficit of democracy but indicative of

fundamentally gendered conditions for political participation which are

intrinsic to politics, not an extraneous, additional concern” (Phillips, 1993: 98;

cited by Goetz, 2003: 49).

Women’s party loyalty rather than women’s interests advocates

The co-optation and political manipulation linked to the party lists

have impacts on women's effective participation and representation in the

council. When women are chosen by political leaders through favoritism,

clientelism, and patronage, they tend to represent their political party

electoral interests rather than women's interests. The two women PDS rural

councilors have been put in the electoral list by the Rural Council President

(PCR) who happened to be the political leader who has influence on how

the party should be represented. The politics of the selection for the two

women PDS councilors to be on PDS lists was not based on democratic

principles and mechanisms.

The woman PDS councilor from Dialakoto administrative center was

registered on the list by the PCR, not because she is qualified or has

political experience but because the PCR has a political debt towards her

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father. In fact, the father of this councilor was a great PDS militant during

the years of opposition; unfortunately he passed away right before the

victory of the party after many years of fighting. He initiated and trained

the PCR in politics, making him a powerful political leader. Consequently,

for the PCR it is necessary to settle this political debt by choosing one of his

offspring. Here one witnesses how family connections and support served

as the primary point of entry for women which has negative impacts on

how they are perceived by the community (Hassim, 2003).

But, “when a female relative of a deposed or dead leader can get

to the party post because of rank and file loyalty to a family dynasty, for

most other women, it is an insurmountable obstacle to participation”

(Goetz, 2007: 97). This patron-client relationship and party loyalty

established by the PCR breeds undemocratic and unfair mechanisms to

the detriment of women’s real participation. This is what Norris (1993) calls

“Under-institutionalization”, which is a major reason for the relative exclusion

of women as members and as candidates for public office. Political parties

are considered to be institutionalized when they have, and respect, rules

about candidate selection, identify policy concerns, have an organization

that is distinct from the personal connections of their leaders, and when

their elected members form a distinct and coherent group in the legislature

(Moore, 2002; Randall and Svasand, 2002).

The other woman PDS councilor from Diénoundiala affirms to be just

chosen by the PCR. Even if one is unaware of the reasons of her choice,

she is qualified by many rural councilors (men and women, PS and PDS

alike), as an onlooker who does not understand the political stakes in the

council. This absence of democratic leadership selection systems

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consolidate women’s ineffective participation in influencing decision

making. But as pointed out by Hassim (2003: 88), “party leadership will

choose women candidates that are ‘token’ representatives least likely to

upset the political applecart, rather than those candidates with strong links

to autonomous women’s organizations”.

These two women PDS councilors do not speak French, which limits

their participation in the council meetings generally conducted in French.

The use of French language in council meetings is an inhibiting factor and

does not allow women to fully participate in decision making. Sometimes a

councilor volunteers to translate in Pulaar or Mandinka. But when there is

no translator, these women councilors do not participate in the debate.

Their lack to speak French and their lack of political experiences make

them appearing to be participating in the council when they are not.

Reinforcing gender stereotypes

The choice of two women PDS councilors by the PCR that were

based on political interests and not on their competence and on

democratic principles has led some people to the conclusion that women

have not yet reached enough a sufficient level of political maturity and

leadership to be elected to the council. A village chief in Dialakoto

administrative center states:

“The women PDS councilors do not take part in the council decision making and do not give feedback to the women they represent. They do not have the ability to be councilors; they had a chance to be chosen by the PCR. I believe that they should be nominated or elected to be on the party lists by other women. In the council, there

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are not the right people in the positions. This is due to the fact that the village chiefs and the populations are not part of the party lists making; it is the political leaders who put on the lists the people who are favorable to them”71.

Stereotypes of women’s (in) abilities as leaders persist, despite the

greater visibility of women in politics (Banerjee, 1996); this is partially due to

the undemocratic recruitment strategies. Anecdotal evidence of this

abounds among women in political parties – women are regarded, even

by other women, as incompetent, weak leaders. Where they do succeed,

they are often held up for ridicule (Hassim, 2003: 96).

Because of their sex, status, and places in society, there is a double

standard for women councilors. In addition, the popular discourse on

women’s political participation is based on cultural and social norms. Thus,

women political leaders must live up to high expectations of competence,

rigor, and effectiveness, and must not give any opportunity for others to say

that women do not have the competence to be political leaders.

The adherence of the population, particularly men, on the need for

an effective and equitable representation of women in political institutions,

such as the rural council, depends mainly on the types of women who are

elected to represent the women. And when they are elected how they

perform is important. When women councilors are caught up in male

political leaders’ clientelism and patronage, they cannot serve women’s

interests. And as Norris (1993) rightly states, differences in the organizational

structure of parties, in their hierarchies and recruitment patterns, and in their

71

Author interview, Dialakoto, April 3, 2006

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internal democracy, influence women’s engagement with parties, their

relative voice within them, and success in winning party backing for their

candidacies.

When women are chosen by male political leaders through

patronage; they tend to agree with men’s decisions even if they may

sometimes be against women interests. The fact that the two women PDS

councilors were both chosen by the PCR to be on the party list and at a

position that allow them to be elected, makes them not able to defy him in

his positions. They feel they need to be accountable for the ‘political

prestige’ he gave them. Although the PCR is criticized much in the locality,

even by councilors of his party the PDS; during the interviews with the two

women PDS councilors, they did not emit criticisms against the PCR. Since

they are co-opted by the PCR, therefore there is a certain “patronage”

which requires them to conform to the wishes of the PCR even if his

decisions are against women’s needs and interests. A village leader

mentions that “the two women PDS councilors were elected to serve the

PCR interests”72. As observed by Geisler (1995: 546), women enter politics on

terms set by the male elite who use women’s political energy for their own

ends; also less educated women might content themselves with the role of

submissive but ardent party supporter.

The patron-client relationship, based on loyalty, friendship, and

kinship makes the women who do try to seek advance within parties

socially unattractive (Goetz, 2007: 97). In the case of Dialakoto rural

council, the woman PS rural councilor who has ten years of political

experience and who used to stand for women’s rights has been labeled by

72

Author interview, Dialakoto, April 2, 2006

204

the PCR as trouble maker; and they are on permanent conflict. As the

woman PS councilor states: “I am the only one fighting and claming for

women’s needs to be taken into account. The other women councilors

generally do not know what occurs and do not understand the political

stakes”73.

73 Author interview, Dialakoto, April 3, 2006

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WEAKENING GENDER SOLIDARITY AND SPLITTING WOMEN’S GROUPS

When party interests prime women’s interests

The end of the PS reign in 2000 meant, for women leaders of this

party, an end to political and community leadership. PS women councilors

were not used to being defied in the performance of their roles for two

main reasons: first, before 1995, the State had required the creation of only

one GPF per village, consequently the entire Women’s Promotion Groups

(Groupements de Promotion Féminin- GPF74) were mainly led by PS women

who did not have any competition. Second, these women were powerful

because they hold all the State funding for women. But with the political

regime change, the PS women political and community leaders lost

members from their GPF and face new competition for authority from PDS

women. They then developed strategies to face this new situation.

The presidential (2000) and local elections victory (2002) of President

Wade and PDS means for PDS women leaders and members of this party:

on the one hand, to detach themselves from women’s promotion groups

(GPFs) led by PS women; on the other hand, to create their own GPF with

the stamp of their party. Thus, in the same locality several groupings are

74

The Groupements de Promotion Féminine (GPF) were created in 1975 in the context of

the United Nations Women’s Decade. The GPFs aim for the promotion of women in

activities related to agriculture, livestock, and fisheries. Women’s groups in Senegal exist also under the label of Women’s Interest Groups (Groupements d’Intérêt Economique- GIE)), which embrace the Integration of Women in Economic Development (IFD) approach. The GIE were created in 1984 and regulated by Articles 1473 to 1488 of the Trade and Civil Obligations Code (Code des Obligations Civiles et Commerciales) and by-law no. 85-40 of July 29 1985 on trade structures. A GIE aims for profit-making activities with

economic and commercial objectives.

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created with ethnic, political, economic, and social affiliations even if

legally women’s groups are recognized for their economic objectives.

One witnesses a stronger “politicization” 75of GPF and new political

power relations among women, which have negative effects on their

interests and opportunities. Vengroff and Magala (2001: 146) looking at the

gender differences in politics in Senegal find out that women are more

likely reluctant than men to express confidence in government institutions.

This is due to the fact that women’s associations which constitute the

electoral base are highly politicized through their leadership and receive

funding from government for electoral objectives. Women in the rural areas

are the most tied to supporting the party in power because they face more

constraints in access to economic resources and are more dependent on

state funding.

Dialakoto administrative center and Diénoundiala village are

examples of how political stakes contribute division of women in rural

communities. There are conflicts of interests among women councilors from

different political parties and a splitting of GPF due to competitions and

political quarrels. The following chapter show how the new local political

dynamic of party competition has contributed to dividing women’s groups

75 The politicization of women’s promotion groups (GPF) have started to be politicized under Abdou Diouf regime. During a congress from October 20 to 22, 1987, the

Senegalese Socialist Party (PS) helped the GPF to create a federation, the National Federation of the Groupements de Promotion Féminine (FNGPF). President Diouf officially declared the federation as a grassroots organization, which should be a credible partner of public institutions and cooperation organizations. From that moment, the state had institutionalized the political objective of women’s groups. Even though in the GPFs rules and regulations women state their a-political characteristics; however, the presidents of

GPFs are generally political leaders affiliated mainly to the party in power. Under the Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS), the politicization of GPF has been intensified with new leaders.

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in Dialakoto administrative center and in the village of Diénoundiala

(located 20 km away). There is a political showdown between the main

and oldest GPFs in these two localities led by women PS rural councilors

and the new GPF created by newly elected women PDS councilors in the

aftermath of the local elections in 2002.

Multi-party competition an obstacle for women’s common interests

Women get involved in politics for different purposes and interests:

personal, party affiliation, and representation of voiceless women. Even

though they are socially and politically engaged as a group, their interests

are different. Their social formation is shape by structural, political, and

cultural factors.

“A feature of women’s position in social relations that shapes the way they engage in politics is that as a social category women are not clustered or grouped by class or caste, ethnicity, race, or geography. On the contrary, they are evenly distributed both physically across territory, and across social categories. There is a phenomenal diversity of women’s interests – and consequently of women’s associations – according to the salient of other social cleavages besides gender in their lives. Thus women’s associations do not share an analysis of the causes of women’s problems or of solutions to them. Some women’s groups take a decidedly conservative perspective on gender relations, seeking to preserve, rather than challenge or change, unequal sexual relations (Goetz, 2003: 37)”.

The ideal would be for women to be united around interests to better

influence policy making and challenge masculinist practices and

institutions that do not allow women’s effective political representation.

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There are no geographical concentrations that could form the basis for a

“women’s constituency”, and as long as voting is tied to localities, no

woman candidate can seriously present herself as representing women

alone or as a group (Philllips, 1991: 66-67).

However, while acknowledging women’s diversity in political and

social interests is important, I believe that multi-party competition should

not prevent women from having common agenda. Women’s social

networks and organizing has been an empowering tool to collectively face

socio-economic challenges. Women’s groups remain the chief means by

which rural women empower themselves politically and economically

within the community (Stamp, 1989: 87). Women have much to gain and

little to lose by acting collectively in organizations and networks designed

to secure the conditions they need for survival (Rocheleau and Thomas-

Slayter, 1995).

SPLITTING WOMEN’S GROUPS: THE SOCIALIST PARTY VERSUS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY

Dialakoto administrative center

Loumbécoula 1 is the first GPF of Dialakoto administrative center led

by a woman PS rural councilor since its creation. At the beginning, it

included almost all the married women, without distinction between

groups, and had one hundred and thirteen members. As time passed, the

number of members decreased, mainly for political reasons. There used to

be one GPF in 1986 but now there are ten of them each with a political

and ethnic focus. With the PDS victory in the local elections in 2002

Loumbécoula 1 lost its political privileges from the PS regime. Although the

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president was re-elected councilor, the GPF was no longer related to the

State or to the rural council.

After her election as PDS councilor in 2002, the new woman PDS

councilor of Dialakoto administrative center created her own GPF in 2004

named Benkaouli which means in Mandinka “Let us wake up together”,

with 39 members. Newly elected, she wanted to have her own GPF to

maintain her base of voters.

Although there are no manifest conflicts between the two women

councilors and presidents of GPF, there is not a close collaboration

between them to defend women’s shared interests and needs, and

constraints in Dialakoto Rural Community. When I asked a former woman

PS councilor about her collaboration with the current women councilors;

she explained that she gets along well with the woman PS councilor who

will give her feedback on the ongoing issues in the council, but regarding

the newly elected woman PDS councilor she never had contact with her.

She explained: “we are not from the same party. Moreover, I am older than

she and she can be my daughter. Therefore I do not see myself going

towards her; it is she who has to come towards me because I have the

experience. However she never requested to meet with me”76. The

experience gained by this former PS councilor could be of great utility to

the new PDS councilors who are beginners in politics, but because of

political rivalries there will be no exchange or collaboration.

76

Author interview, Dialakoto, March 2, 2006

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Diénoundiala village

In Diénoundiala, the political problems are also the source of the

creation of two GPFs. “Lolo” which means “stars” in Mandinka is a GPF that

has existed for more than 12 years and was the only GPF in Diénoundiala

for many years. This GPF, led by a woman PS councilor, received lots of

state funding based on its affiliation to PS, until 2000. However, the Lolo GPF

president was not reelected during the local elections of 2002.

At the same time, her political rival was newly elected as PDS rural

councilor and created a new GPF named “Tessito” which means “tighten

the belt and work”. She explains the reasons why she decided to create a

new GPF and distanced herself from the oldest GPF:

“Before the alternance politique there was one GPF in the village. But as soon as PDS won the presidential and local elections and I was elected rural councilor they [the president and its PS allies] marginalized us [those who rallied PDS] and there was no longer any transparency in Lolo GPF financial management. I used to be the treasurer the GPF, but after the elections the president started using the GPF money as she wanted; when we [PDS affiliates] understood the political game she was playing, we left. After the elections there was too much politics in the village. Even the village chief was against our GPF because his wife is the president of Lolo GPF and he wants her to always be the leader. At the creation of the new GPF, the chief of the village created many problems for us regarding the land where we are doing our vegetable garden activities. He says that this area should be used for livestock parking. But as a councilor I did everything I could to obtain an official land allocation paper from the rural council to guarantee our ownership”77.

77

Author interview, DiEnoundiala, April 8, 2006

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This statement confirms Patterson’s (1998 and 2003) two main

arguments: first, dominant class members benefit from links to state actors

and often use local organizations to promote their economic goals. In the

process, they ignore the interests of lower-class group members. Since

lower-class participants lack connections to state officials, they do not

openly resist domination within local associations. State patronage and

international resources can give some individuals political power

(Patterson, 1998: 427- 28). Second, organizational benefits may be tangible

or intangible, and actors who choose to remain within or to exit an

organization with suboptional institutions must consider both types. PDS

women in Lolo GPF have no rules for holding the president accountable;

however with the new political system in their favor they have the

opportunity to create their own GPF affiliated to the party in power.

The president of Lolo GPF and former PS councilor recognizes “that

there is a division between women’s groups because of political rivalries

between PS and PDS. No party wants to be led by the other”78. At its

creation Lolo GPF had more than one hundred members but after the 2002

local elections it was reduced to 66 members (figures given by the

president). The new Tessito GPF has sixty three members about the same

number as Lolo GPF, demonstrating how political division has occurred

among women. Those who still identified with PS remained in Lolo GPF and

the other half (affiliated with PDS) joined Tessito GPF.

Dialakoto Rural Community GPFs federation has not functioned well

for years because women could not find ways to collaborate. Although the

78

Author interview, Diénoundiala, April 8, 2008

212

women’s groups are from the same locality and generally face the same

economic and environmental problems, they work separately and do not

have common activities or agendas to defend women’s interests.

Similar stories of divisions among women’s groups because of

political issues in Dialakoto and Diénoundiala mirror the history of many

women’s groups in rural communities across Senegal after the political

regime change in 2000. Women who felt excluded under the PS reign took

this political change as an opportunity to gain power and have access to

State privileges.

How women’s alliance could help: moving beyond political differences

Political problems can undermine women’s shared interests; however

when women decide to put aside the political disagreements and avoid

falling into the traps of male political clientelism and patronage, women’s

needs and interests are better served. The willingness and capacity of

diverse women’s associations to unite, and to identify points of leverage

over decision makers, is to women’s advantage. Goetz (2003: 43)

highlighted how certain issues such as rape and domestic violence in South

Africa or statutory rape in Uganda, known as “defilement”, have served as

catalysts to unite very diverse women’s associations, and to galvanize

women into threatening to use their electoral strength to oppose repressive

governments.

In 2004, the two women councilors (PDS and PS) of Dialakoto

administrative center organized a march to bring awareness and

denounce early marriages and violence against women. This march was a

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success because the collaboration brought together all women, without

distinction, as well as the PCR, the village chiefs, the councilors from all

political parties, the notable, and the State representatives. At the end of

the march, the different community and political leaders signed a

memorandum stating their willingness to help solve the problems of early

marriage and violence against women. The memorandum was given to

the Dialakoto gendarmerie for legal recognition.

This alliance shows that whatever the political disagreements are,

women have specific common needs and constraints which deserve a

common political agenda. When women decide to put aside their

differences (political, ethnic, class, race, religion, etc.), they can better

make their voices heard.

GENDERED POLITICAL ACCESS TO, USE OF, AND ALLOCATION OF LAND

Within the decentralization context men as well as women can

legally gain access to land in the zone de terroirs by submitting a request to

the rural council. Therefore, access to land per se is not a real problem. The

main land issues the populations of Dialakoto are confronted with are: first,

the cultivable land shortage because of to the presence of protected

areas such as Niokolo Koba National Park (NKNP), Diambour classified

forest, and the Community-based Reserves (CBRs) in the periphery of the

park; second, non-democratic processes in land allocation by the elected

rural councilors based on corruption and favoritism; and third, the rural

council’s lack of budget and political will to address women’s groups

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economic constraints to make effective use of the collective land

allocated to them. All these issues have effects on the collective

agricultural activities of women’s groups.

Protected areas: a threat to locals’ access to cultivation land

Populations who live in the periphery of protected areas are

confronted with insufficient land because of the priority given to

biodiversity conservation. Protected areas are not part of functions

transferred to the rural council; they are managed by the forest service and

the National Park Department. Dialakoto Rural Community populations

have restricted access to land and forest resources inside protected areas.

This has been a problem for the local residents since the colonial period

when NKNP was created. However, despite that problem, CBRs in the

periphery of the park are mushrooming, to create a buffer zone. The

problem is that the CBRs are created by the forest service in the zone de

terroirs which happen to be under the jurisdiction of the rural council.

Considering this phenomenon, one could ask: what is the rural council’s

position on people’s access to Land?

Instead of questioning the impacts of CBRs on people’s access to

Land, the PCR and the councilors are in favor of having more CBRs. CBRs

are linked to environmental, political and economic interests. Therefore, no

matter the damage it can do to the population, those interests trump local

people’s access to land and forest resources. CBRs are donor-funded and

state-run projects. Donors and the forestry service are more concerned with

achieving conservation objectives. These units also bring development

activities such as employments, roads, food and seed donations and

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access to credit by the population. Because of all these benefits, the PCR

and the rural councilors are in favor of the creation of more CBRs. As a

councilor confirms, “the interest of the council, it is to have more

community-based reserves which can create jobs and generate

incomes”79. There is also an unstated political interest: the CBRs

development achievements, which contribute to people’s well being, are

generally claimed by the power ruling party as their accomplishments.

Therefore, during electoral campaigns, the political leaders use it to

convince voters how much they care about improving local living

conditions.

The prioritization of conservation, economic, and political objectives

over people’s access to land has repercussions for both men and women,

who are all farmers. Their livelihoods depend on farming. The populations

do not have access to enough land, their food security is threatened and

their economic power becomes increasingly precarious. Unfortunately,

land insufficiency is not one of the rural council’s major concerns. In the

only Rural Community of Dialakoto two big CBRs (Malidino and Mansadala

reserve) have already been established by the forest service and the

creation of other reserves is a possibility to complete a buffer zone for

biodiversity conservation.

79

Author interview, Dialakoto, February 7, 2006

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Exclusion of women’s needs and constraints in land use in the council budget and agenda

Excluding factors

The rural council is in charge of the population’s needs and interests

in education, development, habitat, access to resources, and the

improvement of their living conditions (Article 196 CCL; Rds, 1996: 59). Even

though the budget is the most important area of decision-making in the

council, the rural community budgets seem to generally respond to the

priorities expressed by the councilors (Vengroff and Jonhston, 1987).

The reasons for women’s exclusion from the council budget are of a

political and personal nature. On the one hand, there is a manifest political

rivalry between the PCR and the woman PS rural councilor who is

simultaneously president of the oldest Women’s Promotion Group (GPF)

and president of the Dialakoto Rural Community GPF federation.

Consequently any project or activity of which she has a leadership position

is not considered by the PCR. A statement of a councilor reveals

“Since the election of the new PCR in 2002, the women did not receive any funding whereas under the old PS they received funding and were supported in many activities. The reasons why women are excluded are mainly due to the fact that the president of the GPF federation also councilor from the opposition party is in open conflict with the PCR who considers her his political enemy”80.

80

Author interview, Dialakoto, February 28, 2006

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Beyond political rivalries the PCR’s lack of gender awareness and

sensitivity is another factor detrimental to promoting women’s interests.

One could also assume because of the same political affiliation with the

PCR that they could have benefited from his support. However, neither of

these two women PDS councilors has benefited from his support; on the

contrary they have been confined to the gender committee with no

participation in the broader decision making. The lack of gender

awareness and sensitivity by male political leaders is a major obstacle to

women’s political leadership and serious attention to women’s concerns.

Impacts of women’s exclusion from the budget

Women’s exclusion from the council budget limits their opportunities

and handicaps them in the implementation of their activities. In Dialakoto,

as in many rural areas in Senegal, women’s groups do collective activities

such as vegetable gardening, orchard management, and farming during

the rainy season. In every village GPFs have 1 to 2 ha land allocated by the

rural council. Yet, even though women have legal access to land with

decentralization, they lack access to financial and material resources to

make effective and efficient use of the land. Therefore, they do not have

control over the land they own.

People can find the land allocated by the rural council to GPFs small;

but one needs to be aware that even with this small land women struggle

to add value to it. Loumbécoula 1 GPF president (the PS woman councilor)

declares, “Although we [women] have access to fertile land to do

vegetable gardening, the production is not important because we do not

have access to enough water, or have financial and materials resources to

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make a profit”81. Women do small scale production for family consumption

and sale at the local market. Generally, in their fields women only have

one well, which often dries up during the dry season. They also do not have

watering and pumping equipment, or money to buy seeds and fertilizers.

However, none of these issues have been taken into account by the rural

council.

Vegetable gardening became a routine activity for GPF, but it really

does not contribute to improving their food diet or their financial situation.

In addition to the small production and irregularity, there is a competition

among GPFs because all the women attend the same local markets to sell

their products. The treasurer of Loumbécoula 1 GPF stresses that,

“Women do not make substantive profit from the vegetable gardening. Most of them borrow money to pay back the part of their earnings that should go to the GPF account82. Last year many women did not give the money for the GPF because they could not sell their vegetables and others have to use it for family consumption. The vegetable gardening is not profitable for women but that is the only possible activity during the dry season. Women do not have other alternatives and they do not want to stay without anything to do during the dry season”83.

81

Author interview, Dialakoto, March 1, 2006 82 The functioning mode of most of Dialakoto GPFs is as follows: from the 1 or 2 ha field,

every woman is allocated a small piece of land where she is in charge of the daily watering and the selling of the vegetables. Before the harvest season, women gather to decide how much money should go to the GPF account after the sale of the vegetables. Generally the decision is made in a way that women can earn some money to do whatever they want and the money that is paid back to the GPF is to reinforce the GPF account for other activities such as credit revolving. Women can also use the vegetables

for family consumption but the rule is that everyone must contribute to the GPF. 83

Author interview, Dialakoto, March 2, 2006

219

Paradoxically, even though women are not taken into account in

the budget, they appear on paper in the budget. This semblance of

inclusion is due to the fact that, according to a councilor, “if you draft a

budget without mentioning woman, your budget will be criticized. Gender

is very important in the society where we live”84. This consideration of

gender as “important” is superficial and opportunist because it is only with

the aim of attracting funding and of appearing to fulfill the state

requirement for women’s inclusion.

What is the purpose for rural women of having access to land as men

do, without being able to add value to it or to improve their living

conditions and that of their families? Beyond giving women the possibility of

having access to land, the rural council should include women’s

constraints, needs, and interests in land use in its agenda and budget.

Women should also be part of the decision making regarding these issues.

There is a necessity for a gender-sensitive budget where women’s needs

and interests inform priority setting and decision-making, and for

introducing incentives to respond to women (Goetz, 2003: 69).

Decentralization laws should also require accountability and responsiveness

to women’s needs and interests on local male political leaders. Women’s

access to financial and material resources can contribute to reinforce

economic, social, and political power.

84

Author interview, Dialakoto, February 27, 2006

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Non democratic processes in land allocation by the rural council

The locals are confronted with limited access to land due to non-

democratic practices by some rural councilors. The majority of conflicts

over land use and management are the consequence of rural councilors

focus on their personal interests and their misuse of privilege and authority

in land allocation. They are also not subjected to any accountability

mechanisms. The main problems in decentralized land allocation are: first,

conflict between the PCR and the village chief in land allocation authority

(even though with decentralization the power is transferred to the PCR);

second, one parcel of land allocated to two or more people creating

conflict of ownership; and third, the biggest issue that contribute to

reducing local people’s land for cultivation is the anarchic land allocation

to non locals for financial by officials. The lands are fertile in the area.

Therefore wealthy people from elsewhere want to plant orchards and are

ready to invest money to get land. Some councilors take advantage of this

to make money, to the detriment of the population.

Land allocation is also linked to favoritism based on kinship, power,

and political interests. The following conflict between Loumbécoula 1 GPF

and one of the PCR’s wives is a perfect illustration of the negative impacts

of elected actors’ non-democratic practices with respect to women.

Loumbécoula 1 GPF led by a woman PS councilor is the legal owner of 4ha

of land allocated to the GPF after the 1996 decentralization reform under

the PS reign by the rural council. Indeed, an official receipt was given to

the GPF which they kept for proof and guarantee if needed.

After the local election in 2002, the new authoritarian and

preemptive PDS PCR allocated one part of the land to one of his wives,

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which the GPF contested. After several arguments between the women

and the PCR’s wife, the litigation was introduced to the council for

deliberation. But the PCR decided in favor of his wife who did not have

legal papers. The case was then transferred to the gendarmerie (the local

court) which finally honored the GPF’s claim to the land.

This case illustrates two important points: first, the power transferred to

the rural councilors, with no accountability and responsive mechanisms,

offers space for political maneuvers, favoritism, and personal interests to

the detriment of the populations’ interests, and in this case women’s

interests. Second, decentralization has brought an opportunity for women

to be legal land owners which protect them from some forms of

domination and control of their land. Even though women have gained

ownership and more secure tenure, there is a need to ensure gender

sensitive reforms.

GENDERED POLITICAL ACCESS TO FOREST RESOURCES

Problems in access to forest resources

Tambacounda region encompasses three quarter of Senegal’s

natural resources. Paradoxically, it is one of the poorest regions. Protected

areas such as NKNP are considered the main obstacles to local access to

and control over resources. Forest resource access could help alleviate

poverty from these resources. The people have few other possibilities. In

Dialakoto many villages are at the edge of the buffer zone (zone tampon)

and the majority of their forest resources with economic value are located

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in the park. The park not a transferred domain (under decentralization),

and the population has no access to resources which are there.

Although the forestry service aims for participatory management of

forest resources, it is not based on an equitable collaboration. The

population of Dialakoto (men, women, and young people) is involved in

voluntary protection of the forest through surveillance committees, against

wildfire and poaching, and reforestation activities. Despite all this work,

they get no benefit from forest resources in the park. An inhabitant of

Dialakoto observes with bitterness “It is an advantage to live in the forest

but we [the populations] do not benefit from it because the park agents

prohibit us from using the resources”85. The National Parks Department

(Direction des Parcs Nationaux- DPN) has also tried to put in place

participatory programs with the GPFs, yet with no sustained benefits.

In the next section I analyze two cases of partnerships between the

GPF and the DPN to show: how access to forest resources can contribute

to the improvement of women’s economic power, and the rural council

should make it a priority. I also cite an example of a fund allocated to two

GPF by FAO in collaboration with DPN. This case shows how political and

institutional factors block women’s sustainable and effective use of forest

resources inside the park.

Partnership between Lolo GPF and the park agents in dry bamboo

commercialization

In 1998, the Director (Conservateur) of NKNP during that period issued

a license to Lolo GPF of dry bamboo commercialization for three years. The

85

Author interview, Dialakoto, March 2, 2006

223

bamboo is one of the most popular woods, based on its quality for furniture,

fences and roofs. The demand for bamboo by the carpenters and the

general population is very high. This exploitation and sale of bamboo was a

great economic opportunity for the GPF because it gave them substantial

income. With that money, the GPF was able to develop a scheme credit

revolving and income generating activities for women.

But with the political regime change, the director of the park was

transferred to another region by the civil service. Administrative positions

such as director are generally very political. Therefore the change of

political regime implies the shuffling of people in administrative decision

making positions. The change of park director also coincided with a fight

between youth from Diénoundiala village and the parks rangers who

prohibit them from collecting wild honey. Lolo GPF president related that

after the brawl, the park agents came to her house and took all the

bamboo stock of the GPF. From that moment the partnership ended.

Women regret not having access to the dry bamboo any more because it

was a good source of income. Although this partnership was not sustained,

the sort of experience GPF commercialization of the dry bamboo shows

how access to forest resources can contribute to the improvement of

women’s economic power. The fact that women were punish in this

conflict demonstrate how access is at the whim of those in power or

control.

A partnership between state institutions such DPN and political

institutions such as the rural council could help secure local access to forest

resources. However such a project is not yet part of the rural council

objectives. During the council meetings the councilors and state

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representatives raise the problems of lack of access to forest resources by

the population but no action has been taken. As stated by Goetz (2003:

38)

“Women’s lower human and physical capital resource base stemming from disparities between the sexes and access to resources influence the nature of women’s political engagement. “The low-resource constraints, combined with the time constraints, can sometimes mean that women’s civic and political engagement is ad hoc and unsustained. The resource constraints limit their time for and leverage in politics, and encourage a focus on local issues and survival projects, as well as a preference for loose organizational forms”.

Decentralization could bold an opportunity for partnership among

the forest service, the DPN, the rural council, and community associations

such as GPFs for rational and sustainable use of forest resources in

protected areas for the benefit of people living in the periphery. However,

the elites on the rural council and the park agents are self-using.

The Park Department funding to women’s groups

Whose interests have been served?

In 2005, 5 million CFA (approximately $10,000 USD) was granted to

Loumbécoula 1 GPF in Dialakoto and Lolo GPF in Diénoundiala by FAO in

partnership with DPN. The objective of this funding was to encourage and

reward women for their involvement in forest protection committees.

However instead of letting women define their priorities and interests with

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that money; the DPN earmarked the use of the funding for purchase

farming equipment and fences for their collective gardens. Lolo GPF

president regrets the conditionality that is tied to the funding which does

not relate to their needs and interests.

“They [the park leaders] bought wheelbarrows, rakes, picks, and shovels. But we have stored them here because there is some equipment we do not use in our activities. What we really need is a water pump to have enough water for our vegetable gardening activities but mostly what we need is to have access to forest resources inside the park. When we had the license for the dry bamboo exploitation, we earned a lot of money. Now that we are not authorized to have access to the park, our GPF account is empty and it delays our vegetable garden activities”86.

A woman member of Loumbécoula 1 GPF underlines: “the unstated

objective of this funding is to make women stay away from the park. They

should really let us benefit from resources of the park”87.

It is true that women need farming equipment, but what they really

need is to have access to forest resources and they continue to assert this

right. Consequently, one way of rewarding them for their free and

voluntary commitment to the forest protection would be to establish an

equitable partnership by restoring their right of access to forest resources

under regulated harvest conditions.

86

Author interview, Diénoundiala, April 2, 2006 87 Author interview, Dialakoto, March 2, 2006

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The political aspects of the funding

The political aspect of funding project deserves special attention as

well as the impacts of its implementation. This project was submitted in 1992

by the two GPFs whose presidents are PS, with the support of the former

PCR. During the PS reign, all the funding was given to GPFs whose

presidents were affiliated with the party in power. Because of bureaucratic

procedures it took more than ten years before the project was accepted

by FAO. Then funding granted in 2005 coincides with the political regime

change. Since it was the two GPFs that requested the funding, there is

nothing the new political leaders in Dialakoto could do about it. The

funding, although granted very late, arrived at the right moment as these

two GPF’s lost their political prestige with PDS in power. GPF access to

funding opportunities depends on their political affiliation with the State.

However, in the implementation of this project the presidents of these

two GPFs faced a refusal of collaboration from the PCR who perceives it as

an opposition party project. He does not want to “get his hands dirty”.

When Loumbécoula 1 GPF officially received the funding, the president

went to see the PCR to inform him about an upcoming visit of the donors.

The PCR refused to commit to any collaboration. The Loumbécoula 1 GPF

president relates:

“I went to see the PCR three times, but he always mentioned he has nothing to do with this funding, nor with the visit of the partners. He also stated that if it is only for the women of the GPF he will not bother. We [me and other women from the GPF] went another time

227

to see him so he can lend us chairs and tables for the welcoming ceremony of our partners, but he said that we must pay”88.

As the political leader of the Rural Community, the PCR should take

part in any development project and must be present when official

partners visit the area. But because of multi-party rivalries, the PCR did not

want to support the women.

This case shows on the one hand, the extent to which multi-party

rivalries and competitions can be unfavorable to women. On the other

hand, it shows that state privilege and favor goes to GPFs affiliated with the

party in power. This creates frustrations and conflicts, and contributes to the

division of women’s groups preventing them from focusing on a common

agenda.

88

Author interview, Dialakoto, March 1, 2006

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Chapter conclusion

This case study of Dialakoto rural council mirrors the national

processes of electoral politics. The electoral system is institutionalized but it

lacks democratic principles and mechanisms in selecting candidates to be

on the party lists. There is no requirement for equal representation between

men and women. This lack of institutionalization of gender equity lowers

women’s representation in the rural council and weakens their voices. The

patron-client relationship and party loyalty of the electoral system

undermine women’s political leadership and common interests. Women

are put at the bottom of the lists, which prevents them from being elected.

The categorization of candidates, under majority with tenured and

substitutes and proportional, puts women on the position of nubile on the

party lists. The recruitment strategies of certain women to be on the lists

when based on favoritism and non-democratic processes, put women

under party loyalty and undermine their decision making power. In addition

to that, there are no accountability mechanisms to hold political leaders

and local elected officials. Therefore, they use non-democratic practices

such as favoritism, friendship, and kinship to achieve their electoral

objectives and personal interests to the detriment of the population mainly

of women.

Women’s access to decision making in local government institutions

is shaped by social, cultural, and political factors. In the rural council

women are very few and are sidelined from the mainstream decision

making; also, their constraints and interests in access to forest resources

and land are not taken into account in the council budget and agenda.

Women’s political participation is linked to domestic roles.

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The power of cultural and traditional perceptions of women’s

secondary roles and status is prevalent in male elected officials. Women

are relegated to the gender committee with specific domestic roles. This

situation shows a reproduction of the beliefs on women’s secondary place

in the household into the public and political arena. However, women

have developed resistance and counter-power mechanisms against male

domination and to break the silence. Unfortunately, they are few voices,

which are not the voices of the majority. The dominant tendency is loyalty

to the party, which jeopardize women’s interests.

The subjection of women elected officials to party loyalty is

detrimental to the claim for rights for women’s interests. Multi-party

competition and rivalries have contributed to weaken women’s solidarity

dividing women’s groups along party lines. In the rural area, women’s

organizing through women’s groups help them better face economic and

political challenges through income generating activities, collective

vegetable garden and orchard management and farming. Then political

divisions participate in undermining their economic and social power.

However, when women decide to put aside the political disagreements

and avoid falling into the traps of male political clientelism and patronage,

women’s needs and interests are better served. In this case women

mobilization without distinction to denounce female circumcision and early

marriage was a great success.

Decentralization has allowed women to be legal land owner through

the council. However, women’s lack of economic power prevent them

from making good use of the land, they are only involved in small scale

farming. In Dialakoto, women’s main problem is the lack of access to forest

230

resources inside the park. In addition to lack of access to resources, the

park reduces people’s land for cultivation. These main constraints among

many other is not taken into account by local elected officials who by law

should be accountable to local people’s needs and interests. Biodiversity

conservation, economic, and political objectives are prioritized over

people’s access to land and forest resources. This has negative

repercussions for both men and women, who are all farmers. Elite party

members’ interests are put over that of ordinary farmers.

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TABLE 6.2 Summary of the main findings in Dialakoto Rural Council

Processes and practices: political party competitions, political patronage and clientelism

Gendered outcomes of multi-party competition

- Modes of choosing leaders: o Electoral votes: party list

system (majority and proportional)

o Criteria: ability to bring voters, dynamic, to have money to convince the political clients, and have good relationships with the political leaders; and sometimes a family member is chosen to award a deceased party militant.

o Mix of nomination, co-optation, and elections mechanisms based on clientelism, patronage, and favoritism

o Party competitions, manipulations, corruption to get on the lists

o The male party leaders are the ones who make the lists and they are the tenured and substitutes.

- The PCR, as the main political

leader and decision-maker in the council: misuse of authority in decision making, spaces for political maneuvers

- Discriminatory and exclusive

meetings: exclusion of opposition parties and women

-

- Competitive politics: male political leaders more concern with their personal political and party interests

- Lack of women’s representation

in first position on the lists, generally at the bottom and no chance to be elected, one or two women appear in the first tier list

- Low representation in the

council: only 3 women rural councilors

- Women sidelined from the

mainstream decision making: confinement in the gender committee, not member of the board and not chair of committees

- Women’s participation equated

with domestic roles: gender committee

- Women’s absenteeism in the

council meetings as observers: meeting times coincide with their domestic work

- Women as followers of male

political leaders and loyal to the party

-

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TABLE 6.2 Summary of the main findings in Dialakoto Rural Council

(continued)

Processes and practices: political party competitions, political patronage and clientelism

Gendered outcomes of multi-party competition

- Lack of popular accountability mechanisms/ hierarchical accountability

- No enforcement laws for gender

equity

- Decision making processes: vote with the majority, endorsement based on party interests

- Domination of the party in power

over decision making and an exclusion of opposition parties

- Political maneuvers,

manipulations, and patronage tied to positions in the council

- Priority given to biodiversity

conservation projects and acceptance of protected areas

Male political leaders’ lack of gender sensitivity and awareness

- Women represent their political party electoral interests rather than women's interests

- Token representation of women

based on recruitment strategies

- Reinforcement of gender stereotypes: women do not have political leadership abilities

- High expectations on women’s

political competencies

- Insufficient land and land of access to forest resources inside the park; and lack of inclusion in the council agenda

- Women’s exclusion from the

council budget/ semblance of inclusion

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CHAPTER 7

CONCLUSION

The gendered outcomes of external agencies intervention

Do participatory approaches promoted by external agencies lead to

improved gender equity in decision-making processes, access to natural

resources and to supplies in Malidino Reserve management?

This study has shown how parallel local institutions, as they relate to

party and electoral politics in local councils, have served to reproduce

inequality and exclusion by privileging the social and cultural rules and

codes through which power relations operate in the rural communities

surrounding the Malidino reserve. These findings dovetail with a growing

body of scholarship on the socio-economic, cultural, and gendered

impacts of government initiatives and development projects (Kothari, 2001;

Agarwal, 2001; Mosse, 2001; Hildyard et al., 2001; Cleaver, 2001; Henkel and

Stirrat, 2001; Hildyard et al., 2001; Sivaramakrishnan, 2000: 433; Wright and

Nelson, 1995:6).

This study also brings in a hitherto under-theorized and under-

researched dimension of the study of the gendered effects of externally-

driven interventions, namely rural electoral and party politics. This omission

in extant literature is surprising considering the significance of the advent of

competitive politics for local social fabrics (Crook and Manor 1998). Studies

of democratic decentralization do highlight the impacts of the changing

institutional and political landscapes on local societies, but mostly as they

concern representation in local councils or participation in local elections.

234

As with participatory approaches discussed above, such analyses often

employ simplistic measures of change, such as increased numbers of

women or other marginalized groups in elected bodies or their turnout

numbers. Very few scholars have conducted process-tracing, micro-level

analyses dissecting the combined effects of various types of government

and donor interventions on authority and power, on social, cultural and

gender power dynamics in the context of emerging competitive politics.

This study has shown that parallel institutions have reproduced and

deepened extant social hierarchies in the rural communities surrounding

the reserve. At the same time, government and donor interventions

provided alternative sources of power and authority to those deprived of

legitimacy in the context of electoral politics. Resources that came with

such authority as presidency of the newly created reserve and

chairmanships of various committees by far surpassed those of newly

elected, but effectively powerless, rural councils. The new economic

resources from the project were used to channel patronage and punish

political opponents. Not only did these dynamics fail to rectify extant

inequalities between men and women, and among women, but they

served to deepen them, generating resistance among some women. It is

unclear whether such resistance, however creative, would help overcome

the inequalities existing in Senegalese rural societies and built into projects.

Structural change may be needed and external interventions tailored

accordingly in ways that are systematically biased in favor of those that

have been marginalized (Agrawal and Gupta 2005).

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The gendered outcomes of the transfer of power to local elected officials

Does the 1996 decentralization reform contribute to gender equity in

decision making in Dialakoto Rural Council and to local elected officials’

accountability and responsiveness to women’s needs and interests in

access to natural resources?

In Dialakoto, multi-party competition combined with electoral

system, party system, political culture, and cultural norms have

encouraged factionalism and petty rivalries while suppressing important

issues such as gender equity, accountability, and responsiveness. The

gendered distribution of voices and decision making is skewed. Women

have a very low representation in the council and do not occupy any key

positions; rather they are relegated to secondary roles. Their environmental,

political, and economic needs and interests are not taken into account in

the rural council budget and agenda. The case study of Dialakoto rural

council reveals that neither gender equality nor environmental

conservation are automatically and inherently served by localization.

Gender and accountability are socially constructed. They both

involve power relations between different actors with different objectives

and interests. Local elected officials should be accountable to the citizens

they represent, yet they are more concerned about their own interests and

loyal to their party. Being elected has given the rural councilors social and

political recognition as leaders and institutional power and authority over

the population. Women’s participation and representation in local politics

and as elected officials have been determined by the cultural beliefs

about women’s secondary and domestic roles. The social construction of

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these two concepts has led feminists to theorize gendered accountability

in theory, practice, and policy (Phillips, 1993; Goetz and Hassim, 2003).

How is accountability translated at the local level? How does local

accountability shape gender equity (Goetz and Hassim, 2003 edited

volume)? By asking this question, contemporary feminist theorists on local

politics have moved from the mainstream democratic decentralization

theorists who have analyzed accountability from ethical and legal

perspectives. Local elected officials should be accountable and

responsive to women’s specific needs. Yet, local government is still an

under-theorized subject in the feminist literature. It offers a prospect for a

better understanding of social and cultural norms, such as, how traditional

patriarchies differently shape men’s and women’s participation and

representation in local electoral politics.

The results of research in Dialakoto indicate that formal

democratization does not equal direct democracy, and direct and fair

representation. There are other locally entrenched factors, political, and

cultural forces that shape the gender distribution of voices and access to

natural resources. Assuming that elections will bring democracy masks the

very complex issue of electoral politics, which is inherently based on power

relations, hierarchy, and authority. Electoral outcomes are always

manifested in a gendered way. Electoral politics affect men’s and

women’s political participation and representation differently. Because

electoral politics shape gender relations and are shaped by gender, when

analyzed at the local government level, the topic offers a rich domain of

study for feminists. The fact that elections are perceived as an end to

achieve electoral votes rather than a means to obtain democratic

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representation puts elected officials in an arena of competition, rivalries,

and pursuit of political interests detrimental to women’s political and

environmental interests.

Likewise, gendered decentralized natural resource management has

not been a focus in democratic decentralization theory and is very little

investigated in feminist literature (Kawamara-Mishambi and Ovonji-Odida,

2003; Bandiaky, 2007). Agarwal (2001) has raised the importance of gender

in local governance and notes that local electoral politics can create

participatory exclusions in forest resource management. This is the case id

Dialakoto where poor rural women’s interests and livelihoods, which rely

heavily on natural resources, have not been taken into account in the rural

council budget, agenda, and objectives and no elected officials is held

accountable. This misuse of power and misunderstanding of what

representation through elections means, have put male local political elites

in positions of power and authority over poor rural women who elected

them to represent their needs and interests.

Decentralization as a potential for gender equity

Theoretically, both decentralization and participation aim

respectively for power transfer to local elected officials and for inclusion of

marginalized groups such as women in decision making and for their

interests to be served. But in practice the reality is different. The case of

Dialakoto shows that they both undermine women’s abilities to collectively

address their interests. However, I state that decentralization has more

potential for gender equity than participatory approaches, which

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recognize institutional pluralism. The diversity of institutions at the local level

contributes to the complexity of the local dynamics.

Before explaining the potential for gender equity with

decentralization, it is important to state the complexity and uneasiness of

locating gender within institutional pluralism. Is institutional pluralism what is

good for women? Should formal government be the only or main

institutions? Do women need to be part of formal institutions? How do we

locate power in institutions that prevent women’s effective participation

and representation? Is power more accessible in formal or informal

institutions? The local political contingencies and complexities make it

difficult to suggest how gender would function within institutional pluralism.

My aim is to go beyond judgment of decentralization ad good or

bad to investigate the following questions. What are the spaces and

opportunities available to gender equity in decentralization? Who are the

actors that are going to make a difference for promoting gender equity

between men and women, in practice, and especially in access to natural

resources? Who are the explicitly political and state affiliated actors?

Complexity of local politics: institutional pluralism

Local politics is complex in the sense that institutions collude to

exclude women. Local exclusions are inked to class, ethnicity, social and

political party affiliations, local social hierarchy, and traditional and cultural

beliefs, which makes it complicated for policy and decision makers to bring

change. They generally find it difficult to translate a multiplicity of specific

local interests into a single agenda. In the case of Dialakoto Rural

Community, the complexity is manifested in the plurality of institutions

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involved in natural resource management, which is not favorable to local

democracy because of the competition and the creation of new forms of

hierarchies (Faye, 2006). For example in Dialamakhan regarding the reserve

management, there are multi-layered micro-hierarchies of power between

traditional and political leaders, even between women.

On the one hand, within this mix of male-dominated traditional and

political leadership, power becomes multi-dimensional and not easy to

locate. It is also not easy to challenge patriarchy couched as culture. On

the other hand, the institutionalization of women’s roles may fail to achieve

intended outcomes because formal institutions are generally driven by

donor institutions that have their own objectives and agenda.

The gendered outcomes of participatory approaches and

decentralization are contextual based. However, in both Dialakoto

administrative center and Malidino reserve area similar results have

occurred, with a reduction in women’s abilities to collectively address their

interests. There is an instrumentalization of women/ gender to satisfy the

state and donor requirements; therefore, fictional and secondary roles are

assigned to women. Men have monopolized the social, traditional, and

political leadership. The diversity of minority and under-represented majority

voices, such as women’s voices, is overtaken by the homogeneous voice

of the reserve leaders and the dominant party in the Rural Council, which is

legitimized as the “majority”.

The traditional and cultural perceptions of women’s roles in the

private sphere are transferred in the public sphere, which prevents

women’s effective participation and representation in decision making.

Traditional and political male leaders’ recruitment strategies based on

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political patronage and kinship are detrimental to women’s interests. They

have tried to create a cadre of women leaders largely based on party

loyalty, token representation, and conformism to male decisions. Electoral

politics is one of the main driving factors weakening women’s traditional

social networks based on solidarity. These gendered outcomes from male

traditional and political leadership can be seen in many other rural areas in

Senegal and in Africa more broadly.

Gendered resistance

In both Dialakoto administrative center and Malidino reserve area,

men and women have developed resistance mechanisms in response to

the lack of accountability and in order to claim their political and

economic rights. In Malidino some people (although few) have used

strategies such as verbal abuse, other outward shows of disrespect,

opposition to imposed rules, or resignation from reserve activities. These

forms of resistance have created frustration among the reserve leaders,

yet, this has not produced changes in process and practice. Rather, it has

created exclusions from decision making, labels as “trouble-maker”,

exclusions from access to seeds, foods, and material supplies, for an entire

political category of people. In the Rural Council, members from the

opposition parties have shown their disagreements during council

meetings, complained to the state representative (the Sub-prefect), and

brought the Rural Council President (PCR) and some councilors from his

party to the local court (gendarmerie).

Some women elected officials and community leaders in both local

institutions, the village committees and the rural council, have resisted male

241

domination. In Malidino, the very few women who resisted were excluded

or resigned from the main and oldest women’s group. In Dialakoto Rural

Council, one woman, the PS rural council, really stood up for the rights of

inclusion in the decision-making processes and for women’s interests to be

taken into account in the council budget and agenda. Women from

Loumbécoula 1 GPF claimed their rights of land ownership. This shows that

women are not always passive instruments of power and they can use their

individual and collective agency to claim their rights when their interests

are threatened.

However, there are very few women who demand transparency and

rights of inclusion. Most women elected officials are loyal to their political

party and most women in village committees are related to traditional

authorities through kinship, friendship, or marriage. Women are then caught

up in male political patron-client relationships, political rivalries, and cultural

domination. This situation puts them in positions of party loyalty and

submission to male leaders, which undermines their ability to collectively

demand their right to be part of decision making and to get their interests

served.

Decentralization as a potential for women’s political strategies

The legal framework of decentralization allows spaces and

opportunities for gender equity. Decentralization laws state democratic

principles such as accountability, responsiveness, equity, and efficiency,

which are part of the foundation of gender equity and good local

governance. All elected actors, men and women, have the same legal

rights to be part of decision making. Poor rural women have become

formal political leaders within the local state, which was almost impossible

242

before decentralization. Women have always been community leaders

and had potential for political leadership. Women can challenge

patriarchy without fearing any exclusion. With decentralization, women’s

rights as political actors and citizens are recognized. They have access to

laws and can apply legal pressure.

For example in Dialakoto Rural Council, the PS woman councilor is

able to challenge male political leaders and fight for women’s rights

because she is aware of her power and right conferred by

decentralization. On the contrary in Dialamakhan, where there is no

woman political leader, there is a certain conformity to tradition and

culture by women who do not challenge male dominant power. While a

woman in Dialamakhan confesses “I am not a member of the Bamtare

association which is affiliated with the reserve because my husband did not

want me to participate. He asked me to participate in the new women’s

association affiliated with PDS. I have no regrets because I am proud to

follow my husband’s orders. Without my husband’s authorization I do not

participate in any political or association activities”; the PS woman

councilor in Dialakoto states, “I never get discouraged. I am used to

fighting with the men. I also sensitize women in the community to develop

resistance strategies”. The latter is able to stand up for women’s rights

because of the legal and formal setting offered by decentralization. It is a

necessary but not sufficient condition. When women were excluded from

the health committee in the Rural Council, they used legal procedure by

contacting the Sub-prefect to have their rights restored. In Malidino, such

procedures do not exist because external agencies do not intervene in

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local management; they respect and accept “cultural norms” even if it is

detrimental to women.

Traditional beliefs and cultural norms are deeply rooted, therefore

not easy to challenge. Laws, however, can be challenged by social

movements and civil society, and culture too is subject to challenge and

change. The case studies from this dissertation can again be used as

illustration. In Dialakoto, all the councilors are elected under the same

electoral code and laws. They have the same rights and are elected by

the community, yet nobody is above the laws. In Malidino, there are no

laws than govern resource allocation and decision making. The reserve

leaders are the sole decision makers, draw up the rules, and put in place

sanction mechanisms. However, if legal structures, and processes with

accountability mechanisms, were to be introduced, gender and class

inequality could be tackled.

Existing strategies in Senegal to reinforce women’s representation in local

government

The Senegalese government has put in place processes and

practices, legal and institutional framework for a better representation of

women in local government. In 2003, local elected officials put in place in

2003 a network, l’Union des Associations d’Elus Locaux (UAEL), composed

of all elected officials. And in 2004, the Women Elected Officials Committee

(Commission Femmes Elues- CFE) was created. The aims of these networks

are advocacy, training, and lobbying to reinforce local elected officials’

knowledge of decentralization laws, policies, and practices and to raise

awareness among political leaders.

244

There is also partnership and lobbying, among networks at Non-

Governmental Organizations (NGOs), women’s associations and institutions

from civil society to influence policy and decision makers and to promote

gender equity. Example is Group 5 composed of the following women’s

institutions: Siggil jigéén Network, Association of African Professionals in

Communication, Association of Senegalese Women Lawyers, and the Civil

Forum.

The National Democratic Institute (NDI) has training and capacity

building programs for women’s political leaders. It has trained 1,500 women

potential candidates in pre-electoral campaign techniques for, 1,255

women elected officials in good governance. Through its negotiation

process, 15 male political leaders have signed a declaration for a quota of

30% for women in the next national legislative and local in 2009 (originally

scheduled in 2008). The NDI, also helped put in place the National Network

of Women’s Councilors (le Réseau National des Conseillères - RNC) in

February 26, 2005.

The Senegalese government has also drafted policy documents,

which focus on women’s political participation and representation: the

National Strategy for Gender Equity and Equality (La Stratégie nationale

Equité et Egalité de Genre - SNEEG) drafted in December 2004, and the

Senegal National Action Plan for Women 1997 - 2000 (Le plan d’Action

national de la Femme Sénégalaise - PANAF). In addition, the Senegalese

government has also followed the recommendations of two main

international policy documents: Winning with Women, Opening Roads for

Women Elected Officials (Gagner avec les femmes, ouvrir des voies pour

les femmes élues) drafted after the World Social Forum in 2003; and the

245

Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women

(Convention contre toute formes de discrimination envers les femmes-

CEDAW) adopted in 1979 by the United Nations General Assembly. These

two documents focus mainly on women’s rights and citizenship to

participate in decision making.

The main challenge is how to translate these policies into practices.

How can Senegalese women bridge the gap between theory and

practice? In Senegal’s history only one woman has stood as a presidential

candidate, in 2000. For the next local elections in 2009 and the presidential

elections in 2012, more women candidates are predicted. Senegal is

moving toward increased numbers of women in political institutions

(political parties, legislature, and local government) with the adoption of a

quota of 30% of women in elected office (not effective yet). The

proposition of parity by President Abdoulaye Wade was rejected as

unconstitutional.

In addition, the lack of guarantees for gender equity in

decentralization emerges, on the one hand, from other locally entrenched

political, social, and cultural factors that shape women’s lives. On the other

hand, it derives from the lack of law enforcement and the interests

(personal and mainly political) members of parliament who make the laws.

The rejection of gender parity in political representation by the National

Assembly is an example of this problem. Therefore, there is a need for social

movements to enforce gender parity in the laws; and for women to work

both inside and outside informal and formal institutions.

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Feminist social theory: how to inform policy and decision makers for

structural and social change

Feminist scholars have theorized and given directions on how to

integrate and mainstream gender in local, national, and international

institutions. The social theory they use is situated in a trend that bridges the

gap between theory, policy, and practice. Their concern is how to inform

policy and decision makers for structural and social change, and social

justice.

Agarwal (2001) suggests developing a “bargaining power for

enhancing participation and positive change, with the State, the

community, and the family, as the case may be. A “critical mass of vocal

women and a sense of group identity” are also necessary for challenging

restrictive social norms and perceptions. Deere and Leon (1998) propose

linking meaningful societal change to state action by offering state action

to substitute or reinforce community participation or popular political and

social movements.

For women who have moved into the state bureaucracy or

conventional political parties, the perennial question is how to make an

impact on mainstream politics without becoming absorbed by it (Razavi,

2001: 221). She adds that there is little option but to work “in and against

the party”. According to Waylen (2000: 793), “the consolidation of more

equitable political systems in gender terms is more likely if organized groups

of women are lobbying institutionalized party systems both from within and

from outside for implementation of formal measures both to increase the

numbers of women active at all political levels and to implement ‘women-

friendly’ policies”. Fraser (2000) recommends

247

“redressing misrecognition now means changing social institutions – or, more specifically, changing the interaction-regulating values that impede parity of participation at all relevant institutional sites. Exactly how this should be done depends in each case on the mode in which misrecognition is institutionalized. Juridified forms require legal change, policy-entrenched forms require policy change, associational forms require associational change, and so on: the mode and agency of redress vary, as does the institutional site”.

Action- Research is also a key instrument to better inform policy and

decision makers such as the state, political leaders, international

organizations, and Non-Governmental Organizations. Power, as a relational

construct offers spaces for negotiations. However there are major

challenges: how to get the message out? Are the research findings of

interest for policy and decision makers? At least one thing is sure, feminist

social theory and empirical research open up spaces and opportunities for

dialogue about social change among academics, practitioners, and local

communities. Engaged feminist research can help to create the conditions

for gender equity in resource rights, biodiversity conservation, and

development in Senegal.

However, the eventual adoption and institutionalization of the quota

and of parity in representation may soon bring more women into political

institutions. I am saying that women elected officials need to be held

accountable. It is important to question their accountability and how they

represent and are responsive to poor rural women’s environmental interests

from local places like Dialakoto Rural Community to the broader national

sphere. Women can and should bring change in the ways of doing politics

248

through fair, equitable, and representative structures, processes, and

practices of good governance.

249

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