Glossary

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Practical Gender Needs

Practical Gender Needs (PGNs) are identified by women within their socially defined roles, as a response to an immediate perceived necessity. PGNs usually relate to inadequacies in living conditions such as water provision, health care and employment, and they do not challenge gender divisions of labour and women's subordinate position in society.

Participatory Development

Participatory development implies a partnership which is built on a dialogue among the various actors (stakeholders), during which the 'agenda' is set jointly and a variety of local views and indigenous knowledge are deliberately sought and respected. Participatory development implies negotiation rather than the dominance of an externally set project agenda.

Participation

Participation in the general sense, means having a share, or taking part. The Women's Equality & Empowerment Framework uses this word to denote having a share and taking part in decision-making. We are therefore here defining the term "participation" in this active sense of having a say in how things are done, and in how resources are allocated. Merely to have a share in resources is not in itself participation in the sense that it is used to denote an empowerment level in the Framework. The Framework sees gender equality in decision making as one of the essential aspects of women's empowerment, and uses the word "participation" to denote this aspect of empowerment.

Patriarchy

Patriarchy is the male domination of ownership and control, at all levels in society, which maintains and operates the system of gender discrimination. This system of control is justified in terms of patriarchal ideology - a system of ideas based on a belief in male superiority and sometimes the claim that the gender division of labour is based on biology or even based on scripture.

Patriarchal resistance

Patriarchal resistance is the present context, means the various ways patriarchal government or authority may try to stop women's collective action for an equal share in decision making, and equal control over the distribution of resources.

Programme

Programme in these reading is used differently from "project", to mean a collection of projects with a larger developmental purpose than an individual project

Project

Project is here used to mean an organisation of people and resources over time, used to bring about planned and pre-determined change by the end of the project period, for the benefit of a well defined target group. A project provides a planned developmental intervention to meet a need, or to overcome a problem. A project is also concerned with women's development if it recognises gender issues as part of the problem, and addresses these issues as part of the overall project purpose.

Paid and unpaid work

Paid work covers work for pay plus unpaid work in family businesses or farm. In time-use studies, training and studies in relation to work is also usually included.

Unpaid work covers all the other work done in the household or community, all care activities including personal care, studies, socialising and leisure time.

Population

All the inhabitants of a given country or area (province, city, metropolitan area etc.) considered together; the number of inhabitants of a country or area.

Population density

Inhabitants per square metre.

Part time employment

Due to variations in working hours between countries, there is no internationally agreed definition of part time employment. The findings of an OECD study conclude that a definition of part-time work based on a 30 usual hours threshold would appear to be most appropriate for the purposes of international comparisons. However, actual data vary from country to country.