Assignment Code: MGSE-001 / AST- 01 / TMA / 2022-23

Course Code: MGSE-001

Assignment Name: Gender Planning and Development Policies

Year: 2022 - 2023

Verification Status: Verified by Professor

PART- A

Write short notes on the following (200 words in each): (10 marks)

Q 1. Standard or Repeated use of plans

Ans) Organizations create standing or repeated usage plans for internal and external activities. Subsections cover each standing or repeated use plan:

1. Objectives: Objectives are the organization's goals or desired outcomes. Objectives give the organisation direction and emphasis. This makes it easier to stay on track and adjust to avoid obstructions.

2. Policies: Policies aid decision-makers in achieving corporate goals. They solve all organisation management questions. Policies are general. They provide a thorough and flexible plan to achieve the goals. They concretize goals.

3. Procedures: Procedures establish work-sequences. They "prescribe the exact chronological sequence of specified tasks required to execute defined work." Thus, processes set a timeline for starting, progressing, and finishing a project. The organization's goals and resources will shape the procedures.

4. Rules: The executive power decides what to do and what not to do in a circumstance. Self-imposed rules apply to specific situations. Rules prevent decision-making flexibility. Deviation is forbidden. Policies influence decision-making but do not limit executive authority. Rules ban or enforce specific behaviour, leaving no room for choice.

5. Strategies: Business strategy is its overall plan. Strategy helps organisations meet external challenges. Strategy addresses an organization's external environment and competition. It describes how the organisation will handle the uncertain world outside and assumes other interest groups' strategies and power.

Q 2. Participatory Gender Planning

Ans) Participatory Gender Planning is an approach to planning that seeks to involve both men and women in the planning process, with a focus on gender equality and women's empowerment. This approach recognizes that men and women have different roles and responsibilities, and that these differences can impact the effectiveness of development interventions. Participatory Gender Planning involves a variety of tools and techniques, such as gender analysis, gender-sensitive budgeting, and gender mainstreaming. The goal is to ensure that the needs and priorities of both men and women are taken into account when planning and implementing development projects. One of the main benefits of Participatory Gender Planning is that it can help to address gender inequalities and empower women. By involving women in the planning process and giving them a voice, they can play a more active role in decision-making and have greater control over their lives. This can lead to improved economic, social, and political outcomes for women, as well as for their families and communities.

However, there are also challenges to implementing Participatory Gender Planning. In some contexts, traditional gender roles and cultural norms may make it difficult to involve women in the planning process. Additionally, there may be resistance from some stakeholders who are not accustomed to considering gender issues in their planning and decision-making. Despite these challenges, Participatory Gender Planning has gained recognition as an important approach to promoting gender equality and women's empowerment. By engaging both men and women in the planning process, this approach can help to ensure that development interventions are more effective, sustainable, and inclusive.

Q 3. Human Needs

Ans) Human needs refer to the basic requirements that individuals require to sustain a healthy and fulfilling life. These needs are the foundation of human well-being and are essential for survival and growth. Human needs are generally considered to fall into several categories, including physiological needs, safety and security needs, social needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs. Physiological needs are the most basic and fundamental human needs, and include requirements such as food, water, shelter, and sleep. Safety and security needs refer to the need for physical and emotional safety, and include factors such as personal safety, financial security, and protection from harm.

Social needs refer to the need for social interaction and connection with others, and include relationships, friendship, and community involvement. Esteem needs relate to a person's sense of self-worth and self-esteem, and include factors such as recognition, achievement, and respect. Self-actualization needs are the highest level of human needs and involve the desire to reach one's full potential and achieve personal growth and fulfilment. Understanding human needs is essential for ensuring that individuals are able to live healthy, fulfilling lives. Meeting these needs is a fundamental responsibility of governments, organizations, and individuals alike. By addressing human needs, we can improve individual and collective well-being, and create a more just and equitable society.

Q 4. Triple Roles of Women

Ans) The "triple roles of women" refer to the multiple roles that women often play in their lives, including those related to their families, communities, and the workforce. These roles are typically broken down into three categories: reproductive, productive, and community management. Reproductive roles refer to women's traditional roles in childbearing, child-rearing, and caregiving. These roles are often seen as essential to maintaining families and societies but can also limit women's ability to participate fully in other areas of life, such as education and employment.

Productive roles refer to women's participation in the workforce, either in paid or unpaid work. Women's participation in the workforce is increasingly recognized as essential to economic growth and development, but women may face barriers to employment and advancement due to discrimination and traditional gender roles. Community management roles refer to women's involvement in community organizations, social and political activism, and leadership. Women's involvement in these roles can be essential to promoting social change and improving gender equality, but women may face barriers to participation due to discrimination and cultural norms.

The "triple roles of women" highlight the complex and varied roles that women play in their lives, and the importance of recognizing and valuing women's contributions in all areas of society. By supporting women's participation in all three of these roles, we can promote gender equality, improve individual and community well-being, and create a more just and equitable society.

PART- B

Answer any two of the questions given below in 1000 words each. (30 marks)

Q 1. Explain the importance of planning in India. What are the significant steps in planning? Explain.

Ans) The following points highlight the importance of planning:

1) Selection of “optimum” goals

Planning includes rational decision-making. It also means choosing one action over others. Naturally, if we want to increase girl enrolment in primary schools, we must examine economic, social, and political considerations. Promotes organisational goals within given resources and economic, social, and political considerations.

2) Tackling increasing complexities

An organisation is made up of various kinds of people with different ideas and points of view. Unless they come up with a common plan to help them reach their goals, the people won't be able to work well together. So, planning is an important part of any activity with a goal. A group of women who help each other is called a self-help group (SHG).

3) Meeting environmental changes

The world changes quickly and in big ways. When social values change, people's wants and needs also change. As you know, the way people think about gender and how they should act changes over time. This will change the balance of power in any organisation or community. Both the inputs and the process of transformation need to change and adapt to fit the new environment. This process of adapting can only be done with the help of good planning.

4) Safeguard against failures

Programs, policies, and plans often fail because people make decisions quickly and without thinking and don't plan well enough. Failures happen because of conflict, the fact that people's needs and preferences are hard to predict, rapid changes in society, and sudden changes in the economy and government. It is true that planning can't always stop things from going wrong. But it lets the people in charge assess and evaluate each new opportunity and problem and look at the different ways to deal with each one.

5) Unity of action

Planning makes it possible for people in an organisation or community to work together effectively and in harmony to reach common goals. It gives them a stake in their own future and motivates them to do their best to meet the challenge.

6) Effective coordination and control

Planning simplifies control and cooperation. The task, people, departments, deadline, and costs are all predetermined. This allows accurate and quick performance measurement and comparison with intended performance. The causes of underperformance can be identified. No performance standards exist without planning.

Significant Steps in Planning

In general, the following could be the most important steps in the planning process:

1. Identification of the Opportunity or Problem

Environment limits organisational action and impacts planning. It also presents possibilities and challenges the business can exploit. Government restrictions, cultural norms, limited financial resources, evolving technology, production of goods and services, etc. can restrain and enable. Identifying the opportunity or difficulty helps the organisation or community adjust to its surroundings. Planning helps organisations adapt to their surroundings. This requires planners to comprehend and analyse complex and often ill-defined environmental influences and take appropriate action.

2. Collection and Analysis of Relevant Information

Information quality, relevance, and validity affect planning. Experience is needed to assess information quality and validity. Validity depends on information sources and gathering methods. External and internal information sources exist. Suppliers, clients, professionals, trade publications, newspapers, magazines, seminars, etc. Meetings, reports, connections with bosses, peers, and subordinates are internal sources.

3. Establishment of Objectives

Information analysis and interpretation clarify aims and goals. It removes personal bias from goals. Every region needs goals. Performance and results affect organisation survival and growth. They indicate the outcome an organisation wants within its internal and external constraints. An organisation may seek stability, expansion, a higher return, leadership, and innovation. Executives set an organization's goals. Consider members' and groups' needs. Each member or group may contribute to organisational efforts for varied reasons. Setting goals is not enough. Objectives may only be achieved through precise rules, processes, and methods.

4. Determination of Planning Assumptions or Limitations

Planning has to consider numerous uncertainties in its environment. Important components of the internal environment are: (a) technology; (b) structural relationships and organizational design; (c) employee attitudes and morale; and (d) managerial decision-making processes.

Not all environmental components need assumptions. Identify and assess only plan-affecting factors. Since the best-formulated assumptions may be invalidated by unforeseen developments, it is better to make a series of assumptions from realistic to optimistic and pessimistic.

Plan accordingly for each assumption. Multiple preparations for every contingency may increase administrative burden, but they will extend functionaries and personnel's environmental awareness. However, alternate plans need not be detailed.

5. Examining Alternative Courses of Action

Often, there will be more than one plan of action to reach a goal. In fact, there are often an infinite number of diverse ways to handle a situation. In some situations, though, there may not be many options. How many alternative action plans a person makes depends on how creative, skilled, and experienced they are.

6. Weighing Alternative Courses of Action

A task may have several solutions. However, not all are feasible. Each option has pros and cons. To choose the best action plan, evaluate the alternatives. Each alternative action plan can be evaluated for its efficacy in achieving organisational goals, its ability to survive environmental changes, and its integration with ongoing action plans.

7. Selecting a Course of Action

Individual preferences and prejudices or group opinions affect alternative evaluation. Choose one path. The strategy selects the best option. Mathematical or statistical models may help choose.

8. Determining Secondary Plans

Secondary plans flow from and are dependent on formulation of basic plans. These are meant to support and expedite the achievement of the basic plans. They would have to be prepared to facilitate execution of the basic plans.

9. Providing for Future Evaluation

Planning is undertaken with a view to achieving certain pre-determined objectives. It is necessary to devise a system for continuous evaluation and appraisal of the plan. This will help in identifying any shortcomings to initiate suitable corrective action in time.

Q 3. Explain GAD Analytical tools.

Ans) Gender and Development (GAD) analytical tools are frameworks that are used to analyze gender relations and identify ways to promote gender equality and women's empowerment. These tools are designed to help development practitioners, policymakers, and other stakeholders to understand the gender dynamics that exist within societies and to develop strategies that address gender inequalities.

The GAD analytical tools will help you to analyze gender relations in development work. These analytical tools were described in the CCIC, MATCH, AQOCI, publication "Two Halves make a whole: Balancing Gender Relations in Development" This publication has had widespread influence with extracts reproduced in the oxfam Gender Training Manual and commonwealth youth programme materials modules among others.

They also provide suggestions for practical applications in the following areas:

1. Development programmes and projects.

2. Project design.

3. Project planning.

4. Policy formulation.

5. Monitoring processes, assessment and evaluation criteria; and research projects.

There are five GAD tools which we can consider particularly relevant to development work:

Tool No. 1: The Sex/Gender division of labour

This tool focuses on men‘s and women‘s work and how it is differently valued. It is necessary to understand the gender division of labour in a community or society before designing and implementing any development initiatives. Both women and men work to sustain households and communities. Their work, however, tends to be different in nature and ascribed social value. Such differences are a central axis of difference in gender relations deriving from different roles, responsibilities and activities assigned to women and men according to what is considered appropriate.

Tool No. 2: Access to and control over resources and benefits

The GAD approach emphasizes sensitivity towards the extent of access and control that women have over resources. It is useful in generating awareness about:

1. Women‘s access to the resources needed for family sustenance and improvement of quality of life;

2. Their control over using those resources according to their requirements;

3. Their access to the benefits derived from family and personal resources; and

4. The degree of control that they extent over those benefits.

These resources may include:

1. Economic or productive resources such as land, equipment, tools, labour, cash, credit, and income earning opportunities.

2. Political resources such as leadership, education and information, self-confidence and credibility, public-sphere experiences.

3. Time, which is a particularly critical and scarce resource for women.

Tool No. 3: Condition and position of men and women in society.

The GAD approach emphasizes that for a development initiative to be successful, it must improve the condition and position of both women and men in society.

Condition refers to the material state of affairs e.g., the needs of men and women in terms of clean water, food, health facilities and education. Development projects affect the condition of women and men differently.

A water supply project, for example, may improve the condition of women‘s lives significantly, but make little direct impact on men‘s workload. The situation may be in reversed technology-intensive agricultural projects with negative impacts being experienced by women who lack the skills and training to improve their work participation.

For example, a project that introduces a new fertilizer may make women‘s lives harder by increasing the labour of weeding which is a traditionally female task.

Position refers to women‘s social and economic standing in relation to that of men. The differences in the position of men and women is revealed, for example by disparities in wages and employment opportunities, gaps in participation in legislative bodies, and women ‘s increased vulnerability to poverty and violence.

Tool No. 4: Practical needs and strategic interests of women and men

The GAD approach distinguishes between women‘s practical needs and their strategic interests. These are closely related to condition and position of women. Practical needs are linked to women ‘s condition. These needs are identifiable and usually related to living conditions and availability of resources. Practical needs for poor in developing countries include availability of food, water, health facilities, education for their children and increased income. If these needs are not met satisfactorily and if resources are lacking, then women‘s condition - and even that of men —will be affected negatively.

Strategic interests for women arise from their subordinate (disadvantaged) position in society. Strategic interests are long-term and related to improving women‘s position. Promoting gender equality is in the strategic interest of women because they gain more opportunities, greater access to resources, and equal participation with men in decision making.

Tool No. 5: Level of participation

Women have been participants and beneficiaries in development projects without significant improvement in their condition, and without substantial change in their position. This tool helps to assess women ‘s level of participation in development projects and the effects it has on their welfare. Participation can happen at several different levels or stages within a project. But we know that it is the nature of the participation that matters. GAD theory describes several stages of participation.

The GAD approach aims for the fullest possible participation – at the level of empowerment – for both women and men in all development activities. The concept of various levels of participation helps you to be aware of how women and men might participate in projects, and the extent to which this participation can contribute to empowerment.

In summary, GAD analytical tools are essential for promoting gender equality and women's empowerment in development practice. These tools help to ensure that gender considerations are integrated into all aspects of development planning and implementation and that gender inequalities are addressed. By using GAD analytical tools, development practitioners, policymakers, and other stakeholders can develop more effective and inclusive interventions that promote gender equality and women's empowerment.