Senegal is a coastal country in the Sudanese-Sahelian zone, with a surface area of 197,000 sq.kms. In 1995, the population was estimated at 8,347,000, with women accounting for 52%. The national economy is dominated by the agricultural sector (agriculture, breeding, forest exploitation, fishing) which occupies more than 60% of the population. Weak modernization of the agricultural sector as well as uncertain climatic conditions have led to a fall in productivity accompanied by strong pressure on natural resources.
Economic difficulties have subjected the country to structural adjustment policies aimed at stimulating growth, primarily through improvement of the agro-ecological environment. This is why current national policy in economic and social development places the emphasis on sustainable use of resources. Planning exercises based on this policy agree on a participatory process in which the strategies developed and methods used favour the involvement of all actors. In this context, the forest sector in particular has played a leading role. Since 1990, the Water, Forest, Hunting and Soil Conservation Division (WFHSCD) has drawn on 15 years of previous experience in land projects. Strengthened by the results of this reflection, it has introduced innovations at the institutional level and has favoured the emergence of conditions conducive to the application of the participatory approach. Active and real participation of the entirety of actors in the rural development planning process is today unanimous.
Women occupy a dominant position among agricultural development actors. They constitute 75% of the rural population. Besides their reproductive functions, women account for 81% of agricultural activities, with their average working day lasting from 12 to 15 hours. There does exist, however, a social consensus through which men help women in those tasks that call for a certain level of physical force.
Over the last two decades, significant advances have been noted in policies and programmes concerned with female advancement. Multilateral and bilateral partners and NGOs have joined these efforts and this has led to an improvement in the status of women and has increased their opportunities for economic and social advancement. To illustrate this dynamic, the following should be noted:
· the adoption of a family code in 1972, providing a favourable juridical framework for the defence of women's interests;
· the creation of a ministerial department in 1978, responsible for female advancement;
· the adoption of the first plan of action in favour of women in 1982;
· subsequent support for initiatives to set up and structure women's associations and groups;
· the introduction of facilities to lighten household chores.
The National Women's Action Plan (NWAP), 1997-2001, stresses the central role of women in sustainable development and the importance of their contribution is recognized in speeches; but, in reality, their work is still undervalued and under-quantified.
In the 1970s, Senegal opted for the integration of women in development (IWD) approach which is still perceptible today. In the mid-1980s, the country embarked on a process of reflection and study to highlight the results and limits of IWD. As a result, it incorporated the Gender and Development (GAD) approach in its strategies and methods. Currently, all development partners as well as national institutions have integrated gender issues into their analyses.
This is why various ministries recognize gender as the strategic axis of intervention in their policy orientations. Besides NWAP, drawn up under the aegis of the Ministry for Women, Children and the Family (MWCF), one can cite the strategic policy documents of the Ministry of Literacy and the Promotion of National Languages, the Ministry of Public Health and Social Action, and the Ministry of Technical Education and Professional Training.
One of MWCF's projects is concerned with promoting the physical and moral integrity of women, favouring their access to decision-making levels and setting up a legislative framework conducive to the establishment of egalitarian gender relationships. This project, known as "Promoting the Rights and Strengthening the Power of Senegalese Women", is financed by CIDA and supported by CCSIC. It is being implemented through "Siggil Jigèen" 5, a network of local women's organizations. It started in 1993 and a phase of consolidation was completed in August 1997. The project is expected to run for 5 years at a total cost of 1.5 billion CFA.
Donors have set up an informal network, "Women and Development". Dutch cooperation is particularly active and supports numerous information and gender training initiatives. Similarly, the United Nations system, specifically UNDP, UNIFEM and ILO, have contributed to noticeable progress in information in this field. Likewise, the European Union's intervention strategy for the management of natural resources explicitly includes gender issues in the analysis of programme cycles. One can also cite a number of institutions aware of the "Gender and Development" problematic: NGOCDS, the British Council, CCSIC, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, AIEDP, CCSIC, Oxfam/UK, etc. The Social and Gender Analysis (SAGA) programme of the Institute for Economic Development/World Bank also merits note.
This social analysis and gender training programme is based on national programmes for agricultural popularization (NPAPs), financed by the World Bank over the last 20 years in different African countries. The SAGA programme has highlighted the contradictions and differences that exist between the contents of popularization kits and the expectations and needs of producers, in particular of female producers. This is why SAGA training programmes aim to match the social and production realities of men and women producers to the contents, methods and tools of popularization. A training workshop for trainers from Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mauritania and Senegal was organized in May 1966 in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso). Testing of the educational material in situ is currently under way and is expected to conclude at the end of 1997.
Basic and applied research is also interested in the "Gender" issue. Since 1993, researchers and other development actors from several West African countries have come together in a network known as the African Gender and Creativity Network (AGCN) 6. Consideration is being given to the "tropicalization" of certain concepts of the gender approach where implementation poses problems due to their cultural weight and significance. Some network members (Ivoiriennes and Burkinabe) have produced case studies on the issue and Dutch cooperation has been sought for their publication.
In the context of the Gender/Sustainable Development/Natural Resource Management interface, within which the PREVINOBA intervention - the subject of this case study - is situated, it is worth mentioning an initiative of WFHSCD, supported by the Dutch embassy in Dakar and the FAO office in Senegal.
A workshop bringing together some 30 participants (land officers, planning teams, decision-makers, development partners) was organized in March 1995. In-depth reflection on the concept and tools related to the gender issue, analysis of the activities of two forestry projects in the light of the gender problematic and group work sessions permitted the formulation of the first elements of an action plan to use and integrate gender analysis in the sustainable management of natural resources.
Following this workshop, WFHSCD, through the "Support for Senegal's Rural Forestry Development Programme" project (GCP/SEN/037/NET - FAO/Netherlands Cooperation), called for a study in August 1996 to better define:
· the direct and indirect benefits women obtain from their partnership with forestry projects;
· the real capacity for women's participation in project implementation.
The results of this study should be used to the benefit of planning exercises in the forest sector and, together with resource allocation, including human resources, at the level of six of the country's eco-geographic zones.
5 Siggil Jigèen: literally "hold high the heads of women or honour women"; network of associations active in the field of women's advancement, particularly in urban milieux.
6 The activities of the network started in 1993, with members from Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Niger and Senegal. The constituent assembly met in October 1996 in Niger. Membership of the network is individual and voluntary. Senegal has around 100 members.
