Patrons of Women: Literacy Projects and Gender Development in Rural Nepal

Abstract

Assuming women's empowerment would accelerate the pace of social change in rural Nepal, the World Bank urged the Nepali government to undertake a "Gender Activities Project" within an ongoing long-term water-engineering scheme. The author, an anthropologist specializing in bureaucratic organizations and gender studies, was hired to monitor the project. Analyzing her own experience as a "development expert," she demonstrates how the professed goal of "women's empowerment" is a pretext for promoting the interests of local elites. She demonstrates how a project intended to benefit women fails to provide them with any of the promised resources.