LOCAL DEVELOPMENT FROM THE GENDER PERSPECTIVE

Local development is a complex, controverted and multidimensional process and concept. In this paper the link between local development and gender perspective is discussed, contributing analytical elements to the complex and polemical relations between women and development through different approaches and gender issues. It is argued that the gender dimension is a constituent of local development because this is not gender-neutral; it contains the social relations and inequalities between men and women, their conditions and positions, their needs and expectations, power hierarchies and decision-making between men and women; culturally determined relations and hierarchies.