Caroline Moser. 1993. Gender Planning and Development: Theory, Practice, and Training. London: Routledge.
The Moser Gender Planning Framework, developed by Caroline Moser [1] is a tool for planning and assessing assumptions related to gender in development interventions at all levels, including policy, program, project, or community work. The Moser Framework introduces the notion of women’s triple roles, i.e., productive, reproductive, and community involvement and maps them over a 24-hour period. Productive roles are those tasks that are monetarily reimbursed. Reproductive roles are those associated with child rearing/raising and caretaking of the home (i.e., cooking/cleaning). Community involvement highlights those tasks related to collective support and community gain.
Given women’s inequality in comparison to men and their triple roles in families, communities, etc., the Moser Gender Planning Framework also assesses practical and strategic needs. Practical needs are immediate needs necessary to ensure safety, heath, and basic needs, such as water, sanitation, health care, etc. These do not fundamentally transform gender discriminatory power structures. Strategic needs, on the other hand, forward women’s equality and empowerment by challenging those power structures, such as having equitable laws, living free from domestic violence, etc.
After assessing needs, women’s and men’s access to and control over resources are examined. Finally, planning is done to assess the extent to which women’s triple roles can be balanced. The tool also provides a lens for assessing how different development paradigms address women’s strategic and practical needs (i.e., welfare approaches, WID/GAD, empowerment).
Strengths of the Moser Gender Planning Framework:
- The analysis distinguishes between two critical types of empowerment, meeting basic practical needs, which enhances living standards, but does not challenge division of labor or power inequities, and strategic needs, which increases power with the aim of gender equality.
- The distinction between these two levels of needs also highlights different approaches to development, such as programs that aim to provide services versus those that aim to transform power relations. These different approaches are often conflated under the broad term empowerment.
- The Moser Framework highlights the multiple and complex roles that women manage on a daily basis, particularly those that influence access to and control over household and social resources.
- The tool could be especially beneficial and advantageous in contexts where strategic action plans and ideas for program implementation are in the process of being designed.
- There is attention to the complexity of how women’s lives and roles may interact with program interventions. This may provide opportunities for more nuanced analysis and mapping of sources of power and potential constraints or opportunities.
Weaknesses (or not designed for):
- There is not a focus on the process through which a program intervention should produce change, which limits assessment capabilities regarding why or how a program works or how a change was achieved, if any.
- The tool excludes other forms of analysis that may be useful, such as the intersection of race and class with gender.
- Less attention is placed on the interrelationships that exist between men and women and how they interact to influence a context.
- The tool is primarily useful for program planning rather than evaluation work.
[1] Caroline Moser. 1993. Gender Planning and Development: Theory, Practice, and Training. London: Routledge.