Empowerment Money: The World Bank, Non-Governmental Organizations, and the Value of Culture in Egypt

Women, girls and world poverty: empowerment, equality or essentialism?

“…In a now sustained epoch of neoliberal economic restructuring which has stripped down universalised systems of social protection (as and where these existed in the first place), and directed ever more emphasis towards encouraging people to extricate themselves from poverty, ideally through their deeper incorporation into markets (see Elyacher, 2002;Prügl, 2015), the new female focus in development policy is perhaps not accidental, and indeed has been gathering steam for some time. For example, an 'efficiency case' to invest in women arguably extends as far back to at least the 1980s as awareness dawned that the mobilisation of female labour, both within and beyond the home, played a crucial role in cushioning poor households against the injurious assault on well-being imposed by structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) (see Moser, 1989Moser, , 1993also Benería, 1991;Chant, 1994Chant, , 2012Elson, 1989Elson, , 1991González de la Rocha, 2001 'Investing in women is critical for poverty reduction.…”

“…Part of the blame for these prejudicial consequences has to be the way in which microfinance schemes trade on gender-stereotyped essentialisms such as women's purportedly greater responsibility for their families, and likelihood of complying with loan repayments, and perhaps more covertly, their susceptibility to intimidation (Federici, 2014:236; see also Elyacher, 2002;Geleta, 2013;Herselman, 2014;Wilson, 2011b). Indeed, even where women are not subjected to direct harassment by official personnel, the group structure of many microfinance programmes effects new community-based 'internalised'…”

Development as a Battlefield

“…It was propagated from the 1980s onwards, when the state began cutting social service provision. This was also the time when international development agencies were shifting their focus to poverty alleviation, which was embodied, in Egypt, by the establishment of the Social Fund for Development in 1991: the fund embraced microlending as a main strategy, behind which 'stands the supposition that devolving development down to "the people" is not only a good thing but also a moral imperative' (Elyachar, 2002). In 1988, the notion of 'al-maghud al-dhati' was introduced into law through a reform of the state local-level administration (Law No.…”

The Marketization of HIV/AIDS Governance: Public–Private Partnerships and Bureaucratic Culture in Pakistan

“…A stated rationale for contracting out service delivery to NGOs and the private sector was the quasi-legal status of the 'risk-groups' and the presumed inability of the government services to work with stigmatized and marginal groups. In this sense, therefore, the 'cultural difference' of the socalled 'risk-groups' became another justification for neoliberal policies (see also Elyachar 2002). 'Contractualisation' redefined the organisational relations within AIDS bureaucracy whereby, as Colin Leys writes about the reorganisation of civil service in the UK under the New Labour government, seasoned mandarins were replaced by enterprising, assertive characters with a concern for 'getting things done', and 'an impatience with the bureaucrats professionally concerned with to wider implications of policy' (Leys 2006:21).…”