Introduction

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Notes

1. The Gender & Development learning project on the Economic Crisis includes this Special Issue of the journal, a Discussion Paper which came out of a learning event for development practitioners and policymakers hosted by Oxfam, at the headquarters of Oxfam GB in Oxford UK, and finally an electronic network of individuals and organisations eager to learn more about the impact of the crisis (see www.genderanddevelopment.org). Many of the articles included here emerged from papers and discussions at the learning event.

2. This refers to the consensus amongst the Washington-based institutions (including the World Bank, the IMF, the US treasury and allied think tanks in the 1990s which insisted that the basic tenets of economic policy for developing countries should be liberalization of international trade and investment, privatisation of state owned enterprises and deregulation of the private sector both in the domestic economy and internationally (Williamson 1990).

3. Diane Elson's sentinel monitoring method is discussed in the last issue of Gender & Development (Vol 18 No 1), pp. 143–5.

4. Conditional cash transfers (CCTs) are anti-poverty measures which are directed at mothers, in the main. Receipt of the transfer payment is made conditional on ensuring school attendance and health care for children, or participating in community health programmes or adult literacy classes. Unconditional cash transfers are payments such as old age pensions or basic income stipends, which are targeted at specific vulnerable groups. See Devereux, S. 2006.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ruth Pearson

Ruth Pearson is Professor of International Development in the School of Politics and International Studies at the University of Leeds