Gender mainstreaming and participative planning for sustainable land management

Abstract

This contribution outlines the potential of the category of gender in critical analyses of land use policy and the perspectives it offers for the development of conceptual strategies for sustainable land management. It illustrates gender mainstreaming in urban development approaches, thus showing the potential for enhancing the quality of planning and the reduction of land consumption. The paper goes on to discuss the potential for extended and differentiated communication and participation within participative planning support systems. A major point of discussion is the constraints of computing formalisations and the means of developing software systems for planning support systems (PSS) for participative planning approaches.

Keywords:

• gender mainstreaming
• participative planning
• socio-technical instruments

Acknowledgements

The authors are extremely grateful to Harald Heinrichs and Andreas Möller for providing their expertise for this paper.

Notes

1. For a comparison of the implementation of gender mainstreaming strategies, their effectiveness and the obstacles and problems encountered in various German towns, see in particular Bauer et al. (2007).