| Abstract | Napasath Village is one of the poorest and most remote areas of Thapangthong district,
the focal zone of Savannakhet Province and the country. Being a traditional society
guided by patriarchal ideology, there is inequality in gender roles, relations,
responsibilities and access to resources and decision-making among men and women in
this village.
After the Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing (1995), Lao PDR made strong
political commitments toward rethinking its development efforts from a gender
perspective rather than women in development (WID) approach, the later has tended to
marginalize women as the out come of the last two decades (1975-1995).
The country development strategy strives for continued economic growth, human
resources development and rural development top priorities for poverty eradication.
Hence, most development project focused on household food security, rural
infrastructure, income generation, health, education. The projects tum out some
improvement in economic sphere. However, many projects did not satisfy the need of
social development, especially among the ethnic minority groups. Moreover, women
increased burdens, from the traditional household tasks plus extra income generation and
some community's activities. But their role and position have never been changed from
the subordinant status. Through evaluation, the existing development project provides
mostly the assistance with response to only practical needs. Strategic interests are still
missing from their attention.
This research attempts to carry out a baseline research on gender issues and to increase
potential of bringing gender consideration in to the mainstream of the development
planning at village level in corporation with an NGO (CONCERN)'s project in Napasath
village. At the same time, to take some actions to sensitize CONCERN staff both in head
quarter office and in the district office, provincial and district government counterparts
and some villagers on gender aspects. There is a need for methodology that facilitate
researcher, the project staff, and villagers to fulfill these objectives.
The existing situation of Napasath village suggests the need for improving it. It is felt that
the special attention should be paid to gender division of labour pattern, which mostly do
not relate to any belief system of their family ghost. It just the practice that have been
following in generation by generation and become stereotyped of women's tasks. |