Gender equality in Conditional Cash Transfer designs:

Just as democracy, rule of law and good governance have become part of the development agenda for international and national institutions, so too have a set of ideas, norms and policies about women’s rights and gender equality. Development communities have recognized gender equality as a cornerstone for development and social progress. Nonetheless, literatures on gender and development and on gender and social policies have stressed the limitations and the transformations of gender equality goals when these are integrated into institutions and public policies. Through gender mainstreaming or so-called gender-sensitive public policies, gender equality has lost its radical, historical and structural features claimed by feminist activists. This book analyses the design of Conditional Cash Transfers (CCT) as they travelled around Latin America and through a key international institution as a case study through which to understand how and why gender equality goals can change as they become institutionalized in social policy. Nora Nagels is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Université de Québec à Montréal (UQAM).