ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how women have been incorporated into development policy in Latin America in recent decades with particular reference to Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programmes, which have increasingly been targeted to, and through, female beneficiaries. Drawing on existing data and case study evidence, our discussion critically examines the ‘engendering’ of development policy and the feminization of poverty-reduction programmes, and their success (or otherwise) in helping to forge pathways out of poverty for women and girls. Given mixed outcomes in respect of alleviating gender-differentiated burdens of income and asset poverty, we highlight a number of shortfalls and exclusions. In particular we argue that anti-poverty efforts targeting women have been more efficiency- than equality-driven, and in many cases have done relatively little to address gendered rights and responsibilities within households and communities. The delivery of economic resources through women does not seem to have redressed persistent gendered disparities in time, voice, mobility, or security, let alone income poverty.
