Exploring the connections: Structural adjustment, gender and the environment

Abstract Focusing on specific agricultural policies carried out under structural adjustment programs in sub-Saharan Africa, this paper examines, at the conceptual level, how such policies may exacerbate environmental, and specifically soil, deterioration. Drawing on theories of political economy, it is argued that there is sufficient evidence, first, to link increased stress on women farmers who have significant responsibility for management of the land and household reproduction with a tendency towards unsustainable exploitation of the resource base, and, second, to emphasize the urgency of locating the environment and gender centrally in an analysis of the impact of macro-economic policies. In essence, this paper suggests that the implementation of structural adjustment policies frequently increases the emerging contradiction between land use management for agricultural production to ensure survival and the long-term sustainability of the resource base.