Gender Analysis in Development

The distinction comes from Caroline Moser, building on Maxine Molyneux's interests. Practical gender needs arise from women's existing socially assigned roles and can be met without altering the gender division of labour — for example, a closer water source, healthcare, or income within current activities. Strategic gender needs arise from women's subordinate position and, when met, change the relations of power between women and men — for example, land and property rights, equal participation in decision-making, control over their own bodies, and freedom from violence. Meeting practical needs improves conditions; meeting strategic needs transforms position.

The Harvard Analytical Framework is one specific, well-known tool, centred on an Activity Profile and an Access-and-Control Profile, designed to demonstrate the efficiency case for involving women in development. This broader gender-analysis approach is comparative: it draws on the Harvard tool alongside Moser's gender-planning framework, Kabeer's Social Relations Approach, the Women's Empowerment framework, and others, choosing among them according to whether the question is about roles, needs, institutions, or empowerment. The Harvard framework is thus a component within, rather than a substitute for, the wider family of gender-analysis frameworks.

Access is the opportunity to use a resource — to work a plot of land, take part in training, or use a tool. Control is the power to make decisions about that resource and to determine the use and disposal of the benefits it produces. The distinction is central to gender analysis because women frequently have access to resources, including those they work, without control over them: a woman may cultivate land and sell produce yet not decide what is grown or keep the income. Effective interventions must address control, not access alone.