DPU Working Paper - No. 48

Author: Leda Maria Vieira Machado

Publication Date: 1992

The process of planning and policy making in Brazil to help raise the standard of living of low-income groups through increased access to services and infrastructure is one which has treated women as an invisible target group whose needs have subsequently failed to be taken into consideration.

If policies and programmes are to reach the poor, without excluding women and children, then there is a need for specific gender interventions in programme planning and policy. This paper examines the extent to which government housing programmes define and reach a particular group of women, i.e. female-headed households. In addition, the effect of programmes which do not take female-headed households into consideration is discussed.

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