Opportunities for the Poor, Co‐responsibilities for Women: Female Capabilities and Vulnerability in Human Development Policy and Practice

This paper looks at a particular type of anti‐poverty aid and its implications for gender inequality. The development model underpinning the Mexican Oportunidades Programme, a ‘flagship’ in Latin America, focuses on the reduction of inter‐generational poverty through transfers conditioned on ‘co‐responsibilities’ fulfilled especially by mothers and aimed at strengthening the human capital of household members. Through a consultant‐insider narrative on the tension between this policy model and the actual lives of beneficiaries, the paper scrutinizes the delivery of the Programme in the light of the capabilities approach. Some case studies are then examined within this framework, assessing the position of women in each case by reviewing the state of their capabilities and resources. This exercise reveals social relationships obscured by the Programme’s representations and assumptions of gender roles within families, pointing to a significant failure to address women’s own needs by development schemes aimed at poverty rather than at inequality.