Gender-specific strategies have become very popular in efforts to achieve the sustainable alleviation of rural poverty in Africa. However, there is growing concern that this strategy is based upon weak conceptual grounds. Based on insights gleaned from years of involvement with women-only development projects in Nigeria, the authors highlight some key conceptual challenges to this strategy and argue that unless these are overcome, these pitfalls will eventually consign Nigeria's gender-specific poverty alleviation strategy to the graveyard of disused development paradigms.
