An Analysis of Gender, Power, and Knowledge in Nigerian Development Practice

Development practice in Nigeria is constituted through knowledge systems and power relations that are profoundly gendered, shaping whose expertise counts, whose development priorities are heard, and whose bodies bear the costs of development interventions. This study analyses the intersection of gender, power, and knowledge in Nigerian development practice, examining international development organisations, government ministries, and civil society organisations operating across the country. A critical feminist post-structural paradigm underpins a qualitative design employing 65 ethnographic interviews with development practitioners, beneficiary women, and gender specialists, documentary analysis of 40 development programme frameworks, and participatory knowledge mapping with 80 women from four zones. Feminist post-development theory, power cube analysis, and critical knowledge studies guided the analytical framework. Findings reveal that development knowledge in Nigeria is produced disproportionately by internationally trained experts deploying universalist frameworks, sidelining locally produced feminist knowledge from community women's organisations and indigenous scholars. Development organisations' internal cultures are shown to reproduce gender hierarchies even while advocating gender equality externally, with women concentrated in programme delivery roles while strategy and funding decisions remain male-dominated. An original Gender-Power-Knowledge Critique of Nigerian Development (GPKND) framework is developed that provides a systematic tool for analysing gendered knowledge politics in development organisations. Keywords: gender, power, development knowledge, Nigeria, feminist critique