GENDER MAINSTREAMING, COMPETITIVENESS

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GENDER MAINSTREAMING, COMPETITIVENESS GROWTH

• Jane Zhang
• Director, Bureau for Gender Equality
• International Labour Office

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ILOs MANDATE

• To promote the cause of social justice and
  improve the living and working conditions
  everywhere.
• The promotion of equality between women and men
  stands at the centre of the ILOs core mandate.

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DEFINITION GENDER MAINSTREAMING

• The process of assessing the implications for
  women and men of any planned actions, including
  legislation, policies, or programmes, in all
  areas and at all levels. It is a strategy for
  making womens as well as mens concerns and
  experiences an integral dimension of the design,
  implementation, monitoring and evaluation of
  policies and programmes in all political,
  economic and societal spheres so that women and
  men benefit equally, and inequality is not
  perpetuated.
• - ECOSOC Agreed Conclusions(1997)

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ILOs FOUR STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES

• Promote fundamental principles and rights at
  work.
• Create greater employment and income
  opportunities for women and men.
• Enhance the coverage and effectiveness of social
  protection.
• Strengthen social dialogue and tripartism.
• GENDER DEVELOPMENT cross-cutting issues
  in all ILO policies and activities

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DEVELOPMENTS AT THE POLICY LEVEL

• Strong and visible commitment to gender
  mainstreaming and gender equality at the highest
  political level.
• Issuance of a circular, defining the ILO gender
  policy.
• Development and adoption of an Action Plan on
  gender equality and gender mainstreaming.

Promoting gender equality is not only the right
thing to do, it is also the smart thing to
do. - Juan Somavia, International Womens Day,
March 8, 1999
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CIRCULAR

• The Circular spells out the gender policy of the
  International Labour Office.
• Implementation of the policy is the
  responsibility of all ILO staff, at all levels.
  In the first place, the responsibility for its
  successful implementation rests with Senior
  Managers, the Regional Directors and the
  Programme Managers.
• Gender specialists and focal points are catalysts
  throughout the process.

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CIRCULAR

• Action is being taken simultaneously at three
  levels
• SUBSTANCE
• Gender equality will be internalised in all ILOs
  technical work, support and operational
  activities, in order to create new analytical
  frameworks strengthen the knowledge base and
  improve the quality of products, services and
  advocacy.
• All Sectors will apply gender analysis to promote
  gender equality.

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CIRCULAR

• STRUCTURE
• All sectors will develop and strengthen
  institutional arrangements to effectively
  mainstream gender in their work.
• Gender issues will be integrated into new and
  existing mechanisms for programming,
  implementing, monitoring and evaluation.
• Accountability measures will be established
  internally as well as in cooperation with the
  constituents.

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CIRCULAR

• REPRESENTATION
• Within the Organization, a target has been set of
  50 of all professional posts being filled by
  women by 2010 at headquarters and in the regions,
  paying particular attention to the gender balance
  in higher grades and managerial posts.
• Career development opportunities for general
  staff will be improved and specific measures
  taken to create a family friendly environment.
• The ILO must be in the forefront in promoting
  gender equality.

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CIRCULAR

• MAIN ELEMENTS
• Strengthen institutional arrangements.
• Develop and strengthen mechanisms throughout the
  process of design, implementation, monitoring and
  evaluation, and accountability.
• Allocate adequate resources for gender
  mainstreaming.
• Improve and increase staff gender competence.
• Improve gender balance among staff at all levels
  at headquarters and in the field.

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ACTION PLAN ON GENDER EQUALITY AND GENDER
MAINSTREAMING

• Five key elements
• policy statement on gender equality and gender
  mainstreaming
• gender mainstreaming in the structure of the
  Office
• capacity building for gender mainstreaming
• gender mainstreaming in the work of the ILO
• gender sensitive human resource development

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DEVELOPMENTS AT THE INSTITUTIONAL LEVEL

• With restructuring at headquarters (1999), the
  Office of the Special Advisor on Women Workers
  Questions was strengthened and upgraded to the
  Bureau for Gender Equality, reporting directly to
  the Director-General. Its roles and
  responsibilities were redefined.
• Main role of the Gender Bureau
• Advisor
• Catalyst
• Advocacy
• Communicator

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NEW RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE GENDER BUREAU

• Support for the full implementation of a gender
  mainstreaming strategy in all aspects of the
  ILOs work.
• An improved knowledge base on gender equality
  issues.
• Increased visibility of the ILOs contribution to
  gender equality.

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• Gender teams have been set up in each technical
  Sector, responsibly for gender mainstreaming and
  gender specific interventions in their Sector,
  under the guidance of the Executive Director.
• A post of gender coordinator has been created in
  the ILO Turin International Training Centre.

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DEVELOPMENTS AT THE TECHNICAL AND OPERATIONAL
LEVEL

• Guidelines for PB (Programme and Budget)
  proposals cover gender issues.
• Efforts are being made towards the development of
  gender sensitive indicators, manuals, tools,
  check-lists in order to effectively implement the
  gender mainstreaming strategy.
• More resources directed towards competence
  building.
• Examples SES, CRISIS etc

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DEVELOPMENTS AT THE PERSONNEL LEVEL

• Improvements in gender balance at the Directorate
  level.
• Latest figures of women promotions (March 2000)
• 10 to P5
• 6 to D1
• 2 to D2.
• Situation at 31,December 1999 indicates the
  following increase of women at the senior level
  since 31, December 1998.
  of women
• 1.6 in P5
  20.3
• 5.7 in D1
  17.4
• 6.9 in D2
  16.0

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ENHANCED COMMITMENT OF THE GB TO GENDER ISSUES

• GB Session March 2000
• Symposium Promoting Decent Work For Women
• International Labour Conference June 1999
• Ministerial meeting Lets make Gender Equality a
  Reality
• International Labour Conference June 2000
• Information Sharing Session on Beijing5

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FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO POSITIVE CHANGES

• Strong commitment at the highest political level
• Empowering the gender Unit to play a catalytic
  role
• Strengthening the networking on gender issues
• Developing an integrated strategy through a
  participatory approach
• Using positive developments in gender issues
  outside the ILO, as a impetus for the
  implementation of gender mainstreaming

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DIFFICULTIES

• Change of institutional culture is a long process
• Gender mainstreaming is an add on
• Financial and human resource constraints
• No experience in gender-sensitive budgeting,
  monitoring and evaluation
• No quick fix recipes how to tools

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FOLLOW UP TO BEIJING

• Overall objective
• Incorporation of gender equality concerns, in
  particular the relevant conclusions and
  initiatives of Beijing 5 and Copenhagen 5,
  throughout the process of operationalizing decent
  work.

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IMPLEMENTATION

• The thrust of the implementation will be on three
  domains
• KNOWLEDGE BASE
• Developing new analytical frameworks at policy
  and programme levels.
• Generating gender-sensitive data and information.
• Developing gender-sensitive indicators and
  benchmarks.
• Improving monitoring and evaluation tools.
• Collecting lessons learnt and disseminating good
  practices (at the national and international
  level.
• Carrying out inter-sectoral applied research on
  specific gender issues and identifying crucial
  linkages to achieve the four ILO strategic
  objectives and decent work.

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SERVICES

• Assisting the ILO constituents in enhancing their
  capacity to formulate gender-sensitive employment
  policy and strategies at the national level.
• Assisting ILO constituents in setting up
  institutional arrangements and support mechanisms
  for the promotion of gender equality at the
  organizational and national levels.
• Ensuring that all ILO-organized and supported
  meetings, functions and activities are gender
  balanced or make measurable progress in achieving
  gender balance.

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ADVOCACY

• Incorporating gender equality concerns in the
  operationalization of decent work.
• Highlighting gender equality issues in the eight
  InFocus programmes.
• Organizing workshops and seminars to stimulate
  exchanges of ideas within and outside the ILO on
  topics of relevance to gender equality and the
  decent work agenda.