Creating Learning Cultures for Gender Mainstreaming

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Creating Learning Cultures for Gender
Mainstreaming

• Carol Amaratunga
• Institute of Population Health
• University of Ottawa, Canada
• Impact Assessment Workshop
• CGIAR CIMMYT, Mexico
• October 20, 2005

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Generating new knowledge by asking new questions

• Why are gender mainstreaming and change
  management frameworks so entwined and so
  important for promoting the Millennium
  Development Goals?
• What are the determinants, indicators, tools, and
  levers of change for fostering dynamic
  agricultural research cultures ?

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Key Questions

• How can applied agricultural research serve as a
  tool for change and social justice?
• How does the process of research, an intervention
  in itself, lead to community empowerment and
  poverty alleviation?
• How does stretching the net wider and linking to
  other sectors e.g. health and HIV/AIDS improve
  agricultural research and production?

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Key Questions

• What difference does a gender based analysis
  approach make in measuring and assessing
  agricultural research impacts?
• Why is it important to situate agricultural
  research and evaluation within a political
  context e.g. the Convention on the Elimination
  of all Forms of Discrimination against Women
  (CEWAW)?
• What are the determinants of viable agriculture
  e.g. healthy populations, access to extension
  services, credit, technical inputs, legal rights
  and land tenure, empowered communities?

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Evaluation and Monitoring

• The fundamental challenge for agricultural
  research evaluation, monitoring, and impact
  assessment, is to identify the right questions
  and secondly, to objectively convey the evidence
  to policy audiences
• In terms of the MDGs, agricultural research is
  not value free - it needs to challenge the status
  quo - poverty, food insecurity, inequity,
  inequality, and social injustice
• The advocacy function is the most difficult
  aspect of knowledge translation (KT) - it
  requires empowerment of both communities and
  researchers alike

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First Some Definitions!Gender versus Sex

• Gender is about the different social, cultural,
  political and economic expectations and roles
  which are assigned to women and men, girls and
  boys
• Sex describes biological differences
• Gender equity (economic equity) and equality
  (entitlements to basic human rights) are
  prerequisites for the of development civil
  society

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Gender or Sex ? A Canadian example -
Grandfather takes care of baby grand daughter
while grandma goes fishing with her friends
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A paradigm shift - new gender sensitive
indicators for agricultural research

• To ensure the participation of disadvantaged
  groups of women and girls, agricultural research
  and extension must take place within a human
  rights framework e.g. the Convention on the
  Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
  against Women (CEDAW)
• Additional theoretical frameworks are also needed
  e.g. theory of gender and power, complexity
  theory, as well as rights based, determinants of
  production, and multisectoral approaches to
  development

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Paradigm Shift

• Agricultural performance indicators should be
  broadened to address not only production but also
  how research addresses social and human rights
  issues e.g. customary laws that are in conflict
  with national and international laws,
  discrimination against women i.e. restrictive
  property ownership and inheritance laws, legal
  limitations, poor access to credit, the need for
  a male signatory on loans to women, basic human
  rights to health, personal safety, and education
  which are often denied to women and girls.

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Gender Based Analysis

• Gender lens tools and gender based analysis
  (GBA) frameworks help to identify gender gaps
  and help planners to identify and measure
  socioeconomic and political differences which
  exist between women and men, girls and boys.
• Gender lens tools help decision makers, planners
  and evaluators to see the world as it really is
  and to recognize systemic barriers to change such
  as gender blind policies and practices.

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Why do we need a Gender Lens Can a blind farmer
find the Thanksgiving Turkey?
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Gender Mainstreaming

• Gender mainstreaming is a policy tool for
  assessing and targeting interventions from an
  equity and equality perspective. It ensures that
  the diverse experiences, needs and assets,
  knowledge and skills, are factored into policy
  and program planning.
• A gender mainstreaming management system (GMMS)
  is a deliberate integrated network designed to
  advance human rights, equity, social and economic
  inclusion for both men and women.

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Mainstreaming Gender-Sensitive Participatory
Approaches Lessons Learned in the CGIARsee
Gurung and Menter, CIAT, PRGA Newsletter, Issue 2
October 2005

• The CGIAR Program on Participatory Research and
  Gender Analysis (PRGA) assesses and develops
  methods and organizational innovations for gender
  sensitive participatory research processes
• The PRGA system promotes the integration of
  gender-sensitive research in agriculture plant
  breeding, crop and natural resource management --
  US 26m, devoted to PRGA approaches in 144
  projects in 16 centers

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Mainstreaming Gender-Sensitive Participatory
Approaches The CIAT Case Studysee Gurung and
Menter, CIAT, 2005- http//ciat-library.ciat.cgia
r.org

• The effectiveness of PRGA approaches is
  constrained however by traditional organizational
  cultures which are primarily driven by technology
• One way, pipeline delivery systems do not address
  the needs and assets of rural farmers
  especially women and girls
• While there is now widespread awareness of gender
  approaches, small farmers are often excluded or
  included too late in the process
• Approaches to encourage gender equitable
  stakeholder participation and feedback often
  remain isolated at the micro project level

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Mainstreaming Gender-Sensitive Participatory
Approaches The CIAT Case Study Continued

• There are limits to the extent to which PRGA
  approaches and lessons learned are currently
  integrated into system wide CGIAR agricultural
  research processes
• PRGA lessons learned are often not scaled up
  or shared across system programs and regions
• Organizational cultures and delivery systems
  promote and reinforce top down, hierarchical
  relationships between researchers and so-called
  end users
• Information flows from scientists to small farmer
  end users -via extension agents in linear and
  often one way processes

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Mainstreaming Multisectoral Approaches

• There is a need for a paradigm shift a
  fundamental shift from traditional pipeline
  delivery of interventions to more social science
  and gender based approaches using a social
  determinants approach and more inclusive
  interactive processes
• Small farmers, including women and girls, should
  be invited to participate and engage in the early
  stages of technology transfer
• Agricultural development needs to recognize and
  address the significant role of traditional
  knowledge in maintaining agricultural
  biodiversity and food security and the
  household should serve as the unit of analysis

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Gender Mainstreaming as a tool for new cultures
of learning

• Gender mainstreaming lessons from the
  Commonwealth Secretariat have demonstrated the
  benefits of multisectoral approaches which
  promote the MDGs through non linear forms of
  consultation, feedback, and citizen engagement,
  partnership and membership.
• New cultures of organizational learning are
  required in the agricultural sector e.g. gender
  sensitive approaches which value community
  empowerment and acknowledge the assets and
  capabilities of producers

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Gender Audits and the MDGs

• Gender audits in Burkina Faso demonstrate that
  disparities in school attendance between girls
  and boys, as well as HIV status, poor health
  status of women and girls, illiteracy, and lack
  of access to credit are the main barriers to the
  full participation of women and girls in
  agricultural development projects
• Gender audits demonstrate the relationship
  between gender inequity, vulnerable populations
  and low levels of agricultural production
  including poor quality of post harvest products
• (see Naila Kabeer, Gender Mainstreaming in
  Poverty Eradication and the Millenium Development
  Goals, Commonwealth Secretariat, 2004)

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Gender Audits and the MDGs

• Gender audits of agricultural projects in Vietnam
  and The Gambia illustrate the interplay among the
  determinants of production the existence of
  female headed households, the absence of girls
  education, poor health services, as well as poor
  soils and climatic conditions all combine to
  contribute to poverty.
• Poor and hungry farm households are largely
  dependent upon the labor of lone mothers and girl
  children.
• See Nabila Kabeer, Commonwealth Secretariat, 2003

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Sharing gender indicators across sectors from
Health to Agriculture

• Good practices demonstrate the extent to which
  womens and girls full participation in society
  is welcomed, promoted and reflected in all
  levels of decision making in the home, farm and
  community
• The degree to which legal instruments protect the
  rights of women to own land, have access to
  credit, and prosecute perpetrators of violence
• The provision of resources for skills training in
  agriculture as well as health literacy and
  education e.g. HIV prevention, care, treatment
  and support, stigma and discrimination

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Gender indicators from health to agriculture

• The extent to which health is valued as a basic
  human right, including the provision of freely
  available and accessible HIV/AIDS antiretroviral
  treatments to women and girls, pregnant women,
  prenatal and perinatal care nutritional
  supplements, safe environments for delivery and
  care of new born infants and mothers
• The extent to which national governments,
  bilateral and multilateral donor technical
  assistance agencies are held accountable for
  commitments adopted at UN General Assembly
  Sessions (UNGASS), CEDAW, etc.

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Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)

• Article 14 specifically addresses rural women
  and the significant role women play in the
  survival and well being of families. Governments
  are required to report, every 4 years on the
  progress they have made to put the convention
  into effect.

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CEDAW

• Article 14 Rural women and girls have the right
  to
• Participate in development planning at all levels
• To have access to adequate health care
  facilities, including information, counseling and
  services, agricultural extension services
• To benefit directly from social security programs

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Indicators from CEDAW

• Article 13b the extent to which women have
  rights to bank loans, mortgages and other forms
  of financial credit
• Article 16h the extent to which women have the
  same rights as men in respect of land and
  household ownership, acquisition, management,
  administration, enjoyment and disposition of
  property

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Multisectoral Responses Social inclusion of
women and girls in post conflict reconstruction

• Representation in parliament and local government
• Constitutional and legislative reform
• Economic empowerment and poverty eradication
• Reconstruction of health and agriculture systems
• Slide credit R. Baksh, ComSec

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Women tend to work in informal peace processes,
but are rarely represented at the official peace
table
Schoolgirls with placards urge peace in Freetown,
Sierra Leone Slide credit R. Baksh,
Commonwealth Secretariat
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Additional lessons learned from the conflict
sector

• Integrated planning and gender mainstreaming
  brings women and girls from the margins to the
  centre of development processes
• A determinants approach addresses the interplay
  among the social, economic, cultural, political,
  and environmental factors which impact
  agricultural production
• Leadership development and the social inclusion
  of women and girls are pre-conditions for change
  - this requires ongoing political will and support

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Some Final Thoughts

• Agricultural planning and evaluation reviews are
  more effective when they incorporate gender
  indicators, a determinants approach, and clear
  measures of citizen engagement and participation
• Strategic approaches in agricultural planning
  must eliminate systemic barriers to gender
  inequity (wage gap and economic status
  disparities) and actively promote equality and
  human rights
• Gender sensitive planning and evaluation
  processes can enable decision makers to target
  resources and interventions to specific audiences
  women and men, girls and boys

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Cause for Cautious Optimism

• Good practice examples from other sectors e.g.
  health and HIV/AIDS, gender and conflict are
  useful in demonstrating that multisectoral
  approaches gender audit guidelines, checklists,
  and interventions are transferable from one
  sector to another
• Organizational cultures and national gender
  mainstreaming strategies which link agriculture,
  health, law, human rights, and education provide
  new opportunities and paradigms for achieving the
  Millennium Development Goals