capitalizacion del genro en sdc (resultados taller 2003)

8/8/2019 Capitalizacion Del Genro en SDC (Resultados Taller 2003)

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Workshop on the

Capitalization of Gender in SDC:Learning from Experience


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Workshop on the

Capitalization of Gender in SDC: Learning from Experience15th 19th June 2003

Background

In June 2003 a four day workshop on the Capitalization of Gender in SDC was heldin Fribourg, Switzerland. The workshop was attended by approximately 65participants, made up of SDC staff from Bern and a range of COOFs from Asia,Africa, Latin America, the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe, as well asrepresentatives from partner organisations in Switzerland and partner countries.

The objectives of the workshop were:

To share experience of gender mainstreaming within SDC, and between SDCand its partners.

To capitalise current knowledge on gender mainstreaming in SDC, pullingtogether experience at policy, programme and project levels; in differentsectors and areas of SDC interest; as well as experience at differentmoments in the SDC programme cycle.

To create a network for the dissemination of future experience of gendermainstreaming by SDC and its partners, and

To identify new trends and innovative practices in gender mainstreaming atinternational, regional, national and local levels.

The Workshop

The workshop opened on Sunday evening, 14th June with a Welcome Story byCarol Rusell of Sparknow. She also opened the Monday morning session byfacilitating an exercise in which participants used a story telling technique to become

acquainted with each other, and to share what first made them decide to work ongender issues.

The workshop then proceeded by exploring six themes (see Appendix 1 forProgramme). The selection of themes was made on the basis of the abstractssubmitted by participants. After the presentation of papers, each theme was


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Theme I: Working with men in women focused interventions

The first theme addressed the dilemmas that may arise through working with men inwomen-focused interventions. The theme was addressed through three papers:

Gender mainstreaming: Learning experiences of Rural Health Development Project(RHDP) in the context of community empowerment for health, by Biren PrakashBangdel and Harka B Thapa (RHDP, Nepal)

Institutionalising gender in patriarchal rural communities - Creating spaces throughuncontested domains, by RV Jayapadma (Gram Vikas, Orissa, India)

Gender Mainstreaming in Afghanistan, by Larisa Tahery (SDC Kabul, Afghanistan)

In the group work and plenary discussions which followed the presentations anumber of issues were raised.

One of the general points of discussion was the question Why should we involvemen? The need to involve men was primarily justified on the basis of the following:

ensuring that interventions are not blocked by groups of men who have moreaccess to power a particular issue of concern in view of the observation that inmost societies men still dominate decision-making

recognising that men also need to change in the context of gender relations, evenin women-focused interventions

working with progressive men (called ambassadors in Ecuador) who could putpeer pressure on other men

helping to make sure that men, as well as women, are made more accountable to

society and to their families promoting dialogue between women and men

promoting ownership of the intervention by both women and men

responding to the needs of men, where, in some instances, men also lose outfrom gender gaps, particularly in relation to reproductive activities.

Another issue debated during discussions was the question of whether, in someinstances, it is better not to involve men in women oriented interventions as there is a

danger that men might take over, with the result that womens position is notimproved or even maintained by the intervention. In this context, it was seen asimportant to consult women about either informing or involving men in women-focused interventions.

Of particular concern was that many mixed women/ mens projects fail to challengepower relations for example in micro enterprise interventions which often involve


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a situation analysis, in the form of a differentiated diagnosis, includingunderstanding power relations. It may then become clearer that it may be

necessary to work with women and men together or separately. It was felt thatco-operation staff/partners should have a thorough knowledge of the context, andawareness of men's and women's gender roles, access to and control overresources, and of their different levels of participation. This would help to avoid asituation in which men may automatically assume positions and responsibilitiesthat bestow more power.

a dialogue/consultation with women and men, as appropriate to the context andthe intervention.

a transparent process so that, for example, women know how and why men areinvolved in a women-focused intervention. A context-specific and participatory decision on whether women and/or men

should staff the programme/project, eg as trainers or interviewers.

Theme II: Methods and tools to mainstream gender

The second theme of the workshop addressed the tools and methods needed tomainstream gender and the extent to which these should be integrated with otherprogramming tools. Three papers were presented on this theme:

La prise en compte de la dimension genre dans le Programme de Dveloppement LocalTillabri (CADELT ), Niger". Catherine Timbo (SDC, Niamey, Niger)

Mainstreaming gender in a project: the case of VFFP, Bangladesh. Imran Bhuiyan Muhammadand Alain Cuvelier (SDC, Dhaka, Bangladesh)

Gender mainstreaming in the ECOLAN Project, Ukraine: the experience of a gender diagnosis.Irina Belyavskaya (SDC, Ukraine)

Discussions on this theme during group work and plenary sessions covered anumber of questions. Firstly, the debate covered the extent to which existing PCMmethods can or should be adapted to take on a gender perspective. It was felt thatintegrating gender into existing PCM methods:

needs to be based on differentiated baseline studies to ensure that gender is

integrated from the beginning of the process. would be possible, if gender spectacles are used at each step of the PCM

(planning, monitoring, evaluation) and would be valuable in avoiding havingseparate, marginalised, gender tools

would need to be done in a way that ensures that tools are used to link gender toother aspects of the social context, like ethnicity, class, age etcin urban/rural


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a Gender Audit to assess the extent to which gender has been mainstreamedwithin COOFs and the organisation of their partners

gender budgeting which is still a new tool for SDC and more knowledge andexperience is necessary to assess the possibility of applying it.

Finally, it was noted that for gender to be integrated into mainstream methods andtools used by SDC, and for specific gender tools to be used effectively, there are anumber of requirements. These include the need for:

capacity building for staff expected to use these tools

ownership by all actors (so that tools are not only used by women staff or genderfocal points)

sufficient forward planning, so that gender analysis is not skipped due to timepressure

support and allies, including form internal sources (particularly at managementlevel), external expertise (particularly at the beginning of the process), and amongpartners (policy and community level)

additional resources (if external expertise or specific activities are needed)

demystification of tools and their use, without de-politicising or simplifying genderissues

flexibility, as it was felt that as gender relates to power relations, mainstreaminggender means being ready to change the objectives, approaches and tools of anintervention as necessary.

Theme III: Challenging social relations

This theme addressed the extent to which development co-operation can challengecross cutting social relations such as gender, caste and class. Two papers werepresented which illustrated this theme:

Mainstreaming Gender through legal Intervention (Navsarjan's Experience). Manjula Pradeep(Navsarjan, India)

Burkina Faso - tmoignages de femmes sur lalpha: formation dans des relations de genre.Boly Koumba (Alpha, Burkina Faso)

This theme was discussed in a plenary session which encompassed a number ofissues. Firstly, it was noted that while individual interventions are valuable inchallenging social relations, social change requires collective action on a wider scale.Therefore there is a need for individual interventions to be complemented byactivities aimed at enabling conditions for example supporting policy or legal


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given that as women and men, our identities are simultaneous and inter-linked. Inthis light it was argued that multiple identities need to be confronted by any

intervention and entry points for gender can be through other specific identities (suchas caste in India).

One related concern in challenging social relations was that, as social relations donot change quickly and require inputs over long periods, the scope of typical SDCprogrammes of 2-3 years to effect change is limited. This reinforced the need to workwith partners and around supporting enabling conditions to ensure sustainablechange.

One final debate was around the extent to which it is appropriate to foster changeand challenge traditional social relations especially where such challenges may beviewed as natural, or western, or an imposition from outside. This assumptionswere countered by arguments that social relations are socially-constructed (notnatural), that what is traditional is not automatically good, since it usuallyrepresents the interests of particular, rather than all, groups in a society. In this veinit was also pointed out that in most cases (as was illustrated by many of the papersand examples presented at the workshop) that there are significant local pressuregroups and impetus to challenge social and gender inequalities. Furthermore, it wasstressed that, while change must come from within, development co-operation canhave an important role as a catalyst. Thus there is a need for the SDC not to holdback and to take a clear position on issues of gender and social equality.

Theme IV: Assessing change in gender relations

The fourth theme concerned how best to monitor or assess changes in genderrelations and equality between women and men. This theme opened with thepresentation of three papers:

Construction d'indicateurs qualitatifs genre dans le cadre du monitoring des programmes de laCooperation Suisse au Mali.Dicko Abdel Kader (SDC, Bamako, Mali) and Adama Moussa

La equidad de gnero ya es una realidad? Hasta que punto?Lecciones aprendidas en el Ecuador . (Is gender equality a reality? To what extent? Lessons

Learnt in Ecuador)

Holger Tausch (SDC, Quito, Ecuador)

Gains, setbacks and challenges in achieving gender equality in post-apartheid South Africa.

Nomfundo Mbuli (SDC, Pretoria, South Africa)

A number of issues were raised during group work and a plenary session on thistheme.


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using both quantitative and qualitative approaches to ensure that deeperprocesses of change can be revealed (eg women and mens roles and relations

in decision-making, or changes in status), as well as more direct measures ofchange that can be reflected numerically (eg gender balance in staff)

employing both gender and gendered monitoring (i.e. monitoring the extent towhich gender is mainstreamed as well as monitoring all interventions in a waythat reveals the different impacts and results for women and men). This couldinvolve the use of a range specific gender monitoring tools such as specificstudies on gender relations, or trend analysis to assess changes in SDCinterventions

ensuring that monitoring gives voice to the full range of groups of women andmen who should be reached by SDC interventions (eg in India the importance ofconsultation with Dalits and other marginalised groups was stressed)

ensuring that monitoring is ethical, in that the subjects of research are fullyinformed and not put in a position of conflict with other groups (eg otherhousehold or community members) as a result of the data collected from selectedhousehold and community members

distinguishing between cause and effect in attempts to identify changes in gender

relations.

The discussion also addressed the various levels at which changes in genderrelations should be assessed, ranging from monitoring of specific projects up tomonitoring the national and regional context more broadly. It was noted that primarydata collection for national context monitoring is outside the scope of most SDCCOOFs to cover in any great depth. In this vein, another question raised was whoshould be involved in monitoring and the importance of linking with other donors,national departments, especially for national level context monitoring which mightotherwise be outside the scope of COOFs to undertake.

Finally the discussion addressed how the findings of monitoring should best be used.It was agreed that key activities include: steering specific interventions

dialogue with partners, and

lobbying government (and it was noted that SDC may be particularly influential insome countries where programmes are significant, eg Burkina Faso, Chad).

It was noted that, in order to further these uses of monitoring data, there may be aneed for building the capacity of SDC and partner staff in lobbying, and alsodeveloping strategies for working with the media for the effective dissemination offindings and raising awareness.


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Frosina Georgievska (SDC, Skopje, Macedonia)

The discussions around this theme covered a wide range of issues. One areaaddressed was the need to work effectively with and raise the commitment ofpartners. It was stressed that, to mainstream gender at country level, the SDCCOOFs need to ensure that they share common goals and values on gender withlocal and Swiss partners. It was therefore noted that:

the selection of appropriate partners is key, and that when partners are selectedon the basis of their competencies, gender should be included.

in working with Swiss partners such as SECO, SDC staff can draw on the Swiss

legal framework around gender equality in selecting partners, the SDC must make it clear to them that gender analysis

and other gender tools, as appropriate, is seen as a key input to the quality ofwork in SDC.

the use of specific examples of good practice, rather than general principles, canbe very important in raising the awareness and commitment of partners.

there is a need to be creative in finding entry points with partners to sell gender.

Another discussion was around the extent to which staff in COOFs can balanceaddressing gender issues with their other mandates. This was related to the questionof whether dealing with gender issues makes their work more complex, or makes itmore effective by linking actions to the realities of women and men. In this light it wasargued that, as there are already heavy work burdens in COOFs there is a need tointegrate gender into other work and not add it on as an extra separate task, and thatgender principles should therefore be internalised by all staff. On the other hand itwas noted that to mainstream gender in this manner, there may be a need forspecific gender activities which would require an additional input of staff time and

other resources initially, and thus there needs to be commitment to making resourcesavailable for these activities.

One other discussion raised was the issue of gender fatigue, which someparticipants felt was occurring amongst staff and partners due to the over-use ofgender terminology. It was countered by others who argued that if people are gettingtired of such a fundamental issue relating to equality there is a serious problem, andthat this might reflect resistance rather than fatigue. Others pointed out that we

rarely hear about, for example poverty fatigue! In this vein it was also argued thatperhaps sometimes the problem is use of gender terminology without the backup ofdifferentiated research or analysis.

Theme VI: Gender mainstreaming in sector programmes


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During the plenary discussion which followed, a number of issues were raised aroundthis topic. Firstly it was noted that there might be resistance to taking on gender

issues from sector experts because they fear losing power/ control of interventions intheir field. Another issue raised was that there is often the problem that genderactivities are dealt with separately from the main activities in sectoral interventions(eg gender assessments or evaluations will be separated from the main baselineassessments/ evaluations). A linked problem is that gender is often taken on inactivities too late, for example, after the Terms of Reference have already beendrafted.

In this light it was argued that it is vital to ensure that sectoral staff take responsibilityfor gender issues and work effectively with gender specialists. To this end it wassuggested that it is important to

share experiences of gender good practice per sector

conduct sectoral gender training to overcome this through practicalexperiences, not just theoretical inputs.

work through interdisciplinary groups (including gender expertise) on sectoralinterventions.

develop and use fact sheets per sector as in the Bridge Cutting Edge packsintroduced later in the workshop.

develop resource lists of consultants per sector, at the country level, includinggender capabilities.

Gender networking in the SDC

The discussions on the SDCs experiences in mainstreaming gender, coveredthrough the six themes outline above, was followed by a series of inputs designed toexplore the possibilities for developing a network, or series of networks, for SDC staffand partners to share experiences, resources and mutual support in addressinggender issues.

This phase of the workshop opened with three presentations by :

Manuel Flury (Thematic Service Knowledge and Research, SDC) on Knowledge Management:Information and Documentation.

Charlotte Sever and Susan Jolly (of BRIDGE, UK) on the Cutting Edge Packs, which are aseries of resource packs on gender and a range of sectors, and

Venceslava Yanchovska and Peter Tsakov (SDC, Sofia) on Networking: How to keep up theexchange? SEE Regional Gender Network - findings and experience so far This presentation


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Conclusions of the workshop

The workshop concluded with a summary prepared by participants from each of theregions represented at the workshop and the DPU facilitation team. The conclusionwas based on the comments made by participants on the Challenge Board. TheChallenge Board was a pinboard organised as a matrix, with the SDC regions listedalong the top and levels of intervention (work at the local level, or with Nationalpartners, with Swiss and International Partners and HQ) down the side. At any pointthrough the first three days of the workshop, participants from each of the regionswere asked to put their comments relating to the challenges they face in gendermainstreaming, on cards and place them at the appropriate place on the board (seeAppendix 2 for final version of the Challenge Board).

The conclusion was organised in the form of an institutional map of gendermainstreaming in the SDC, using a tool called the Web of Institutionalisation2 (seeAppendix 3). The Web summarises the challenges faced by the SDC inmainstreaming gender in four main spheres: the sphere of policy, the organisationalstructure of SDC, the sphere of delivery of programmes and projects, and the sphere

of citizens, or the men and women targeted by the SDCs interventions.

At the level ofpolicy, participants felt a range of challenges were faced by the SDCin mainstreaming gender. Firstly it was felt that the SDC needs to develop a clearpolitical commitment to promoting the equal participation and decision-making rolesof women and men, and furthermore that SDC need to state this position clearly andcommunicate it to their partners as a basis for negotiating common values. It was feltthat these values should be linked to policy dialogue to influence national policies on

gender, as well as support to organisations promoting gender equality. It was also feltthat SDC needs to do as they say by, for example, implementing internal genderequality policies to support staffs work/family balance at COOF level.

Furthermore, in order to best implement their gender policy, it was also felt that, giventhat much work is already being done on gender by national partners and otherbilateral agencies in partner countries, SDC should work to identify niches to work ongender which draw on their comparative advantages.

A range of challenges were also identified by participants which related to the SDCas an organisation. One of the key challenges identified here was the need toensure that all staff take responsibility for promoting gender equality. Procedureswere seen as crucial to back this up on a day to day basis (for example HQ-ledmechanisms to ensure gender in Country Programmes, the requirement to integrategender into specific and other indicators including gender capacity as a criteria for


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Another area identified is the need for clarification of various organisational

mechanisms for communication and support on gender issues, for example howCOOFs can request support from HQ on gender issues or the need to clarifyresponsibility for gender monitoring at different levels.

One final set of organisational challenges identified was the need for continuedcapacity building and human resources for gender. These included specific supportsuch as capacity building for local partners, involving more men in gender atHQ/COOF/PP, and hiring more women for strategic posts (although it was noted thatmore women does not necessarily mean more gender).

In the delivery of programmes and projects it was felt that SDC also needs to rise to anumber of challenges. One of the main challenges is ensuring that the situationalanalysis for projects provides sufficient basis to make strategic choices about whetherto work with women and/or men. Another is to ensure that, given the complexity ofsocial identities of men and women reached by SDC interventions, programmes shouldrecognize the indivisibility of rights rather than focusing on only some social oreconomic rights.

In terms of learning from the delivery of interventions it was felt that the SDC needs tobuild on their capitalisation of gender experience both at the regional and COOF levels.This, it was felt, would be an important step towards demystifying gender bycommunicating practical examples of how gender can be addressed.

Some of main challenges identified in working with citizens, or the men and womenthat SDC reaches through its interventions, are for the SDC and Swiss partners to

ensure that they have a deep knowledge of the local context in which they work, and toundertake differentiated diagnosis as a baseline for any intervention to distinguish theroles and needs of all relevant groups of women and men. However it was stressedthat there is a need for ethics in the collection and use of this type of information ongender.

Furthermore, while this deeper understanding of gender and social relations at thelocal level was seen as key for designing effective interventions which can promote

equality, it was also stressed that sustainability can only be achieved if changes comefrom women and men themselves. This implies that SDC needs to develop their roleas a catalyst for change, supporting local women and men.

Finally, it was pointed out that each element in the web of institutionalization has bothproblems and opportunities attached to them. In any particular context it is possible toidentif ro tes thro gh the eb hich represent strategies to address partic lar


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APPENDIX 1

WORKSHOP PROGRAMME

Sunday, 15 June

16.00 Welcome17.00 Introduction to Workshop

Programme PresentationWelcome Story, Carol Rusell (Sparknow)

19.30 Dinner

Monday, 16 June

8.30 Story Telling GroupsFacilitated by Carol Rusell (Sparknow)

10.00 Coffee/tea10.30 Story Telling continued11.30 Plenary

12.30 Lunch

THEME I: WORKING WITH MEN IN WOMEN-FOCUSED INTERVENTIONS

14.00 Gender mainstreaming: Learning experiences of Rural Health Development Project(RHDP) in the context of community empowerment for healthBiren Prakash Bangdel and Harka B Thapa (RHDP, Nepal)

14.20 Institutionalising gender in patriarchal rural communities - Creating spaces throughuncontested domainsRV Jayapadma (Gram Vikas, Orissa, India)

14.40 Gender Mainstreaming in AfghanistanLarisa Tahery (SDC Kabul, Afghanistan)

15.00 Questions in Plenary15.30 Coffee/tea16.00 Group Work17.00 Report Back in Plenary17.30 Lessons Learnt18.00 Close19.00 Dinner


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Tuesday, 17 June

THEME II: METHODS AND TOOLS TO MAINSTREAM GENDER

8.30 La prise en compte de la dimension genre dans le Programme de DveloppementLocal Tillabri (CADELT ), Niger"Catherine Timbo (SDC, Niamey, Niger)

8.50 Mainstreaming gender in a project: the case of VFFP, BangladeshImran Bhuiyan Muhammad (SDC, Dhaka, Bangladesh)

9.10 Gender mainstreaming in the ECOLAN Project, Ukraine: the experience of a genderdiagnosisIrina Belyavskaya ( SDC, Kyiv, Ukraine)

9.30 Questions in Plenary10.00 Coffee/tea10.30 Group Work11.30 Report Back in Plenary12.00 Lesson Learnt12.30 Lunch

14.00 Excursion18.30 Dinner

THEME III: CHALLENGING SOCIAL RELATIONS

20.00 Mainstreaming Gender through legal Intervention (Navsarjan's Experience)Manjula Pradeep (Navsarjan, India)

20.20 Burkina Faso - tmoignages de femmes sur lalpha: formation dans des relations degenreBoly Koumba (Alpha, Burkina Faso)

20.40 Questions and Discussion in Plenary22.00 Close

Wednesday, 18 June

THEME IV: ASSESSING CHANGE IN GENDER RELATIONS

8.30 Construction d'indicateurs qualitatifs genre dans le cadre du monitoring desprogrammes de la Cooperation Suisse au Mali.Dicko Abdel Kader (SDC, Bamako, Mali)


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10.30 Group Work11.30 Report Back in Plenary12.00 Lesson Learnt12.30 Lunch

THEME V: GENDER AS A TRANSVERSAL AT COUNTRY LEVEL

14.00 Advances and limitations of the Bolivian SDC gender strategyJorge Blajos (PROINPA Foundation, Bolivia)

14.20 Mainstreaming gender in the Macedonia country programme: experience andchallengesFrosina Georgievska (SDC, Skopje, Macedonia)

14.40 Questions in Plenary15.00 Coffee/tea15.30 Group Work16.30 Report Back in Plenary17.00 Lessons Learnt17.30 Close19.0 Dinner

THEME VI: GENDER MAINSTREAMING IN SECTOR PROGRAMMES

20.30 Gender-oriented Entrepreneurship Promotion - Strategies and tools for use during theproject cycleIsabel Perich, SDC, Switzerland

20.50 ender and HIV/AidsClaudia Kessler and Sandra Bernasconi (SDC)

21.10 Questions and Discussion in Plenary

22.00 Close

Thursday, 19 June

8.30 Conclusions10.00 Coffee/tea10.30 Knowledge Management: Information and Documentation

Manuel Flury (Thematic Service Knowledge and Research, SDC) and

PaulCorney (Sparknow)

Cutting Edge PacksSusan Jolly (BRIDGE, UK)

12.30 Lunch14 00 Networking: How to keep up the exchange?


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