What is Gender Mainstreaming? And How Do You Do It? Prepared by Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh, for UNDP Belarus Gender Mainstreaming Training October 10-11, 2005

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What is Gender Mainstreaming?And How Do You Do
It?Prepared by Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh, for UNDP
BelarusGender Mainstreaming TrainingOctober
10-11, 2005
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Exercise What is your development problem?
PROBLEM PROBLEM SOLUTION SOLUTION
Effect on Women Effect on Men Input by women Input by men
X
Y
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Very simple

• Make sure the people are disaggregated
  sufficiently to gain each from the revolution
• As Agents Do they participate?
• As beneficiaries Do they gain?
• If not, WHY NOT?

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What it is not

• Evaluate projects not only on the impact they
  have on the people/community/society/state, but
  also, to how best they involve people into the
  decision making process of the project.
• In mainstreaming gender, we should not limit
  ourselves to looking at some indicators that
  measure how many women participate in the project
  (as numbers that participated, or beneficiaries,
  etc.,), or to ensure that the project did not
  impact negatively (discriminate) against women,
  but also, to what extend the project itself
  addressed the need, if any, to restore gender
  balance in that sphere.

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How in Principle?

1. Knowing the differences from the beginning
2. Having different targets
3. If necessary, a bit of a push for the one that is
   left behind. Affirmative action
4. Institutionalizing it by addressing
   discrimination that may hamper their long term
   partnership in the revolution

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It does have requirements

• As comprehensive strategy, it addresses the
  environment (corporate, office) in which policies
  and programmes are developed and implemented.
• Working environment is gender-sensitive,
  guaranteeing equal opportunities and treatment to
  both men and women.
• Sufficient technical capacity and human resources
  there to successfully implement gender
  mainstreaming

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• Step by Step Approach

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1) What is the issue?

• What is the subject of your project or
  policy-making initiative? What is the question
  behind the question
• Does this issue affect men and women in different
  ways?

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2) What is the Goal? What do we want to achieve?

• Does the goal pay attention to both men and
  women?
• If men and women have different needs, then the
  goal should be to meet both the needs of women
  and the needs of men.
• If men or women are disadvantaged in the given
  situation, then the policy goal should seek to
  redress this imbalance.
• These goals are thus corrective they are about
  meeting the practical needs of both men and
  women.
• Does the goal include a broader commitment to
  improving gender equality? Or balancing
  gender?
• Perhaps elements of the institutions, structures
  or underlying principles that contextualize the
  issue fundamentally hinder de facto equality
  between men and women. If so, the goal should be
  broadened to address these elements as well.
  These goals are thus transformative they are
  about transforming institutions and structures
  (social, political, economic, cultural, etc.) so
  that full gender equality can be more readily
  achieved. (strategic)

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3) What do we know? Gender Mapping

• Sectoral or Policy Issues ?.Gender Questions
  ?What Do You Know?
• Indicators(quantitative and qualitative)
• Research Reports
• Govt. Programme
• Govt. Policy/LegislationNGO Projects
• Donors activities

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Gender Sensitive Statistics

• Needed to
• raise consciousness, persuade policy makers,
  promote change
• stimulate ideas for change
• monitor and evaluate policies
• Types of Sources of Data
• Household budget surveys
• Population Census
• Time-Use Surveys
• Official Surveys
• Gender statistics are scarce for
• Male fertility
• school absenteeism/drop out rates
• access to credit
• Informal Sector
• Unpaid Work
• Time use
• Domestic Violence
• Decision Making in the household
• Resource Allocation within household

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Analyze data

• Press for statisticians to give desegregated
  data, studies on time usage, and time budgeting.
• Know key questions to ask about the Economy in a
  gender analysis, such as
• Who owns what, Who gets what?, Who does what?,
  How?, Who decides what? For whom?
• Then analyze gender relations in key
  institutions State, Household, Market, Firms.
  Question ownership of property.

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5) Beware of Assumptions when designing

• -gt That participation in projects will of itself
  ensure that women will gain, when in reality it
  depends on the type of participation and the
  terms on which it takes place
• -gt Women as an untapped pool of labour that can
  be drawn upon, despite their numerous other
  commitments
• -gt The tendency to treat women as a homogeneous
  group, ignoring the important differences between
  them
• -gtThe simplistic assumption that women's
  interests, and those of men are necessarily the
  same.

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6) Design true human development interventions

• Integrate that knowledge into
• Design
• Implementation
• Monitoring
• Impact Assessment

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• Sectors

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Questions for Mainstreaming

• What is the Issue? how and why these trends and
  issues are in fact gender issues.
• What is the Goal? While goals exist at many
  levels, attention here is focused on the policy
  goal i.e. what policy makers should be striving
  to achieve.
• Why Bother? Arguing gender as a case of equity,
  efficiency, etc
• Measuring Progress indicators that could be
  used to measure progress towards your policy
  goals.
• Possible Interventions and Entry Points Every
  situation is unique but s suggestions are meant
  to stimulate your own ideas. Identify
  Interventions by the Govenrment, NGOs, donors,
  other stakeholders.

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Poverty

• Concepts
• Studying Poverty
• Who is poor?
• Why are the poor poor? (Structural issues,
  shocks, etc)
• How poverty affects men and women differently
• How coping mechanisms are different
• Developing indicators

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Economic Opportunities Vulnerability and
Opportunity

• Is there equity in access to resources? Land
  ownership, income (wages), access to credit?
• Who dominates in the participation in the shadow
  economy?
• Who controls the informal market (production?
  Trade? Global/regional trade?)
• How equitable has the process of privatization
  been by policy/law?
• How, in practice, have men and women participated
  differently in the process of privatization?
• What has been the gender question in the impact
  of privatization?
• In general, can we say who is the most affected
  by unemployment?
• Is there a differentiated wage system? Practice?
• Is the Occupation Market segregated?
• Is there a gender issue in the restructuring of
  these fields?
• Who has been most affected by migration? What is
  the impact of migration?

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Interventions

• What should be a good disaggregated, targeted
  policy to alleviate poverty?
• Macro-Economic
• Poverty Eradication strategies PRSPs
• Social fund
• Micro credits
• Income Generation Objective should be not to
  create more income, but allow for participation,
  equity, productivity, empowerment,
  sustainability, etc. For that, other enabling
  environments become key, such as linkages to
  networks, legislation, tax policies,
  kindergartens, etc.

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Poverty

• Women face a higher risk of poverty than men.
  Discrimination against women in social practices
  and law result in their over-representation among
  the poor. As a result of their subordinate
  position, women also face greater difficulties
  than men in surviving and overcoming poverty. In
  addition, responsibilities assigned to women for
  care of children and other family members mean
  that the experience of poverty is different for
  women than men. This means that
• Poverty reduction strategies must take account of
  differences between women and men in resources
  and opportunities, and include measures to
  address the factors that particularly constrain
  women. Poverty reduction initiatives that do not
  pay specific attention to the situation of women
  will not necessarily reach or benefit women.
• Longer-term strategies for womens empowerment
  (including removal of the factors that
  particularly constrain women) are essential for
  poverty elimination.
• The eradication of poverty cannot be achieved
  through anti-poverty programmes alone but will
  require democratic participation and changes in
  economic structures in order to ensure access for
  all women to resources, opportunities and public
  services. The need for gender perspectives in
  formulating policies on macroeconomic stability,
  structural adjustment, external debt, taxation,
  employment and labour markets all these affect
  the conditions under which women and men work,
  and all must be examined to ensure that they have
  an equitable impact on women and men.

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Poverty Reduction

• Women are frequently more severely affected by
  extreme poverty as they must allocate increasing
  amounts of time to ensuring household survival
  while continuing to be involved in economically
  productive activities.
• There is also increasing awareness that
  conventional survey methods do not adequately
  capture the gender dimensions of poverty and that
  they must be combined with participatory
  evaluation methods
• Dramatic progress has been made in increasing the
  access of women entrepreneurs and women's
  community organizations to finance and technical
  support services. Credit has proved one of the
  most effective ways to increase women's economic
  productivity and empowerment, and the repayment
  and loan utilization rate for women is frequently
  much higher than for men.
• There are still major challenges to ensure the
  sustainability of these programs and to improve
  the performance of public sector micro-credit
  programs

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Macro-Economic

• What issues
• Privatization
• Liberalization
• Fiscal Policies
• Investments
• Inflation
• Trade
• Land reforms
• New Technologies
• Banking sectors
• Safety nets
• ALL HAVE GENDER DIFFERENTIAL IMPACT HOW IT
  IMPACTS MEN AND WOMEN, AND HOW IT IMPACTS THEIR
  RELATIONSHIP

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Macro-Economics

• Is there a gender issue in macro-Economic
  planning?
• Shouldnt the overall goal of structural
  adjustment policies and practices be to eradicate
  social inequalities, particularly but not
  exclusively those based on gender?
• Is the budget segregated to account for the
  gender differences both in numbers and in needs?
• Should it be?
• Do you think unpaid labor (reproductive labor)
  has a direct impact on the productive labor in
  Armenia?
• Do you think the unpaid labor should be accounted
  for in the GNP?
• Will there be an impact in the overall economic
  indicators of the country?

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What to do?

• What to do
• Studies on impact
• Social safety nets
• Emphasis on human cost of macro-economic changes
  for UNDP
• In linkage with HD mandate
• Sets different role than IFIs
• Render much needed advise

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Does Decentralization increase womens
Representation and Participation?

• Governance Process is not gender-neutral
• Fallacies of Decentralization and Gender (That it
  increases grassroots (and womens)
  representation.
• that centers of local power automatically allow
  for the participation of marginalized groups, or
  ensure their representation.
• That womens interest, needs, perspectives and
  demands are in fact equal to that of men within
  the community
• That the process by which governance decisions
  and actions are taken at the local level
  automatically represent womens interest without
  taking into account the basis of the male-biased
  concept of the process of governance.
• Bad practices of practice of patronage,
• rather than open opportunity, as basis of
  nomination for candidates, for example can leads
  to discrimination.
• Informal contribution of women
• Local elite groups more hostile to marginalized
  groups
• Cost of specific policies versus national decrees
• Such types of top down or outside-in pressure
  is felt in fact, more genuinely than bottom up
  pressure,
• local government officials were more likely to be
  linked to clan politics

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Issue of Gender is an issue of participation

• Instead, the conditions that challenge unequal
  access to participation or ensure representation
  must be examined. These conditions depend on
• the structures of participation in place and new
  ones created
• available resources and competition over them
• control over means of participation
• the nature of local power structures
• The degree of organization and political
  visibility of women locally
• education and functional literacy
• access to information and IT
• decision making within the household
• Stereotypes promoted through the education
  system, the media, etc.
• traditions of mobilization
• 1) The Cost-Cutting theory
• 2) The corruption Theory
• 3) The Social Issues Theory

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What is governance?

• governance refers not only to formal public
  decision-making structures and processes (i.e.
  national and local government), but includes
  decision-making within the family, community and
  private sector as well.
• Mainstreaming addressing the ways in which both
  genders participate in and are affected by
  various systems of governance, as well as the
  interaction between these various systems.

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Issue and Goal

• A gendered analysis of governance immediately
  highlights the issue of participation and
  representation.
• Participation for Equal Ops to develop their
  capabilities
• Representation because not necessarily Common
  Interest
• Goal is therefore twofold
• to ensure balanced participation between men and
  women in national governance, which includes
  removal of structural and systemic barriers to
  womens participation
• to ensure that gender issues are integrated into
  decision-making, implementation, monitoring and
  evaluation of national governance initiatives.

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Why Participation and Representation?

• Justice
• Credibility and Accountability
• Efficiency men elected to executive and
  legislative not familiar. Brain drain.
• Chain Reaction Role models

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How to restore balance

• Critical mass a presence of not less than 30 is
  necessary.
• Capacity Building training and capacity-building
  are essential for both women and men
• National Machinery
• But not dealt with LAWS, DECREES, QUOTAS
• Have to deal with systemic barriers that prevent.

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Participation

• Participation is one area where the gender
  segregation is widening. Political parties and
  the Parliament are mostly men, NGOs and
  associations have outnumbering representation of
  women. All the answers show a variety of methods
  to ensure a more balanced access to the decision
  making process, and most stress the evolutionary
  one, not through quotas etc.
• Public awareness and education of three target
  groups could be part of the Democracy and Good
  Governance Project. These are 1) voters in
  general, about the merits of voting for a more
  balanced representation, 2) women candidates for
  good presentation, advocacy, mass media, etc, and
  3) men and women political leaders on elaboration
  and implementation of gender policy for an
  equitable and efficient society.

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Water Supply and Sanitation

• Women and Men different roles and
  responsibilities in rural areas
• Who does cash generating activities, irrigation,
  cattle
• Who collects, uses and manages water in the
  household?
• Who plays role in disposing of household waste?
• Who educates about hygiene
• Tailoring project design to recognize such
  considerations helps ensure that project
  facilities will be used by both sexes and that
  women's contribution to agricultural production
  and household income can be maximized.

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Health, Nutrition and Population

• Gender issue is clearer, however
• Planning and budget allocations often give
  priority to expensive, modern urban based
  hospitals and health services which are less
  accessible to women (particularly rural women)
  than to men.
• Lack of capacity for training for women medical
  professionals
• Cultural factors continue to maintain inequities
  in access to and use of services and also
  contribute to inequitable allocation of food
  within the household.
• Gender based violence also has important health,
  as well as economic and political, implications.

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Rural Development

• Women farmers currently under-perform due to a
  lack of access to credit, information, extension
  services and markets and because household duties
  and child-care limit the time they have
  available.
• Removing these constraints can significantly
  increase agricultural productivity - particularly
  in regions where women play an increasingly
  important part in farm management and production.
  

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Transport, Energy and Infrastructure

• Route planning frequently constrains women's
  economic productivity by not responding to their
  needs to combine work related travel with travel
  relating to their household responsibilities in
  the fields of education, health and marketing.
• The failure to consider the gender dimensions of
  transport demand imposes high monetary, physical
  and temporal costs on female users. It also
  results in sub-optimal economic and
  time-allocation decisions by the household and
  particularly women.
• Women's access to transportation also determines
  their utilization of existing health, education
  and other services.
• Women's insights can also mitigate negative
  impacts of project design in areas such as the
  impacts on child safety, access to markets,
  women's time-burden etc.
• Finally, increasing women's ownership of projects
  can significantly contribute to maintenance and
  sustainability.

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Environment

• How are women and men impacted differently by the
  environment?
• How do men and women participate differently in
  environment protection practices?
• How are men and women consulted separately on
  environment policies?
• By nature of the different jobs and duties (in
  society, in household) that men and women do, the
  impact of the environment is different on them,
  and men and women, if consulted separately, would
  have different solutions to environment problems
  seen from their angles. This is more felt at the
  community/household level, and to a lesser
  degree at the national level. Projects that work
  on environment policies might want to consider
  that and those that work with communities might
  want to study/monitor this question.
• Here, as in elsewhere, the different gender
  impact and gender participation has implications
  for planning efficiently (both in order not to
  aggravate the situation for one or the other
  gender by mistake, and to use the opportunities
  presented by the different approaches for a more
  realistic and holistic approach.

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• Both women and men have productive roles in
  relation to natural resources, and the (usually
  different) roles of each must be taken into
  account for effective programme design in
  initiatives for environmental sustainability
• Unequal access to assets and resources results in
  insecurity of access to land by women, with
  consequences for their ability to adopt
  environmentally sustainable practices, which has
  implications for policy on land tenure and
  programmes related to agriculture
• women and men are often differently affected by
  environmental degradation because of different
  work patterns and tasks of women and men in both
  the workforce and the household
• Degradation of the environment has specific
  implications for women negative effects on
  income possibilities, health and quality of life.
• Women remain largely absent from formal policy
  formulation and decision-making, even though they
  have taken a leadership role in promoting an
  environmental ethic.

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Education

• Is there a discrepancy in equal opportunity to
  education?
• Is there a difference in access to education,
  higher, lower, urban, rural?
• What is the education occupation segregation? Who
  does what?
• Is the drop-out rate a gender issue?
• What is the impact of the drop-out trends on
  gender relations in the future?
• Is the enrollment rate at higher education
  differentiated?
• Is there an impact on enrollment rates in higher
  education on gender relations in the future?

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• Studies have shown that the economic rate of
  return of investing in girls education is at
  least as high, and usually higher than the return
  on investing in boys education.
• Social returns on girls education (improved
  health and education levels of children, lower
  population growth rates etc.)

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• The introduction of paid education, conscription
  into the army, the involvement of girls/boys into
  family agriculture, etc., would probably mean
  that some families might have to make choices
  between the future education of their boys or
  their girls.
• When women dont have job possibilities, they
  continue higher education, which might explain
  the higher numbers of educated women than men
• However, the spheres of education is also gender
  specific. This means that some professions, in
  the future, will be the domain of men or women
  and that may not be good for efficiency, and the
  different wealth (assets and incomes of men and
  women), etc.

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HEALTH

• Is there a difference in the access to paid
  services?
• Is there a difference in the impact of paid
  health services?
• What is the health occupation segregation? Who
  does what?
• The health sector, especially in terms of
  participation, is a segregated field
• Women seem to be more generalists (low pay, low
  mobility) and men more high tech (more pay, more
  decisions).
• Low pay jobs are more vulnerable to
  restructuring. High tech jobs are more rare in a
  de-professionalized environment.
• In addition, of course, the entire family care
  policy and practice of the government has also
  implications for the growth of healthy
  generations, etc.