How Do Current Trends In Development And Volunteering Intersect With Gender?

HOW DO CURRENT TRENDS IN DEVELOPMENT AND VOLUNTEERING INTERSECT WITH GENDER?

What will be covered today? 1.

Highlighting things that are often not seen

How many letter ‘f’s in the following sentence…..

Finished files are the results of years of scientific study combined with the experience of years.

What will be covered today? 1.

Highlighting things that are often not seen

2.

Examining WHY gender equality is important in development

3.

Looking at current trends in development and HOW they intersect with gender

4.

Presenting a snapshot of WHAT is happening in some FORUM organisations

5.

Providing an opportunity to hear and learn from one another

Just to clarify…. Sex and gender

Gender equality NOT that women and men are the same BUT that women and men have the same rights

Gender mainstreaming How would you define it? 

Mainstreaming gender equality is a commitment to ensure that women’s as well as men’s concerns and experiences are integral to the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of all legislation, policies and programmes

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The ultimate aim is to promote equality between women and men

Why is gender equality important in development?

Birth In India, how many girls are thought to be aborted every day? 7000 In 12 days the amount aborted would equal the population of Siem Reap

Time for school 77 million children out of school. About 57% are girls. UNICEF 2006 states that nearly 1 out of every 5 girls who enrol in primary school in developing countries does not complete a primary education. What fraction of the 780 million illiterate people in the world are women? 2/3 (DFID 2007)

Getting married If you were Southern Asian, how many of you would be married before you were 18? Nearly half (48%) Child brides (under 18) are more likely to die younger, suffer from health problems, live in poverty and remain illiterate. Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury and death for women worldwide

Having a baby In the time that we take to do this discussion paper 60 women will have died from complications in birth or pregnancy – 99% in developing countries. Pregnancy-related deaths are the leading cause of mortality for girls aged 15 to 19 worldwide. And who cares for the baby?

Time to earn an income! Women often have to balance their caring roles Not only that… economic participation is not equal. In UK gender equality rated as only 0.69 and lowest was Yemen with 0.25

Feminisation of poverty

The Global Gender Gap Report 2008 World Economic Forum RED = IDEAL BLUE = ACTUAL

Trends in development

Millennium Development Goals (2000)

Paris Declaration (2005) 

Increase aid effectiveness so as to reduce poverty reduction and achieve of MDGs

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Shift from discrete donor funded projects – to harmonised donor support for national policy frameworks – PRSPs, SWAPs, etc BUT

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Gender-blind – no gender equality indicators

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Phase 1 evaluation mentioned gender just once

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Undermines role of civil society organisations

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MUCH more complex organisational context

Recent ODI review in 2008 suggested 3 fundamentals need to be in place if MDGs are to be achieved. What do you think they are?

The fundamentals (ODI 2008) MDG 1 Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger MDG 8 Develop a global partnership for development

MDG 2 Achieve universal primary education

FUNDAMENTALS: •Gender equality MDG 7 Ensure environmental sustainability

MDG 6 Combat HIV/AIDS and other diseases

•Peace and political stability •Sustained economic growth MDG 5 Improve maternal health

MDG 3 Promote gender equality and empower women

MDG 4 Reduce child mortality

MDG 1 Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger MDG 8 Develop a global partnership for development

MDG 2 Achieve universal primary education

Women’s sociocultural empowerment

MDG 7 Ensure environmental sustainability

Women’s psychological empowerment

Women’s economic empowerment

MDG 3 Promote gender equality and empower women

Gender equality and women’s overall empowerment at household, community, market and state levels Women’s physical empowerment

Women’s political empowerment

MDG 6 Combat HIV/AIDS and other diseases

MDG 4 Reduce child mortality MDG 5 Improve maternal health

Women’s psychological empowerment Women’s economic empowerment

Women’s sociocultural empowerment

Gender equality and women’s overall empowerment at household, community, market and state levels

Women’s physical empowerment

Women’s political empowerment

Models of gender mainstreaming:  Inclusion  Reversal  Displacement

Best practice includes….. 

Gender equality within the organisations as well as the programmes

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Everyone - especially top management and also benefits from a champion

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Good systems – what gets measured gets done: sex-disaggregated data, SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-related) targets

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A budget

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Twin track approach: gender mainstreaming + specific intervention

Where do you think the problems lie?

 Policy commitments to gender equality “evaporate”  Attention to gender equality is not systematic  General lack of understanding on what gender

mainstreaming entails

 Initiatives are often too reliant on individual staff  Lack of resources –time, money, staff

The research Who am I? Who did I ask? Who responded? Total: 6 CEOs, 34 staff, 59 volunteers, 3 online volunteers = 102 people 71.6% female, 28.4% male

Research questions 1. Internal practices 2. Programmes 3. Volunteers

1. Internal practices To what extent are volunteering organisations ‘walking the talk’ regarding their internal practices of gender mainstreaming? 1. Gender policy

CCI best practice:      

Short Part of identity – not an add on Part of organisation AND programmes Practical and identifies processes eg monitoring and evaluation, training, partnership agreements Dynamic It passed my acid test!! An action plan was planned to ensure implementation of the policy

2. Gender training

What % staff said they had never received any gender training at their current organisation? 

64.7% What % of staff said that they thought that they were very confident about gender issues?

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8.8% How did 97.1% of staff learn about gender issues?

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Informally through other colleagues.

3. Staff positions  Almost all organisations allowed part-time

staff to hold management posts and had terms and conditions like flexi-time that help caring-roles to be fulfilled.  No clear pattern concerning gender

balance.

Over to you… 1.

What is the point of a gender policy? How can it be kept alive and not in a file once devised? What sort of time – related targets could be used?

2.

What factors are at work keeping women out of management besides issues of child-care?

3.

How can staff keep up-to-date with developments in gender issues? Should it be part of individual CPD or whole organisational learning days?

4.

Which four posts in your organisation hold the most weight? What is the gender balance of those?

2. Programmes a)

What percentage of programmes have women’s empowerment as a definite focus?

b)

Is there a gender analysis at the design stage so that possible impacts on men and women are differentiated?

c)

Are gender-sensitive indicators being used to monitor and evaluate programmes?

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a) Women’s empowerment What % of the programmes across the organisations have women’s empowerment as a primary focus? Some statistics not available but average is 34% of the rest

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What % of the programmes have women’s empowerment as a secondary focus? Some statistics not available, average 50% of the rest

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b) Gender analysis What % of organisations stated that they always did a gender analysis at the design stage of the programmes 50%

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Sometimes? 33.3% Rarely? 16.7%

c) Gender-sensitive indicators 3 organisations suggested a variety of indicators; 2 of the organisations did not give details but said indicators were used; 1 declined to answer. AVI: Economic participation; economic opportunity; political empowerment, educational attainment; and health and well-being (inc focus on safety and freedom from violence). Specific targets relevant to beneficiary community would be identified for each of these headings.

Over to you… 

Given the centrality of women’s empowerment in achieving the MDGs, why does it not seem to have a higher priority? What are the barriers to this being more central?

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What prevents gender analyses always being completed at the design stage of programmes?

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What indicators could be used effectively for the five areas of empowerment: physical, socio-cultural, economic, psychological and political? Would it be helpful or constraining if standardised ones were used throughout development? Give examples of successful indicators.

Volunteers (44 women 15 men) How are the current trends in volunteering intersecting with gender? 1. Work Broad distribution of work: women HIV Communications

Broad distribution of work: men

Arts Education

7%

5%

9%

IT Social work

7%

14%

2%

9%

14%

2% 2%

5% 17%

5% 0% 2%

7%

13%

7%

7%

Human Rights Fundraising Capacity Building Human Resources Not enough detail

Communications Arts Education IT

20%

Social work

Agriculture Organisational Development Library

HIV 7%

Health Engineering

0%

7%

Health 32%

Engineering

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2. Age - 81.8% of women were 40 and under; 80% of men were over 40. Why do you think volunteers chose the time they did? Sex-disaggregate please. A lack of family commitments - 53.3% of women 16.7% of the men Challenge and adventure - 66.7% of men and none of the women Making a contribution - 33.3% of the women and 16.7% of the men 3. What percentages of men and women are in management roles? 60% of men; 13.6% of women 4. Accountability High (5 or 6)? 47.7% of women, 25.7% of the men Low (2 or less)? Over 50% of men, 2.3% of women

5. How many women and men said there were gendersensitive challenges at work? 

59.1% of women and 26.7% of men

An elder male colleague in the same position as me is treated very differently from me and men in the organisation often (unintentionally I believe) refer to me using terminology that I find to be a bit sexist (female, aged 22-30). Even by my female boss, I am often not seen as valuable as male colleagues. I have troubles moving around on my own, need protection and am seen as vulnerable (female, aged 3140). Dealing with inappropriate sexist comments made by males towards women (male, aged 41-50). The issue is how not to exploit the power and authority that comes with being an older foreign male (male, aged 51-60).

6. 52.3% of the women and 26.7% of the men experienced gender-specific challenges in the host community. Being myself, with my own way of being male- like not being interested in football, cars, drinking etc. is sometimes challenging here (male, aged 41-50). I cannot socialise with men on my own - there always has to be other women, therefore I have to always think about who I am with and where we are going to meet. On the other hand, integrating into the female social network is easy and welcoming (female, aged 41-50). Women are also expected to prepare tea and food for any guests. As this is not part of my cultural background, I have found it difficult, for example, when my or my partner's students expect me to prepare tea/food for them while I am working (female, aged 22-30).

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7. Power structures What % of volunteers perceived that positions of authority were held by men in the community? 83.1% At work? 57.6% 22% by women and 20.3% an equal balance

8. Ways volunteers increase their knowledge of gender issues: Gender specialists Informally through colleagues Through written publications Through staff training Through links with other organisations

9. Role of the internet One organisation runs an online volunteering programme but were not able to participate in the survey. However, I did ascertain: 

40% of the volunteers were from southern countries and all were working to support projects in developing countries.

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In 2007 there was a total of 2753 volunteers (62% women).

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Each of the online programmes is linked to MDGs and currently 2% are linked to MDG 3.

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I managed to contact 3 volunteers (2 women and 1 man) who identified FLEXIBILITY, BREADTH OF PROGRAMMES, SKILLS-MATCH as being attractive and important features.

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Potentially able to break through barriers of all sorts.

Over to you… 

Why do women feel more accountable?

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What are the barriers to male and female volunteers challenging sexist behaviour? Is it harder for men?

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“It’s one thing to assert women’s equality but another to challenge notions of masculinity”. Do you agree?

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How can partner organisations help volunteers with gender-specific challenges /keep abreast of gender issues? What positive examples do you have of this?

Post-script It would be great to have discussions about gender equality involved in the volunteer positions at the initial stages as well as throughout the assignment. It is good to be taught about the ideals of gender mainstreaming, reaching the Millennium Goals…. …it would extremely valuable to be able to identify a range of strategies which could work in the workplace and community….. (female volunteer under 40)

My conclusion 

Few people remain neutral about the subject because it is not just about policies but identities.

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Gender equality is fundamental to achievement of MDGs.

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Gender mainstreaming needs to be thoroughly incorporated through systems and processes so as not to be reliant on individuals.

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The Paris Declaration is making the situation more complex.

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Volunteers and staff need to be better prepared, equipped and motivated.

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Women and men are needed to achieve gender equality.

What’s yours? Any feedback most welcome: [email protected] Any more questions? Write them down with your email address and I will get back to you as soon as I can

Thank you