gender mainstreaming: an overview. amsterdam, the netherlands gender mainstreaming associated with...

Gender Mainstreaming: an overview

Amsterdam, The Netherlands www.kit.nl

Gender mainstreaming• associated with the 1995 World Conference on

Women in Beijing and the Beijing Platform of Action that signaled the UN’s first official use of the term

• call for “gender mainstreaming” seems to have been a culmination of two inter-related changes in discourse prior to Beijing:• Women in Development to gender and

development • “integrating women” to “mainstreaming

gender”


Gender mainstreaming• Women in Development to gender and development

• some improvements in women’s material conditions, but little in their status

• women remained marginalized from “mainstream” development, mainly due to how WID was implemented: the establishment of women’s national machineries and WID units and the emphasis on “women’s projects”

• “integrating women” to “mainstreaming gender” • relates to the second problem associated with WID, the

continued marginalization of women and women’s issues • “mainstreaming” was seen as a way of promoting gender

equity in all of the “organization’s pursuits”


The purpose of gender mainstreaming

Gender mainstreaming is a strategy to get development organizations to promote gender equality

It is not an end in itself


Definitions…governments and other actors should promote an active and visible policy of mainstreaming a gender perspective in all policies and programmes so that, before decisions are taken, an analysis is made of the effects on women and men, respectively. (Beijing, POA, 1995)


Definitions

the strategy/process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, making women’s as well as men’s concerns and experiences an integral dimension in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and social spheres so that women and men benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated. The ultimate goal is to achieve gender equality (ECOSOC, 1997)


Definitions• Taking account of gender equality concerns in

all policy, programme, administrative and financial activities, and in organizational procedures, thereby contributing to a profound organizational transformation.• Bringing the outcome of socio-economic and

policy analysis into all decision-making processes of the organization, and tracking the outcome. (UNDP, 2000)


DefinitionsGender mainstreaming is a process of ensuring that all of our work, and the way we do it, contributes to gender equality by transforming the balance of power between women and men.

The process involves:• recognising the links between gender inequality and poverty• assessing the different implications for women and men of our

development, humanitarian and advocacy work• devising strategies and systems to ensure that the different

concerns, experiences and capacities of women and men fundamentally shape the way we plan, implement and evaluate all programme and advocacy work

• ensuring that Oxfam’s internal practices are consistent with the above

Oxfam GB (2002)


DefinitionsMainstreaming has two mains aspects:• Integration of gender equality concerns into

the analyses and formulation of all policies, programmes and projects

• Initiatives to enable women as well as men to formulate and express their views and participate in decision-making across all development issues (OECD-DAC, 1998)


Integrationist or Agenda-setting?• integrationist “builds gender issues within

existing development paradigms”

• agenda-setting “implies the transformation of the existing development agenda with a gender perspective.” (Jahan, 1995:13).


Gender Mainstreaming: key “Elements”

• Policies and plans• Leadership, Commitment and Accountability• Advocates• Support mechanisms• Organizational change


Gender PoliciesWhat is most noted is the nature of the policies adopted and the quality or lack of implementation also referred to as policy evaporation

But we have to remember some things about “policy”:• policies are political• policies entail struggle• good policies are unimplementable


LeadershipLeadership is discussed in a least three respects: • organizational• management (i.e., lower level managers) • change leadership (e.g., gender advocates)

But mostly in terms quantity (“more leadership”) not quality


CommitmentCommitment is also discussed in a number of respects - leadership, management, staff.

Policies need to be translated into action and the allocation of sufficient resources, human, as well as financial is a common indicator of commitment.

but key questions are often left unanswered:

• What is being committed to?• Who is accountable to who for commitments?


Accountability• gender policies are perceived as optional due to their

invisibility, particularly, among senior and line management

• often, there is a lack of incentives to follow organizational gender policies, systems and procedures

• disincentives (e.g., sanctions) are often lacking and where they exist seem to only harden those resistant and encourage superficial changes

• “accountability” often refers to being accountable internally but rarely includes being accountable to organizational supporters, such as donors, as well as women who are supposed to benefit from the organization


Gender Mainstreaming Advocates • usually refer to external organizations or

internal staff that take on the job of getting “gender” on the agenda and keeping it there

• one of the most recurring elements and, for some, the most critical

• we can speak of external advocates and internal advocates


External advocates • include women’s organizations and feminist

academics • essential role in inspiring motivating and, in

some cases, forcing organizations to initiate a gender mainstreaming process

• have played particularly catalytic and mobilizing roles and taken up opportunities to raise the awareness of, inspire and cajole governments, donors and development agencies


Internal advocates • includes gender advisors, gender units and

gender focal points

• generally failed to live up to the expectations of effecting change and have faced numerous interrelated challenges: roles, responsibilities, mandate and authority; structure and location; and capacity and resources


Gender advocates: roles, responsibilities, mandate and authority

• roles and responsibilities seem to be either ambiguous, at best, or include everything concerning women

• fall under one or all of the following: “advocacy”, “advisory”, policy “oversight” or “monitoring”, or implementation (Goetz, 1995)

• spend much all their energies simply just to get recognized as legitimate organizational actors but rarely have the chance to transform the organization


Gender advocates: structure and location The choice of structure and location are full of contradictions and complications.

• structure refers to having specialized gender units or advocates diffused throughout the bureaucracy as well as their roles

• location refers to where advocates sit within the organization structure


Gender advocates: limited capacity and resources • lack of capacity can be seen from a number of

interrelated respects but all with a common starting place: gender work is specialist work requiring a range of skills as well as attitudes and knowledge in order to undertake a variety of often conflicting roles

• but often estimation of capacities and resources required is NOT commensurate with gender mainstreaming policies and plans, which are often ambitious


Common problems and responses • Lack of capacity resulting from lack of knowledge (“know-

how”) and supporting resources is often identified as a barrier to gender mainstreaming

• Also, there is a lack of• understanding of the conceptual and practical links

between poverty reduction and gender equality (including human rights)

• conceptual clarity about gender mainstreaming (e.g., it’s a goal or just about staff gender parity, or women’s projects) as well as a lack of “know-how”

• hence gender training, experience sharing and tools/guidelines are most commonly recommended


Support for Gender Mainstreaming • training efforts have been largely insufficient in terms of

scope and depth

• recommendations for more tools, checklists and other resources are common to address the common finding that staff are underutilizing such resources.

• also focus is often on staff to use what is already

available and focusing on how to make these resources more accessible , e.g., publicizing them better

• the fundamental issue of why they are not being used, beyond the issue of time constraints is rarely addressed.


Gender and Organizational Change • the third “shift”: from a focus on programmes

to the organizations themselves • comes from a recognition that

• organizations themselves are gendered and, in turn, produce gendered results

• only gender sensitive organizations can undertake gender sensitive programmes

• gender and organizational change initiatives go beyond introducing gender infrastructure (for example, gender focal points) but requires changes in organizational policies, procedures and culture


Approaches to assessing gender mainstreamingThere are generally two approaches to how gender mainstreaming has been assessed:

Positivist:• assumes a linear relationship between policy, practice

and outcomes. Change is just a matter of implementing “policy”

• failure of policy implementation is seen as “gaps” that need to be filled

Radical:• views relationship between policy, practice and

outcomes as political processes of contestation over power, meaning and interpretation


Gender mainstreaming: a failure?• overall, gender mainstreaming has failed to

deliver on the promise the approach once had• there are two schools of thought: gender

mainstreaming • should be abandoned and the focus should

be on women’s rights and empowerment• still valid but different strategies need to be

used• both need to be pursued

gender mainstreaming: an overview. amsterdam, the netherlands gender mainstreaming associated with...

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