mainstreaming gender concerns in applying science, technology and innovation to support sustainable...

Mainstreaming Gender Concerns in Applying Science, Technology and Innovation to Support Sustainable Well-Being

Shirley M. Malcom, Ph.D.

Mainstreaming Gender in STI for Development

Gender Mainstreaming

“Assessing implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies or programmes; in any area and at all levels.”

“Making the concerns and experiences of women as well as of men an integral part of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes….”

UN ECOSOC


Gender ≠ Women


Sustainable Well-Being

The achievement of sustainable well-being depends heavily on economic, sociopolitical, and environmental conditions and processes, and on their interconnections. Progress needs to be thought of in terms of improving the human condition in all of these dimensions — environmental, sociopolitical, and cultural as well as economic — and sustainability should be thought of as making these improvements in ways and to end points that are consistent with maintaining the improvements indefinitely.


Sustainable Well Being, continued

This is a challenge not just for developing countries — where large proportions of the population still lack the most basic ingredients of material and social well-being — but also for the industrialized ones — where many of the practices that support the levels of material well-being already achieved are not sustainable in resource and environmental terms and where widening gaps between rich and poor within countries, and fraying social safety nets, threaten sociopolitical sustainability as well.


GENDER

SOURCE: United Nations Development Programme, Millennium Development Goals, www.undp.org/mdg


• Education (at all levels)

• Training

• Access to facilities, tools,resources

• Employment

• International cooperation

• Science communication

• R&D agenda setting

• Policy development

• Leadership


Building Capacity – Using Capacity – Directing Capacity, to Address Needs

• Developing talent base of women and men, girls and boys

• Using talent

• Where women have a special role


Gender Disparities

• Exist everywhere

• Vary from country to country, even fromfamily to family


The Interaction of Country / Societal Needsand Gendered Roles / Responsibilities

• Distribute the responsibilities

OR

• Re-arrange the priorities and distribution of priorities


Women’s Needs Are Human Needs


Science and Technology and Women’s Needs


Global challenges

Intermediate capacity support structures

Local problems


Capacity Building

Global Challenges

Operational Impact

Addressing Basic Human Needs

• Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

• Achieve universal primary education

• Promote gender equality and empower women

• Reduce child mortality

• Improve maternal health

• Combat HIV / AIDS, malaria

• Ensure environmental sustainability

• Agriculture

• Water

• Sanitation

• Health

• Education that includes S&T

• Democratic governance, rule of law, respect for human rights, and peace and security

• Interdependency between growth, poverty reduction, SD

• New or enhanced local- scale technologies appropriate to conditions, users, problems

• Local nature of problems and solutions

• Challenges of transfer of knowledge and skills

• Role of technology

The Role of S&T Cooperation:Strategies and Tactics


Gender Advisory Board of UN Commission on S&T for Development

• History

• Transformative actions

• Declaration of intent


Operationalizing the Need to Address Global Challenges at Local Levels

• National committees

• National focal points

• Regional secretariats

• Global learning and sharing

• Technological connections

• Partnerships

• People-to-people networking


Gender Considerations Within the Forum

• Gender as part of the “context” of development

• Gender and the protection and utilization of natural resources

• Building R&D talent base – Using R&D talent base

• Gender and university linkages

• Gender and private sector partnerships

• Growing and serving markets


Gender and the “Context” of Development:The Case of South Africa

• Women’s role in addressing skills shortage in S&T

• South African Reference Group for Women in S&T as permanent subcommittee of NACI

• Addressing women’s needs in work of Science Councils (e.g., CSIR)


Gender and University Linkages for STEM

• Enrollments

• Degrees

• Facilities

• Resource Distribution


Gender and Academic Science and Engineering: The Case of the United States

• Disparity between sex composition of students and that of STEM faculty

• Historical challenges – current-day realities

• Beyond Bias and Barriers (NRC Report)

• ADVANCE – supporting institutional transformation (a program of the National Science Foundation)

mainstreaming gender concerns in applying science, technology and innovation to support sustainable...

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