What is Gender
Mainstreaming?
And How Do You
Do It?
Prepared by Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh,
for UNDP Belarus
Gender Mainstreaming Training
October 10-11, 2005
Exercise: What is your development
problem?
PROBLEM
Effect on
Women
X
Y
Effect on Men
SOLUTION
Input by
women
Input by men
Very simple…
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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?
What it is not
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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.
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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.
How in Principle?
1.
2.
3.
4.
Knowing the differences from the
beginning
Having different targets
If necessary, a bit of a push for the one
that is left behind…. Affirmative action
Institutionalizing it by addressing
discrimination that may hamper their long
term partnership in the revolution
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
► Step
by Step Approach
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?
2) What is the Goal? What do we
want to achieve?
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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.
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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)
3) What do we know? Gender
Mapping
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Sectoral or Policy Issues .Gender
Questions What Do You Know?
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Indicators(quantitative and qualitative)
Research Reports
Govt. Programme
Govt. Policy/LegislationNGO Projects
Donors’ activities
Gender Sensitive Statistics
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Needed to:
 raise consciousness, persuade policy makers, promote change
 stimulate ideas for change
 monitor and evaluate policies
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Types of Sources of Data
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Household budget surveys
Population Census
Time-Use Surveys
Official Surveys
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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
Income and income control.
Gender statistics are scarce for:
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.
5) Beware of Assumptions when
designing
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-> 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;
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-> Women as an untapped pool of labour that can be
drawn upon, despite their numerous other commitments;
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-> The tendency to treat women as a homogeneous group,
ignoring the important differences between them;
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->The simplistic assumption that women's interests, and
those of men are necessarily the same.
6) Design true human development
interventions
► Integrate
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that knowledge into:
Design
Implementation
Monitoring
Impact Assessment
Sectors
Questions for Mainstreaming
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What is the Issue? how and why these trends and
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What is the Goal? While goals exist at many levels,
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Why Bother? Arguing gender as a case of equity,
efficiency, etc…
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Measuring Progress: indicators that could be used to
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Possible Interventions and Entry Points: Every
issues are in fact “gender issues.”
attention here is focused on the policy goal: i.e. what
policy makers should be striving to achieve.
measure progress towards your policy goals.
situation is unique but s suggestions are meant to
stimulate your own ideas. Identify Interventions by the
Govenrment, NGOs, donors, other stakeholders.
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
Economic Opportunities:
Vulnerability and Opportunity:
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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?
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.
Poverty
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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 women’s 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.
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
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What issues:
 Privatization
 Liberalization
 Fiscal Policies
 Investments
 Inflation
 Trade
 Land reforms
 New Technologies
 Banking sectors
 Safety nets
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ALL HAVE GENDER DIFFERENTIAL IMPACT: HOW IT IMPACTS MEN AND
WOMEN, AND HOW IT IMPACTS THEIR RELATIONSHIP
Macro-Economics
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Is there a gender issue in macro-Economic planning?
Shouldn’t 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?
What to do?
► What
to do:
 Studies on impact
 Social safety nets
 Emphasis on human cost of macroeconomic changes for UNDP:
►In
linkage with HD mandate
►Sets different role than IFIs
►Render much needed advise
Does Decentralization increase women’s
Representation and Participation?
Governance Process is not gender-neutral
► Fallacies of Decentralization and Gender (That it increases grassroots (and
women’s) representation.
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 that centers of local power automatically allow for the participation of marginalized
groups, or ensure their representation.
 That women’s 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 women’s 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
Issue of Gender is an issue of
participation
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Instead, the conditions that challenge unequal access to participation or
ensure representation must be examined. These conditions depend on:
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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
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.
Issue and Goal
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A gendered analysis of governance immediately highlights the issue
of participation and representation.
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Participation for Equal Ops to develop their capabilities
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Representation: because not necessarily “Common Interest”
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Goal is therefore twofold:
1. to ensure balanced participation between men and women in
national governance, which includes removal of structural and
systemic barriers to women’s participation;
2. to ensure that gender issues are integrated into decision-making,
implementation, monitoring and evaluation of national governance
initiatives.
Why Participation and
Representation?
► Justice
► Credibility
and Accountability
► Efficiency: men elected to executive
and legislative not familiar. Brain
drain.
► Chain Reaction: Role models
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.
Participation
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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.
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.
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.
Transport, Energy and Infrastructure
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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.
Environment
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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?
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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.
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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.
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.)
► 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 don’t 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.
HEALTH
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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.
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