Asian Project Management Support Program-Gender Sensitive
Management (APMAS-GSM) Project
funded by
The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)
Report of the Training
Gender Equality and Gender Mainstreaming into Project Activities
By Hoang Hong Hanh, Gender Expert
October – November 2012
Asian Institute of Technolgoy, Thailand
Contents
1.
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 3
2.
Objectives, Methods and Outputs .................................................................................................. 3
3.
Participants ...................................................................................................................................... 4
4.
Overview of the Training ................................................................................................................. 4
5.
Evaluation ........................................................................................................................................ 7
6.
Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................... 7
7.
Recommendations........................................................................................................................... 8
ANNEX 1. LIST OF PARTICIPANTS............................................................................................................. 9
ANNEX 2. AGENDA ................................................................................................................................ 11
ANNEX 3. SPECIFIC OUTCOMES EVALUATION....................................................................................... 12
2
1. Introduction
This report briefly describes the objectives, overall program, contents and results of the training
courses on "Gender equality and gender mainstreaming into project activities” of Project 3PAD in
three districts of Ba Be, Pac Nam and Na Ri in Bac Kan Province. The training was organised with
support from staff from Project 3PAD- offices inBac Kan Province and in project implementation
districts.
The rationale for this training is that Asian Project Management Support Programme - Gender
Sensitive Management (APMAS-GSM) is an IFAD funded regional programme and APMAS that aims
at ‘developing in-country gender expertise to support gender-sensitive management of projects’. To
realise this, it is necessary to implementvarious activities such as: gender sensitization of service
providers and project staff, develop materials for gender sensitization, conduct gender trainings,
gender sensitization of training materials related to other development fields etc. These trainings
formed the implementation of one of the main activities.
Fifty nine people participated in the trainings (see Annex 1) apart from training support staff, i.e.
livelihood officer from the province project office. Trainer was Ms. Hoang Hong Hanh, national
gender expert, who has a long experience in the areas of gender and sustainable development, has
worked with a wide range of national and international organizations, donors, and UN agencies and
academia.
2. Objectives, Methods and Outputs
Main objectives of the training included:
(a) To raise awareness of project staff at provincial and district levels so that they understand
the characteristics of sex and gender, the underlying causes of gender inequality as well as
gender stereotypes for men and women, especially for women and girls in the project area;
(b) To ensure understanding of the different gender roles of men and women as well as the
needs of the two sexes;
(c) To equip project staff with skills and methods of gender mainstreaming into the project
activities of the area, especially in training, planning, monitoring and evaluation to ensure
that both women and men have access to and benefit from the projectactivities andthat the
rate of female participation in project activities is high;
The following methods were used: lecturing, questions and answers (Q&A), student-centred
approach, group work/ individual work withcase studies, discussions ...combination of theoretical
and practical sessions.
Main concrete outputs were:
- A training programme, appropriate to the needs of the trainees.
- A Manual
- A series of PPT-presentations.
- Trainees’ presentations in response of the exercises (mostly on posters).
3
3. Participants
Participants to the district training courses included project managers, project coordinators,
livelihood officers, land allocation officers, infrastructure officers and community support officersin
project communes. The District Women’s Union officerswere also invited to the training.Thus, the
number of trainees varied across districts depending on the number of projectcommunes.
There were 59 trainees in all three training courses but some stakeholders did not attend the
training. For example, land allocation officers of Na Ri district did not participate in two training days
because they were busy workingon sites. District Women’s Union officers were invited but only
attended one session. They were absent in other sessions with excuses of busy work schedule.
Although the three workshops had 59 participants but only a few people attended the gender
training course organized by the project in the province.Others were busy with ongoing site activities
and could not attend.A provincial livelihood officer already attended a gender training course in Da
Nang. Community support officers were newly recruited and young so they did not have sufficient
conditions to attend such training.
4. Overview of the Training
Three project districts are located far away from each other and are not on the same route.
Therefore, training had to be divided into two parts, one in Ba Be district and Pac Nam district and
another in Na Ri district. The original plan was that each district training coursewouldbe in two days
(see Annex 2) but trainees in Ba Be district and Pac Nam district asked to shorten their course to just
one day because they were busy with CDF workshop. This meant that some lecture contents had to
be obmitted or brief and Session III were presented very brief (and explained). The training plan was
fully implemented in Na Riso all lecture contentswere delivered.
Training in Ba Be on Tuesday 30 October 2012
After the trainer introduced the training, including its objectives, methods, programs and rules, the
participants introduced themselves, including their names, ages, working positions, family, children,
what child they liked and why, what one likedand disliked about one’s sex and the other sex and why
and finally their expectations of the training, etc. This way of introduction was a way to learn the
understanding of gender equality and gender stereotypes among young people in general and
among those whowere implementing the project 3PAD inparticular.
The results showed that on being asked what child one preferred, all participants said sons and
daughters were the same but after a discussion a majority preferred sons because sons were strong,
assertive and would become heads of families. A few liked girls because girls were meek and knew
how to care for family. One participant stressed that if there was only one child, it should be a son to
have descendants (Oriental feudalism).
4
Such a beginning showed that the trainees were willing to discuss in an open and friendly manner.
Especially, they expressed clearly their gender perspective in the current society wherethey lived and
worked.
In order to involve the participant more actively, after an introduction of the outline of the training,
participants divided themselves into four working groups of 5-6 persons and they assigned group
leaders who werealso incharge to present the outcomes of thegroup-discussion to the plenary.
Before Part I of the lecture, participants were giventwo colored paper cards and wrote to each card
their way of understanding as to what sex is and what gender is underthe guidance of the trainer.
They then attached their cards to an A0 sheet of paper which was hung onto the wall. The results
showed that one-third of students understood quite vaguely about the concepts of gender and sex.
Some thought that Gender could not change while sex could.
In doing exercises in the gender role section, participants debated lively and realised the big
differences in terms of child-raisingand time and leisure time among men and women. This showed
the inequality in time allocation of women and men to production, family care and relaxation.
Field officers had actually used tools for qualitative data collection, that is, they organized
community meetings and developed plans based on comments and opinions of the community.
However, because the local traditions dictated that men were heads of families, women attending
meetings often gave no comments or ideas. Instead, they said that they would return home and ask
their husbands. It was also the case that the village heads or male villagers gave decisions.
The review session of the training day showed that participants had learned the gender concept and
its impact on gender relations. They were happy with the methodology used and liked the classworks
but asked for more time for Q&A and more images and case studies to explain the lesson contents.
Especially the part on gender mainstreaming into the project activities required more time for the
trainees to exchange.At the same time the trainer wasscaredto run out of schedule.
Training in Pac Nam on1 November 2012
Similarly to Ba Be, after the trainer introduced the training, including its objectives and methods, the
participants introduced themselves, including their names, ages, working positions, family, and
children, what child they liked and why.... This way of introduction was a way to learn the
understanding of gender equality and gender stereotypes among young people in general and
among those whowere implementing the project 3PAD in particular.
There was a minor difference between trainees in Ba Be and trainees in Pac Nam. Specifically, most
female participants did not like the patriarchal attitude of men but they preferred sons for their
strengths and determination and believed that men could be relied on and be heads of families.
Somefemale participants said that they did not like their sex in that married women were
constrained, could not communicate with friends and had tospend more time on family.
5
Similarly to Ba Be, before the lecture participants receivedtwo colored paper cards and wrote to each
card their way of understanding about sex and gender. The results showed that only around onethird of students understood quiteproperly about the concepts of gender and sex. The others had
very vague understanding about these two concepts.
After the theoretical lecture on Gender and Sex, trainees did a quick test of their understanding of
these two concepts (refer to the appendix 4 in the training material). This showed that they had a
change in perception. All gave the correct answers. Some students thought that their perceptions
about these two concepts had changed from before training.
The group work on the genderdivision of labor also excited students and helped them to better
understand the rolesin production, nurturing and community. Groups discussed lively and people
said that such work enabled better understanding than the oretical lecture. Based on the result of
thiswork, the trainees were asked to analyze time allocation of women and men in production,
family care and relaxation.
In the afternoon students were introduced to gender needs and gender mainstreaming into the
project activities. After the theoretical introduction, participants hold a general discussion about
images of practical and strategic gender needs. However, learning was slower in Pac Nam than in Ba
Be so more suggestions and more time were required.
Due to the shortened training time, groups only did one work per theoretical session. Trainer had to
spend a half of an afternoon session for the trainees to do groupwork on gender mainstreaming
planning. The trainees completed this work quickly because they had recently planned activities for
2013 and submitted to the project management unit. However, gender mainstreaming into the
activities were incomplete. After each group presented its plan, all trainees’ commented for
adjustments.
Training in Na Ri, November 9 to 10, 2012
Drawing on lessons from two previous training courses, the Na Ri training course was organized on
two days of 9 and 10 November.
After the trainer introduced the training program, its objectives, methods and others, the
participants introduced themselves. Similarly tothe two previous training courses, when it comedto
son/daughter preference, most of the participants preferred sons as they could later worship
ancestors, take care of their parents, be heads of families and ensure lineage. Some female
participants preferred sons because boys could go out late at night without being scolded by parents
while girls could be considered bad and suffer from other social prejudices.
Except for three participants, all participants understood the concepts of Gender and Sex properly
although among 20 trainees, only one had attended gender training organized by the project.
The group discussion/ group work showed that Na Ri district trainees had very good awareness.
Especially in the work on gender needs; they made a very careful gender analysis and produced short
6
and long term plans. Especially, the project support staff in the communes’ participated
enthusiastically and demonstrated very good understanding of gender.
Because there were two training days, group’s had more time for discussion and explanation.
Therefore, the concepts as well as ways to gender analysis and gender mainstreaming into the
project activities were practiced more than in the two previous training courses. Especially when the
groups did activity planning with gender mainstreaming, they worked and discussed lively.
Similarly to the two previous training courses, field officers had actually used tools for qualitative
data collection, that is, they organized community meetings and developed plans based on
comments and opinions of the community or met different stakeholders to develop plans. However,
because the local traditions dictated that men were heads of families, women attending meetings
often gave no comments or ideas. Instead, they said that they would return home and ask their
husbands. It was also the case that the village heads or male villagers gave decisions.
At the end of the training some participants expressed their need for more practical model-like tools
or analytical frameworks whichthey could directly use in practice. This might be an option for followup, although it was also mentioned that all situations were different and required a context-specific
approach.
5. Evaluation
Based on the evaluation and evaluation questionnaire distributed at the end of the training session,
the following remarks were made:
All three trainings had 59 participants with full attendance (100%). Only two Women’s Union officers
from Ba Be and Na Ri districts attended a morning session. All of them emphasized that they had
better understanding and changed their perception of gender after they received this training.
The trainees were most excited about the analysis of practical and strategic gender needs. They also
liked and were impressed by the gender mainstreaming activities. A majority of participants
emphasized that they were very interested in the group exercises because problems were discussed
and analysed in more details, but they also suggested that there should be more practical exercises.
The participants commented that the trainer should provide more examples close to the local
context as well as more pictures.
6. Conclusion
It seems that the original expectations were met by the training. We all acted as each other’s
teacher, and there was a positive working atmosphere.
Actually it would take three days to conduct a thorough training course to fully deliver the contents
of the training materials. However, the project staff suggested that this time was the end of the year
and it was impossible to gather trainees for such a long course because other on-site activities of the
project had to be completed on schedule. Therefore, the trainer had to shorten the training program
7
to two days while ensuring the required outputs of the coaching program. Moreover, the adjustment
of the program from two days to one day did not permit a thorough implementation of the training
plan.
We could have spent more time per item of the training agenda, and with the revised timetable we
skipped a few exercises, and a more extensive introduction, including PowerPoint presentation. Also
there was less time for reflection at the end and at the beginning of training program.
Training organized in each district was a good opportunity, providing sufficient conditions for all
project staff, especially community support officers or those with small children to attend, because if
the training was held in the province, the officers had to travel far and could not go home on the
same day. On the other hand, if the training was held in the province and district officers from many
districts had attended, the training could be an opportunity for the project district staffs to exchange
and share experience with their counterparts from other districts. This option of conducting training
at the province could be checked for the next training plan.
Overall the training has been a positive experience that strengthened not only capacities of the
trainees, but also offered the possibility to get feedback and learn lessons to better develop similar
trainings in future and to strengthen capacities of a diverse group of stakeholders in dealing with the
challenges of gender inequality and gender mainstream into projects activities .
7. Recommendations
General
* As mentioned by the participants during the training, there is a need to develop and make available
more concrete examples based on situations familiar with the local context so that trainees can get
more ideas and perspectives.
* Training time should be outside busy time of the staff so that there will be more staff participating
in the training.
Specifically with regard to the training and its follow-up:
*Adjust the manual based on the experiences during this training, so that it can be used in other
similar trainings.
*Develop (a series of) case studies with more information for training uses. Also practice
mainstreaming gender in the project activities can be very useful for training purposes.
*There should be training of trainers (TOT) for project staff and partners for widespread
communicationin project areas.
8
ANNEX 1. LIST OF PARTICIPANTS
No.
NAME
Positions
PAC NAM DISTRICT
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
Nguyễn Thị Điềm
Lương Văn Hợi
Ma Thị Trưng
Ngô Thị An
Hà Thị Nết
Hà Thị Nhài
Ma Công Toại
Đinh Văn Tuấn
Lê Văn Trọng
Vũ Thị Quyên
Bàn Thị Dinh
Nguyễn Thị Huế
Cà Thị Huế
Đàm Thị Thiết
Trương Thị Trang
Đinh Thị Linh
Ma Văn Hữu
Nguyễn Chánh Thược
Chu Văn Chương
Trần Thị Hằng
Nguyễn Hữu Nguyên
Bùi Văn Vũ
Community support officer at An Thắng
Community support officer at An Thắng
Community support officer at Nghiên Loan
Community support officer at Nghiên Loan
Community support officer at Xuân La
Community support officer at Bộc Bố
Community support officer at Bộc Bố
Community support officer at Bằng Thành
Community support officer at Bằng Thành
Community support officer at Nhạn Môn
Community support officer at Nhạn Môn
Community support officer at Giáo Hiệu
Community support officer at Công Bằng
Community support officer at Công Bằng
Community support officer at Cổ Linh
Community support officer at Cổ Linh
Community support officer at Cao Tân
Community support officer at Ccao Tân
PMU at District
PMU at District
PMU at District
PMU at District
23
Nguyễn Văn Việt
PMU at District
BA BE DISTRICT
1
2
Điền Việt Hưng
Lưu Thi Hoa
Community support officer at Chu Hương+Mỹ Phương
Community support officer at Yến Dương+ Địa Linh
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
Mai Thị Trang
Hoàng Kim Cúc
Mạch Thị Trang
Đàm Văn Mạnh
Nguyễn Văn Võ
Triệu Bình Nguyên
Ma Thị Ngần
Trần Thi Linh
Bùi Văn Trường
Vũ Đình Ca
Mã Thị Thường Oanh
Community support officer at Khang Ninh+Thượng Giáo+Cao Trĩ
Community support officer at Hà Hiệu + Phúc Lộc
Community support officer at Quảng khê + Hoàng Trĩ
Commune project management board Cao Thượng
Commune project management board Đồng Phúc
Commune project management board Bành Trạch
Commune project management board Nam Mẫu
PMU at District
PMU at District
PMU at District
PMU at District
9
14
15
Trần Thi Tuyền
Nguyễn Thùy Dung
PMU at District
PMU at District
16
Hoàng Lệ Quỳnh
District WU
NA RI DISTRICT
1
Hoàng Viên Đông
2
Dương Thị Nguyệt
3
Dương Viết Phan
4
Hoàng Văn Phong
5
Hoàng Văn Phú
6
Ma Thị Thái
7
Hoàng Văn Hạnh
8
Phạm Trung Quốc
9
Nông Văn Tuyên
10
Mai Văn Kiên
11
Hoàng Văn Giang
12
Nguyễn Thị Hiền
13
Hoàng Thị Trang
14
Vũ Thị Phương
15
Nguyễn Duy Thúc
16
Hà Thị Viễn
17
Nguyễn Thế Huy
18
Nguyễn Văn Quân
19
Trần Văn Sáng
20
Hoàng Văn Khải
PMU at District
PMU at District
PMU at District
PMU at District
PMU at District
PMU at District
PMU at District
PMU at District
PMU at District
PMU at District
PMU at District
Community support officer at Côn Minh
Community support officer at Ân Tình
Community support officer at Lam Sơn
Community support officer at Liêm Thủy
Community support officer at Lương Thành
Community support officer at Quang Phong
Community support officer at Đổng Xá
Community support officer at Vũ Loan
Community support officer at Kim Hỷ
10
ANNEX 2. AGENDA
Time
Day1
7:30 – 8:00
8:00 – 11:30
Contents
Training opening
Students introducing themselves
Introduction to course contents
PART I - BASIC CONCEPTS OF GENDER
What is Gender? Gender and Sex
Why do we talk about Gender?
The situation in Vietnam: What are current policies and
institutions about gender equality?
- Group exercise
Discussion / Q &A
11:30 – 13:30
Lunch Break
13:30 – 17:00
Gender sensitivity
Gender roles: productive roles, reproductive roles and
community roles
Gender needs: practical needs and strategic needs
Group exercise
Discussion / Q & A
- Summary of Day 1, feedback of the participants and end of
day 1
PARTII - Principles of gender mainstreaming
Gender mainstreaming into projects
Tools for gender mainstreaming
Group exercises
Discussion / Q & A
Lunch break
PART III - Tools for qualitative data collection
Group exercises
- Summary of Day 2, feedback of participants and end of Day
2
End of training
Day 2
7:30-11:30
11:30-13:30
13:30-17:00
Responsible for
implementation
Trainer
Trainer
Trainer
Trainer
Project reprsentative
11
ANNEX 3. SPECIFIC OUTCOMES EVALUATION
Q
A
(1) What have you learned during
this training ? What have
changed in your
perception of ?

100% have better understanding of the gender concepts
(2) Which part do you like most in
the training? Why? Which part
need improved?

Most of the trainees like the session on practical and strategic
gender needs as it helps them better understand the
genderneeds
Some people like the session on gender stereotypes because
they frequently encounter such stereotypes in life but they do
not recognize them
Most people likethe session on gender mainstreaming and
gender mainstreaming planning which are close to reality


(3) How did you like the methods
(incl. the Manual) used during
this training?

(4) How could the methodology
(and Manual) be improved?


Should provide more examples, and pictures
Need more planning and gender mainstreaming in project
activities
(5) What did you like in the
organization of training?

Thoughtful and committed
(6) Do you have any further
recommendations to improve
this training?


More examples of local context where they work.
Need more time for training and discussion
(7) How are you going to apply
what you have learned?

Some traineeswill communicate about gender equality in public
meetings
Many traineeswill apply gender mainstreaming into planning for
the project activities


(8) What next steps (follow-up)
should be we engage in order
to improve gender
mainstreaming in project
activities And what is needed
for that?

(9) Any other remarks?



Most of the trainees like group work and presentations, it’s
attracting the participation of the trainees
Some show that the documents are interesting because there
are many useful information
To apply gender analysis in planning, planning staff should be
trained more thoroughly
To print more documents and disseminate to the community,
there should be funding
To communiate with upland villages to raise awareness about
gender equality for people
Need to train all project staff on gender equality and gender
mainstreaming
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