Memorandum submitted by One World Action
PROMOTING GENDER EQUALITY AND EQUITY IN DEVELOPMENT CO-OPERATION
1. One World Action welcomes the Department for International
Development's Annual Report 2004. One World Action wishes to concentrate
this submission on the impact of the Department for International
Development's work on promoting and advancing gender equality,
equity and women's human rights in its development co-operation.
2. The 1997 White Paper on International Development Eliminating
World Poverty: A Challenge for the 21st Century,
states that the empowerment of women is a pre-requisite for
achieving effective and people-centred development. The 2000 Target
Strategy Paper on Poverty Eradication and the Empowerment of
Women focuses on women's empowerment with the specific
objective of achieving gender equality. In addition, the 2000
strategy paper Realising Human Rights for Poor People lists
participation, inclusion and fulfilling obligations as three principles
necessary for achieving human rights for all.
3. The UK government is committed to achieving the Millennium
Development Goals. While it is agreed that all the goals have
gender impact, goal three relates specifically to promoting gender
equality and empowering women through education, waged employment
and political representation. Goal eight raises a broader point
about donor accountability and North-South resource flows through
debt repayment and unfair trade rules.
4. The UK government has signed a number of international
agreements including the Beijing Platform for Action, which is
a comprehensive statement of women's human rights. At an international
level, the UK through the Department for International Development
has a leading role in promoting gender equality, equity and women's
human rights within the European Union, OECD Development Assistance
Committee, the United Nations and the Bretton Woods institutions.
5. According to the United Nations Development Programme poverty
has a woman's face, as 70% of the world's poor are female.[2]
Women are poor as members of the poorest social groups, but, also
because they are women. They experience discrimination in every
sphere of political, social and economic life, and at every age,
on the grounds of gender. Women not only experience a disproportionate
burden of poverty but also have to manage poverty by dealing with
diminishing household resources, cuts in social spending and general
lack of household income.
6. Tackling women's poverty and inequality requires
a transformation in relations between women and men and a transformation
in the way in which we define development. There can be no sustainable
or equitable development, or poverty eradication, unless discrimination
against women is eliminated and gender-based inequality and inequity
removed. UNDP argues that progress towards greater gender equality
depends on political will, rather than the income level of a society.
7. The Department for International Development's overall
policy framework highlights gender inequality as a key factor
in poverty and expresses commitment to reducing gender inequality
as part of its overall strategy to eliminate poverty. However
policy commitments in development co-operation have not been fully
realised because they have not been implemented thoroughly or
consistently resulting in a significant degree of policy evaporation.
8. One World Action believes that the gap between policy and
practice hampers the UK Government's efforts to promote gender
equality in development co-operation. DFID's strong policies and
commitments on gender mainstreaming fail to be put into practice
in ways which make a real difference to the lives of the poorest
women and men. While a great deal of progress has been made as
is evidenced in the 2004 Annual Report, One World Action believes
there are three main areas that hamper effective policy implementation:
- Lack of effective gender mainstreaming within DFID;
- Lack of policy coherence;
- Insufficient commitment in political will, resources, and
awareness raising and training for gender mainstreaming.
MAINSTREAMING AS A STRATEGY FOR ACHIEVING GENDER EQUALITY
9. In One World Action's evidence to the 1998 Inquiry and
the 2002 Inquiry, we argued that women's rights and gender equality
were not high priority outside of the Social Development Department
within DFID. Today evidence of effective gender mainstreaming
outside of the social development cluster remains disappointing.
Research conducted by One World Action in South Africa, Nicaragua
and Bangladesh[3] provide
ample evidence that gender mainstreaming as a strategy for achieving
equality between women and men, is poorly understood in country
offices.
10. The Annual Report states that DFID works
with partner countries and organisations to improve the lives
of both women and men by adopting a twin-track approach: firstly,
the impact of gender is considered throughout all programmes and
secondly specific projects are run to address particular problems.
One World Action's research shows that this strategy has not been
well translated into practice as mainstreaming has been given
priority over women-specific actions and the complementarity of
the strategies has not been fully grasped. Our research showed
a significant drop in support of projects that work on women's
issues in Nicaragua and Bangladesh. Within the context of extreme
poverty and gender inequality, specific-measure action is appropriate
and an effective strategy for poverty elimination.
11. According to the Annual Report, DFID uses a range of funding
mechanisms to promote poverty reduction. These include budget
support, Sector Wide Approaches, projects and global funds. An
increasing proportion of donor expenditure is being directed to
macroeconomic or budgetary support in the form of sector-wide
approaches or other forms of direct support connected to Poverty
Reduction Strategies. Over the past three years, budget support
and other forms of programme assistance have accounted for 15%
of DFID's bilateral aid programme.
12. DFID intends shifting away from project financing towards
direct assistance to partner governments with the aim of improving
effectiveness and impact of public expenditure within sectors
and towards poverty reduction goals overall. While this strategy
is potentially positive as it offers the possibility of direct
policy dialogue with national governments and fosters ownership,
tracking aid effectiveness through direct budget and sector support
is difficult. If aid efforts are to benefit poor women, gender
needs to be mainstreamed consistently and thoroughly throughout
budget and sector programme support. Our research in South Africa,
Nicaragua and Bangladesh shows that gender often gets lost in
huge sector programmes and it is very difficult to measure gender
impact at sector level or aggregated budget support. Lack of effective
gender mainstreaming in DFID practice at country level will hamper
efforts to achieving gender equality goals.
POLICY COHERENCE IN DFID
13. As mentioned above, the UK development co-operation strategy
involves a shift of focus from project support to macro-economic
forms of assistance involving direct support to national governments
particularly in the context of Poverty Reduction Strategies. In
our 2002 submission to the Committee, we argued strongly that
PRSPs cannot deliver intended benefits to women as they have a
similar framework to Structural Adjustment Programmes that have
been proven to negatively affect women. Research[4]
on women's participation in PRSP processes shows that national
governments and international financial institution (IFIs) have
played a key role in determining PRSP content. Yet they have limited
understanding of the scope of gender issues and the causes of
women's poverty. National bodies representing women's interests
often lack influence and the capacity to engage effectively in
policy dialogue on Poverty Reduction Strategy processes. This
lack of participation poses a challenge to DFID in its approach
to macro-economic co-operation.
14. One World Action's research in South Africa,
Nicaragua and Bangladesh shows evidence of a positive shift within
DFID in the increasingly frequent linking of poverty with inequality
and particularly gender inequality and in the growing adoption
of rights-based approaches. However efficiency-based approaches
still carry a good deal of weight with policy makers particularly
in the economic field. Our research shows that in practice, aid
management offices tend to pay more attention to 'pro-poor' issues
and neglect the intersections between gender equality goals and
other development goals such as poverty reduction or cross cutting
priorities such as HIV/AIDS. Theorising poverty in a vacuum ignores
the structural issues such as gender, caste, class or race that
compound poverty.
15. Such failure of policy coherence could be
one clue to policy evaporation. Our research also shows that DFID
country strategy papers are not coherent with their respective
gender strategies, apart from recognition of the link between
gender inequality and poverty. Moreover, while promoting gender
equality in the context of PRSPs is tactically a useful way of
putting gender issues on the agenda of dialogue with governments,
it also skirts the issue of gender equality as a human right.
To date all PRSPs are strongly economically driven and if they
do consider gender issues, they adopt an efficiency approach.
This approach makes gender equality an instrumental objective
rather than a development goal in itself.
CAPACITY IN COUNTRY OFFICES
16. Our country studies provide evidence that while the policy
statements of the Department have advanced in their analysis of
gender inequality and poverty, practice still shows insufficient
attention to gender equality or women's empowerment. This is most
evident in the lack of capacity at field level to operationalise
the existing policies and strategies meaningfully even where there
is willingness to do so. This is a result of limited time, resources
and training with project implementers experiencing problems incorporating
gender in their work amidst an array of competing priorities.
While resistance to gender equality is no longer an issue, a proactive
institutional commitment backed by resources and informed practice,
was hard to find.
RECOMMENDATIONS
17. Accountability and leadership is key to effective
policy implementation
- DFID must strengthen accountability systems, processes and
procedures at head quarters and country office level. This could
be achieved through clearly defining and expressing expectations
of delivery in performance appraisals, work plans and reports,
using clear guidelines on accountability to governance structures,
annual reports, and reporting on progress.
- DFID must consider developing an accountability matrix similar
to that prepared by the World Bank[5]
to ensure that lines of responsibility are clearly defined.
- Senior level commitment, leadership and support
- achieved through training, exposure sessions and information
analysis - must be visible and unequivocal.
- In the context of increased decentralisation
special attention should be given to strengthening mechanisms
of accountability at country office level.
- DFID should consider developing country-specific
gender action plans clarifying priorities and objectives and developing
mechanisms for monitoring progress on gender equality.
18. Conceptual clarity
- Gender equality goals should be made explicit and visible
at policy, strategy and operational levels. In particular, each
programme and intervention should have an explicit gender equality
goal.
- There is a need to strengthen capacity to put gender policies
into practice. Clarity should be developed on key gender concepts,
gender equality as a goal, and on strategies to meet this goal,
including gender mainstreaming. The twin-track approach should
be reaffirmed in the light of a clear understanding of gender
equality goals and strategies.
19. Financial resources
- Policy commitments to promoting gender equality must be backed
up with adequate budgetary provision to fund general and specific
initiatives. Specific budgetary allocations for gender mainstreaming
are essential to fund innovative catalytic work and gender mainstreaming
initiatives, while support to women's organisations must continue.
- In the context of aid effectiveness DFID should apply a gender
budget analysis to development assistance channelled through direct
budgetary support to assess progress towards gender equality goals.
20. Policy coherence and linking cross cutting priorities
- DFID should strive to maintain coherence between its policy
objectives related to poverty reduction, trade and the promotion
of economic growth in partner countries with gender equality goals
expressed in its institutional gender equality policies and its
policies on gender equality in development. This is particularly
important in light of MDG 8.
DFID should emphasise the coexistence and interrelationship
of cross-cutting policy priorities at institutional and country
programme levels while at the same time promoting operational
clarity regarding gender within specific interventions.
21. Staffing and capacity
- DFID should appoint designated staff with appropriate gender
skills and expertise at decision-making levels in its country
offices.
- Staff with lead responsibility for gender should
have adequate support including financial resources, continuous
training and senior management support in country offices.
- DFID should aim for a better balance between policy ambitions
and operational capacity.
22. International Development Committee follow-up
inquiry
- We urge the Committee to conduct a follow-up inquiry on women
and development to assess progress on the recommendations of its
1998 Inquiry.
- We recommend the Committee open up a formal inquiry into DFID's
Annual Report inviting civil society organisations to submit oral
evidence.
JUNE 2004
2 Human Development Report, UNDP (1995) Back
3
Closing the Gap: Putting EU and UK Gender Policies into Practice.
One World Action (2003). Back
4
Failing women, sustaining poverty: Gender in Poverty Reduction
Strategy Papers. GAD Network and Christian Aid. (2003) Back
5
Integrating Gender into the World Bank's Work: A Strategy for
Action. World Bank (2002)
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