4 Gender
44. The UK Gender & Development Network has highlighted
that more than two-thirds of those living in extreme poverty are
female: women throughout the developing world have less power,
money, land, protection from violence and access to healthcare
and education.[103]
DFID's Gender Action Plan, published in February 2007, declared
progress on gender equality to be a critical factor in achieving
all the Millennium Development Goals. The Secretary of State
reinforced this view in a speech in Washington on 12 July. He
said that:
"I am particularly conscious that the face of
poverty in developing countries is overwhelmingly female …
The economic, social and political position of women in many countries
is actively preventing us from reducing child and maternal mortality
and stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS. Empowering women must be
a priority for all of us."[104]
The DFID Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State,
Gareth Thomas, told us that making progress on gender equality
required "a revolution in attitudes and we are not even
close to that yet".[105]
MDG3 specifically commits the international community to promote
gender equality and empowerment of women. The Action Plan sees
equality and empowerment 'as a political issue, needing a political
response, not a technical one'.[106]
We asked the Permanent Secretary what this meant and what practical
steps DFID was taking to make progress on gender equality. He
acknowledged that DFID needed to "up our game on gender compared
with what we have been doing in the past few years" and that
how the Action Plan was taken forward would be crucial.[107]
45. Part of DFID's new approach to gender has involved
moving from having dedicated gender staff to "mainstreaming"
gender throughout its programmes. However, some witnesses believe
that this has led to it being seen as a purely technical exercise,
"another box to be ticked rather than something which requires
fundamental rethinking of everything that the organisation does."[108]
Oxfam points out that the Gender Action Plan contains no mention
at all of support for women's organisations, which are key stakeholders.
They believe DFID also needs to have clear objectives for "building
women's active participation and leadership and decision-making
processes at all levels."[109]
46. We raised concerns about the extent to which
gender equality was being rigorously pursued throughout DFID's
work in our inquiry into DFID's programme in Vietnam. We found
that the Making Markets Work for the Poor projects which DFID
supports showed no evidence of a gender dimension and that women
were "largely excluded from significant policy input or decision-making
in these projects".[110]
In response DFID told us that it ensures a participatory approach
in many of its projects and that it organises specific gender
training for programme staff. But DFID also undertook to review
all its programmes and projects in Vietnam to see what changes
should be made and to report back to us within six months.[111]
We very much welcome this positive response to our concerns.
47. DFID's new PSA Delivery Agreement sets out the
targets and indicators against which DFID's performance will be
measured during the next spending period 2008-11. It says that:
"DFID and the FCO will work to ensure that the
international system performs more effectively to promote gender
equality and women's rights and empowerment. [One of the] key
actions is: …to press for gender disaggregated data and equality
specific information within the international system."[112]
The Delivery Agreement envisages that, in measuring
performance against the PSA more generally, indicators for each
Millennium Development Goal will also be disaggregated by gender
"where possible and meaningful." [113]
The UK Gender & Development Network questions the feasibility
of using disaggregation of other indicators as a meaningful measure.[114]
The Permanent Secretary acknowledged the difficulties of
disaggregating indicators by gender: "for some of the indicators
the data will be there and for some it will not, so where we can
do it we shall do it."[115]
This does not strike us as being an adequate strategy.
48. Written evidence we received from ActionAid also
questions whether the commitment to implementing the Gender Action
Plan is universally shared across DFID:
"The implementation of the Gender Equality
Action Plan is already proving a cause for concern. While responsibility
for implementing the Plan lies at a senior level, with Mark Lowcock,
Director-General for Policy and International, recent evidence
suggests that his commitment is not shared across the Department
as a whole."
They point out, for example, that the draft South
Asia strategy ignores the issue of gender-based violence.[116]
It is also worth noting that DFID's 2006 White Paper on Governance
contained only three brief mentions of gender in an 83-page document.
The DFID Director General, Country Programmes, gave the positive
examples of Bangladesh and Zimbabwe where "every [DFID] person
who works on those programmes has gender-related objectives in
their individual performance objectives".[117]
However, the Permanent Secretary acknowledged that, even if DFID
is able to improve its own performance in this area, it would
not have much of an impact unless multilateral bodies, most importantly
the World Bank, the European Commission and the UN, are equally
committed to gender equality.[118]
49. We
do not doubt DFID's commitment to gender equality but translating
this from policy to practical implementation at every level is
a complex task. We are not convinced that DFID yet has the measures
in place to achieve this but, as the Secretary of State has acknowledged,
the Millennium Development Goals cannot be achieved without progress
on gender equality. We expect DFID to provide us with more information
on the practical steps it is taking to "up its game"
in promoting gender equality across its programmes in response
to this report.
103 Ev 104 Back
104
Speech by the Secretary of State for International Development
at the Council of Foreign Relations, Washington, 12 July 2007 Back
105
Oral evidence on Northern Uganda, 4 July 2007, Q 11
Back
106
Gender Action Plan, para 2.3 Back
107
Q1 (Sir Suma Chakrabarti) Back
108
Ev 110 Back
109
Ev 87 Back
110
Eighth Report from the International Development Committee, Session
2006-07, DFID's Programme in Vietnam, HC 732, paragraph
26 Back
111
Ninth Special Report from the International Development Committee,
Session 2006-07, DFID's Programme in Vietnam: Government Response
to the Eighth Report from the Committee, Session 2006-07,
HC 1062 Back
112
PSA Delivery Agreement 29, paragraphs 3.40-41 Back
113
PSA Delivery Agreement 29, paragraph 2.1 Back
114
Ev 110 Back
115
Q5 Back
116
Ev 71 Back
117
Q3 Back
118
Q1 Back
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