INTERNATIONAL FOOD POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Gender Strategies and Methods for M&E

INTERNATIONAL LIVESTOCK RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Outline

A stratification of strategies

General /common strategies

Using data (especially baseline data) to develop specific strategies

How do we know strategies are working?

A stratification of strategies

Gender Aware

Gender Blind

Exploitative Accommodating Transformative

A stratification of strategies

Gender

Exploitative

Take advantage of rigid gender norms and existing

imbalances in power to achieve program objectives.

Expeditious in the short run but unlikely to be sustainable

Can result in harmful consequences and undermine the

program’s intended objective

Gender

Accommodating

Acknowledge the role of gender norms and inequities and

seek to develop actions that adjust to and often compensate

for them.

No active strategy to seek to change the norms and

inequities

Focus on limiting any harmful impact on gender relations.

Gender

transformative

Actively examine, question, and change rigid gender

norms and imbalance of power

Encourage critical awareness among men and women of

gender roles and norms

Challenge and address the distribution of resources and

power relationships between women and others in the

community

Rationale: That through gender training an awareness on gender inequalities in women‟s status, access and control over resources will be created

• lead to better integration of women‟s concerns, needs and priorities in development policy planning and practice.

A large mass of gender training manuals, modules and checklists developed

Concerns over treating gender as a technical issue==transformational gender training

Strategies: Capacity Building

Integrationist Gender Training Transformative GenderTraining

Gender training as a stand-aloneinitiative

Gender training as part ofinstitutional reform

Focus on gender roles Focus on gender relations

Describe gender inequalities Analyze gender inequalities

Gender mainstreaming through increasing number of women within organization / groups

Gender mainstreaming through integration of gender equality concerns into the analyses and formulation of all policies, programs and project.

Greater focus on technical skill Balance in focus on personal, political and technical aspects of gender training

Creates gender awareness and sensitivity through one off trainings

Gender training as a continuous and iterative process combining class room training with non-training strategies

Does not demand accountabilityof institutions

Demand accountability of institutions

Better integration of women inthe society

Structural and systematic transformation of the society.

Training as an end Training as a mean to an end

No impact assessment of training Impact assessment of training

Making gender capacity building effective…

Links to personal, social and institutional transformation

Transformative rather than a reformist tool..including use of transformative approaches

• challenging the ideological, socio-cultural, economic, political and institutional frameworks and structures that create and recreate gender inequalities

“focus on developing skills on the integration of gender perspective

has led to „technicalization‟ and depoliticisation of gender training”

Long term commitment to capacity building, not one offs, not an event but a process

Combine training with non training strategies ( CB a necessary but not sufficient condition)

Targeting approaches

Targeting of resources, activities or services to specific groups of individuals with anticipation of changes in their “situation” relative to others

Different levels of targeting

• whole projects, project components, activities, resources, assets, services

Targeting approaches

There are some advantages to targeting

• Reduce inequalities in distribution of key resources, assets (positive discrimination)

• Processes such as capacity are directed to those that need, or can use it..

• Matching of interventions to needs and therefore potential for higher impact

Caution

• Targeting can lead to more marginalization if not well done (backlash, withdrawal of other services)

• Discussions on need for targeting will all concerned groups

Collective Action

Use of groups to improve rights and access to services, accumulation of assets, linkages to markets, management of resources is a well-established means of social and economic empowerment

Collective action:

Key issues

• Are women only groups more appropriate for reaching women than mixed only groups?

Governance, leadership, women‟s voice and representation

• Form new groups or use existing ones?

How representative are the members in these groups? Do the poor participate in collective action?

Participatory Approaches

Involving rural women in the design of technologies products and services that are intended for their use and in the planning of services that are intended to reach them

Women‟s participation in the design of water, transportation, energy, farm technology, asset transfer schemes

From Data to strategies

What informs strategies to address gender issues?

Past project experiences /experiences from other organizations

Stakeholder consultations on key issues and potential strategies

Local knowledge of issues and context

Use of gender data (baseline data, case studies etc)

East Africa Dairy Development

Gender strategies informed by; • Analysis of a baseline report carried out in Kenya,

Rwanda and Uganda

• Consultative meetings between the EADD gender focal persons from the 3 countries and ILRI

• Consultations and discussions with staff and partners in EADD

Strategies are specific, addressing the real issues and owned by project stakeholders /partners

Integrated into annual work plans of project staff and partners

Process Approach

M&E and

Learning

Identification of key

gender issues

based on baseline

data and field

experiences

Identification of

potential strategies

to address key

issues

Develop indicators to

measure progress and

effectiveness of these

strategies

Implementation of

proposed strategies

Assessment

evaluate the

effectiveness of

these strategies

Documentation

and sharing of

experiences and

lessons

Key issues at different levels of the project

Low access and use of improved technologies, inputs and services by women and female headed household

Women lack assets-means of production and assets such as land, financial capital, livestock etc. it‟s therefore difficult for women to invest in cows and land that do not belong to them

Low and ineffective participation by women in meetings Low registration of women in groups

Women not actively taking up leadership roles and when they do, they are taking the roles of treasurer or Secretary in groups

Milk is delivered to CPs by women but money is collected by men/husbands.

Few women buy shares and involved in management of chilling plants

Attitudes towards gender issues are not always positive and there exists gender stereotypes amongst staff that get transferred to the work with groups and communitiesMajority of staff have low skills on how to deal with the gender issues and how to integrate gender in their work

From results to strategies

Low participation of women in marketing co-operatives

• Proposed project interventions for milk marketing =chilling plants based on a co-op model

Low ownership of shares by women in farmer managed co-operatives and infrastructure

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Kenya Rwanda Uganda All countries%

of

ma

le a

nd

fe

ma

le r

eg

iste

red

Men and women registration in co-operatives

Male Female

Addressing key issues

Discussions with gender focal persons and other project staff on reasons for these trends

• Proposed focus group discussions with both men and women farmers on reasons for low registration by women and low purchase of shares

• Key causes:

Low access to finances

Cultural issues around women‟s status and place in the hh

Proposed strategies for joint registration have not worked due to cultural issues

Multiple strategies for different contexts

Low registration

and purchase of

shares by women

Tailor services being offered to the chilling

plants to meet specific needs of women (e.g

the payment system) and monitor extent to

which women buy shares based on this

Use women groups who open a group supply

number to which they contribute milk (instead

of cash contributions). Part of the income

from this is then used to buy shares for the

group members.

Propose to a few chilling plants to test a

subsidized price for shares to women

Set up a revolving fund for women with

potential links to microfinance and village

banks

Capacity building for transforming gender

relations and attitudes

Key results form the baseline studies

Women keep more and have more control of milk sold in the evening to informal markets compared to milk going to formal channels..co-ops

• Milk is delivered to co-ops by women but money is collected by men/husbands.

Possible causes

• Men are registered as members, women do the milking and deliver the milk

• Payment is through back accounts which are in the names of male heads of households

• Money is also diverted due to the payment schedule of the chilling plant (monthly/ or bi weekly)

Multiple strategies for different contexts

Income to women

from milk sold in

co-ops /CPs very

low

Evaluate feasibility of payment systems which

women are more likely to have access to e.g

Mpesa, ZAP. This will be based on an

assessment of ownership of mobile phones by

women (asset ownership not disaggregated

during baseline).

Combine both formal and traditional milk

marketing to ensure women do not lose

control of milk income (morning milk taken to

CPs, evening milk sold through informal

channels).

Capacity building for transforming gender

relations and attitudes

Village banks and increasing capacity for

women to become members

How do we know these strategies work?

Effectiveness of the strategies

• in addressing the issue

• cost effectiveness

• other?

What indicators:

• Qualitative /quantitative

• Local indicators /scientific indicators

• Core key set of indicators complemented with qualitative studies

How do we know these strategies work?

Some methods..

• Regular monitoring and field data collection

Integration of variables into existing tools e.g participation data, register of shareholders

Regular analysis; to feed back into the analysis

Case evaluation of specific strategies

To integrate in impact assessment