10 tips for integrating gender issues in project proposals and delivery

There is growing consensus within the aid community that equitable and sustainable development is only possible if both men and women have fair access to opportunity. To formalize international donor commitment to this principle, promoting gender equality and empowering women, and improving maternal health are two of the eight Millennium Development Goals. If current trends persist, however, neither target will be achieved in 2015. Against the prospect, most major donors have established gender equality as an aid priority and are embedding gender principles in their project bidding, procurement and delivery cycle. The moves are reshaping the way various stakeholders, such as private sector partners and nongovernmental organizations, interact with donor agencies. Simply, organizations that integrate gender in their core practices and processes are operating at a strategic advantage and are better positioned to attract donor funding. In 2012, the U.S. Agency for International Development solidified its commitment to gender equality by instituting the Gender Equality and Female Empowerment Policy, which integrates gender issues in the planning, implementation and evaluation of USAID programs. The policy enshrines three outcomes for USAID investments: 1. Reducing gender disparities in access to, control over and benefits from resources, wealth, opportunities and services. 2. Reducing gender-based violence and mitigating its effects. 3. Increasing the capability of women and girls to realize their rights, determine their life outcomes and influence decision-making in households, communities and societies. In 2011, the Australian Agency for International Development launched the “Promoting Opportunities for All: Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment” strategy, which includes a commitment to focus on countries with the most severe gender gaps. At around the same time, the U.K. Department for International Development released “A New Strategic Vision for Girls and Women: Stopping Poverty Before it Starts,” which mandates mainstreaming gender across all other areas of its program, including climate change, governance, peace and security, and HIV. Multilateral agencies have devised and employed similar policies. The World Bank’s gender mainstreaming road map emphasizes the economic empowerment of women, while the Asian Development Bank’s policy integrates women’s issues in its macroeconomic activities, and loans and technical assistance operations. As gender-oriented development programming is mainstreamed across the international donor community, here are 10 ways organizations can strengthen their project proposals and improve project delivery. 1. Institutionalize a commitment to gender equality by: a. Embedding gender principles in staffing and personnel policies.b. Creating special gender units.c. Conducting gender training.d. Expressing a commitment to equality in mission statements.e. Striving for gender balance in leadership roles. To better integrate gender across the organization, Caren Grown, USAID acting senior coordinator for gender equality and women’s empowerment, suggests having a coordinator for this portfolio within the leadership team. Grown, who is also a senior gender adviser at USAID’s Bureau for Policy, Planning and Learning, recommends sector teams and program offices should have technical gender specialists. 2. Demonstrate an understanding of the roles of women and frame how the proposed project or activities will address their specific needs. Pact Vice President for Program Advancement Graham Wood emphasizes that gender roles are context-specific and complex. “There are the roles that are overtly stated, when people say things they know they are expected to say, and there are hidden, unwritten ones. Effective programming should account for both.” Wood contends that in some contexts, men are likely to dominate discussions in public meetings. In these cases, it may be helpful to meet women separately so they have more space to describe their needs. Gender also intersects with age. In Pact’s experience, younger women and older women may not always have the same set of needs, indicates Wood. 3. Build a gender equality track record and communicate these achievements in past performance qualifications. 4. Define gender-focused outcomes, such as a breakdown of female versus male beneficiaries, and ensure that gender-disaggregated data will be available to measure project impact. USAID project design teams, for instance, are instructed to ensure that evaluation criteria for each relevant section of a procurement document reflect how well gender equality issues are addressed in that section and not relegated to a separate submetric. 5. Identify specific and creative tactics and tools to engage women, such as targeted communications campaigns and special consultations. Save the Children leads a consortium initiative dedicated to developing and testing savings products for low-income youth in Colombia, Ghana, Kenya and Nepal. According to Patrick Crump, associate vice president for program quality and impact for international programs, during the pilot, where direct sales were conducted without the use of any mass media, girls and boys opened up accounts in almost exactly the same proportion. But during the full rollout, which included mass media marketing in Kenya and Nepal, boys outnumbered girls 2:1. Since then, the bank in Kenya has undertaken targeted efforts to reach girls by zeroing in on girls’ schools and conducting outreach. As a result, the share of girl account holders has increased to 40 percent. 6. Explain how project results will directly or indirectly affect the status of women in their family or community. The resistance of male partners to projects that create livelihood opportunities for women, for example, might decrease when they feel the benefits of women’s additional income. But households must also be informed of unintended consequences, such as increased working hours for women. 7. Recruit and hire local project staff members with gender expertise who share the aim of gender equality. Grown gives an example of a USAID-funded bridge-building project in the southern Philippines where local gender experts revealed that women pedestrians frequently cross the bridge with babies and children, which informed decisions such as the positioning of handrails, the size of sidewalks and the height of stair steps. 8. Establish links between gender equality and women empowerment, and other important development outcomes such as health, education, child nutrition and economic development. 9. Don’t forget males. Gender norms also harm men. Grown explains that the association of risk-taking behavior with masculinity increases men’s vulnerability to HIV, while the assumption that women are more concerned about family nutrition may lead to traditional health and nutrition programming neglecting men. The Bell Bajao campaign in India, which calls on boys and men to ring a bell if they witness domestic violence, is a good example of engaging men as partners in ending domestic violence, as opposed to always casting them as violators. 10. Enlist the support of the local community. Grown strongly recommends finding local gender equality champions among the business and religious communities, tribal leaders and media or sports celebrities, who are widely respected in their community and can navigate gender issues in local contexts. Read more: - Lakshmi Puri on UN Women funding woes, post-2015 agenda - John Hendra: In post-MDG debate, gender equality must go mainstream - The time to empower women is now - Gender equality and women’s rights beyond mainstreaming - Projects and tenders on gender equality How does your organization integrate gender-oriented development programming? Let us know by placing a comment below. Join the Devex community and gain access to more in-depth analysis, breaking news and business advice — and a host of other services — on international development, humanitarian aid and global health.