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Gender Equality, MDGs and the 3F crisis in the Commonwealth: challenges and good practice
9th Commonwealth WAMMBarbados, June 2010
Speaker: David Walker, ODI
www.odi.org.uk
• Think-tank, 50 years old, policy and applied research• Project with UNICEF – retrospective study of the financial crisis in 4
regions• Gender and social protection in Asia: What does the crisis change?• Kazakhstan – Impact on food and fuel price volatility for children
and caregivers – current data• Children and caregivers affected by HIV/AIDS – responding to the
3F crises• Gender and the food price crisis • Impacts of 3F crisis on women and children in MENA region • Ongoing work with DFID on Youth and Crises
Overview
• Brief overview of gender-specific cross-cutting challenges facing Commonwealth countries
• Examples of good practice in addressing them according to five clusters with inter-linked MDGs– Poverty and Sustainable livelihoods– Access to Services– Care and care-giving– Voice and Agency– International partnerships and accountability
• 3F Crisis responses• Crisis transmissions channels and an opportunity?• Policy recommendations
Context
• One third of 1.2 billion on > $1 per day are Commonwealth Citizens, and almost two-thirds on >$2 per day
• Over two thirds of these are women• Only 2 MDGs explicitly consider gender: MDG 3
(Gender Equality) and MDG 5 (Maternal Mortality and Reproductive Health) (e.g. 2 and 4 consider girls and mothers)
• Without a broader response, opportunities for cross-cutting synergies are being lost
Poverty and sustainable livelihoods: Goals 1 (food) and 7 (environment)
• Large majority of prev stats: rural and dependent on agriculture (on-farm, off-farm, non-farm)
• Additionally, ‘feminisation’ of agriculture• Therefore, resource access and control links
between natural resource management, food security and empowerment are vital for synergies
• These links enhance capabilities to e.g. Enable land ownership - enabling higher productivity (right in itself)
• However, barriers remain in obtaining credit productive assets and extension services
• Land: a critical challenge: ‘no single land-access project has had unqualified success in
allocating land to women and men at equitable levels.’
(Susana Lastarria-Cornheil)
Access to services (goals-all?)• gender dynamics: men, women, boys and girls
(incl. youth, children and elderly) = different challenges
• Biological susceptibility – disease burdens (pregnancy and malaria, feminisation of HIV&AIDs 20%)
• Gender susceptibility: men and tobacco-related illnesses, mobility and care roles, time burdens
Good practice
• Spatial poverty: nomadic education programme in Nigeria (NEP) – recruiting, training and deploying teachers
• Socio-cultural discrimination: caste, ethnicity, race. UNICEF ‘welcome to school’ project in Nepal – 35% more girls than boys, 16 000 schools
• Access to information: UNFPA and UNAIDs addressing sexual taboos in Guyana in barber shops and salons (outside education)
• However – MDG 3 and quality indicators?
Care and care-giving (goals 3,4,5,6)
• Links between MDG 4 and 5 (child and maternal mortality) have been limited
• MDG 5 lowest performer • Meanwhile 40% of global infant and 60% of
global maternal mortality incidences are in Commonwealth countries
• An unrealised double-dividend between maternal wellbeing and nutritional and educational outcomes of children
Good practice
• Move beyond the technocentric: vaccines, infrastructure (new clinics) to ensure social determinants of inequality are linked across MDG 4 and 5
• Addressing mens’ and boys’ roles as carers (WHO research) – masculinity, ‘menstreaming’
• Traditional birth attendants and mothers groups, fee waivers for pregnant and breastfeeding women build-on
Voice and Agency (goal 3)
• More obvious side of gender strategic interests , rather than everyday ‘practical needs’ (Molyneux, Moser)
• This consists of political education and representation – – but more than this (Panchayat Raj structures in
India – women represented but still lack HH decision-making power)
Good practice
• Voice and agency is fine – but needs to be bolstered through violence legislation, gender-aware justice systems, adequately trained and resourced administrations
GRB: 20 Commonwealth countries• Nepal: recent (2007) GRB committee
permanently established in ministry of Finance
International Partnerships and accountability (goal 8)
• Improved aid – co-operation: recognition of gender as cross-cutting in Paris Decl. and DAC gender marker
• This will, however, need close monitoring in current resource constrained settings and withdrawals
Current crisis: gender gaps in policy responses
• (Harper et. al. 2010) ODI synthesis study – 4 region retrospective and current synopsis
• Measures to address women’s time poverty and to support women’s greater responsibility for care work and domestic responsibilities do not appear to have been factored into design of responses – e.g. E Asia gender ‘cushioning’
• All regions demonstrated data gaps applying to women and children
4. Current crisis – 4 key channels
1. At the macro level, one of the key impacts to date has been declines in terms of trade and commodity prices.
2. Remittance flows, international and internal, are emerging as another significant crisis transmission belt.
3. A third key channel relates to financial flows (FDI, etc.)
4. Reduced or redirected aid (e.g.DFID - security)
Crises as opportunity? Policy opportunities (crisis specific)
Policy Recommendations- broader MDG specific
• Harnessing momentum of other platforms and initiatives (Beijing Platform, CEDAW)
• Building on lessons does not mean institutionalising cross-cutting legislation– this is often only one step amongst many, requires building partnerships
• Approval of the UN gender ‘super-agency’ in 2009 is a welcome advancement (?)
• The challenge now is to ensure resources and independence
• And that it undertakes effective mainstreaming across all institutional functions (inc. Micro-scale – performance management objectives)
Policy Recommendations-2
• GRB: only as good as data, M&E, and indicators - as well as reporting and analytical capacities
• We need to remember that these investments not only enhance learning opportunities, but also internal accountability in ministries – not a fad
Policy Recommendations-3
• Gender-sensitive social protection– Cash transfers to care givers– Scholarship programmes– Public works that are sensitive to gendered time
demands• In the crisis?• Synergies?
• The opportunity is now – many social protection responses to 3F crises are currently taking stock – an entry point?
Policy Recommendations- 4
