The 16 Days of Activism Campaign Against Gender-Based Violence is an international campaign to end violence against women and to advocate for the promotion and protection of women’s rights. The campaign runs annually from 25 November (International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women) to 10 December (International Human Rights).

Gender Ink theme for the Campaign is “Silencing the Silence”.  

In the bid to silence the silence, we will create awareness of the need to Speak Out on incidences of GBV, whether we are victims, survivors, or witnesses. Calling out these acts which violate human rights moves us a step closer to preventing and eliminating gender-based violence. We are calling on all of us, women and girls, men and boys, to join in this fight by demystifying the myths, unlearning and relearning issues on GBV.

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Is the world ready? I fear we are not. At least, not in the Global South. To achieve resilient learning will require special efforts.

Limited access to learning opportunities will lead to widening inequalities

In such difficult and uncertain circumstances, countries have been scrambling to maintain learning in some form or another. With strict physical distancing measures in place, distance learning has exploded.

High-tech alternative options for higher-income schools include digital classrooms with real-time video classes, including for physical education. But they are hardly available to everyone despite increasing investments in e-learning and the provision of free internet connection for all in some countries.

Learners from underprivileged backgrounds often have no decent computers, no electricity or poor connectivity. For them, distance learning is simply not an option.

This is when educational programming on radio and television, as well as home-schooling, become key.

Following the example of Sierra Leone during the Ebola crisis, Mongolia, Rwanda, and at least 30 other low- and middle-income countries now rely on radio to help their citizens learn. Yes, radio and television programming can certainly help maintain a link to learning. But, this approach is a poor substitute for schools and has many shortcomings. Lessons can be of poor quality and interaction between peers and teachers is reduced to zero.

When students eventually do return to school, those who may have missed out on distance learning or home-schooling will risk failing school examinations and/or drop out of school altogether. Many may not even be able to return to study when schools reopen.

We could see drop-out rates rise, especially in fragile contexts and among learners with special needs. As the Ebola crisis in Sierra Leone showed, younger girls are at particular risk, with 16 % not returning to school after they reopened.

In the long run, access to such drastically different opportunities will put less privileged learners who cannot meaningfully continue their education during confinement at a much greater disadvantage. Existing disparities in education will magnify and socio-economic inequalities will widen.

No access to proper nutrition will lead to malnutrition and health problems

Many students depend on free, or reduced-price, school meals. But as schools close, students simply will not get healthy and nutritious meals that give them vital vitamins and micronutrients. The World Food Programme estimates that substituting one meal, normally free at school, per day over a month for one child will amount to about 10% of poor household’s monthly income.

The lack of a regular nutritious diet will lead to heightened health vulnerabilities and, as a result, could severely impact children’s ability to benefit from – and even participate in – learning.

Since school closures began, many countries have implemented various measures to support more vulnerable students. These measures range from delivering school lunches to families, providing take-home meals, and supporting families with cash or vouchers. Many poorer countries may not be able to do this unless aided by donors.

It is too early to assess whether these programs are reaching those most in need and, if they do, we must imagine that these meals have to feed a whole family and not just one child.

No access to a safe environment of schools will put more student at risk of violence

Schools provide learners with structure, focus, a sense of belonging, and social contact. Now, parents and guardians are unexpectedly having to fill this void, placing a heavy burden on many families.

Parents may not have skills, knowledge, and resources to support learning. They may have to be at work if they are essential workers or find additional ways to make ends meet. They may have to care for family members who become ill. And let’s not forget all the regular household chores and childcare.

Families will struggle to match the learning and care support that schools provide.

For some children, very sadly, their home does not provide a similar safe haven of learning and support that their school provides. UNICEF has warned us that hundreds of millions of children and young people are likely to experience more threats to their safety and wellbeing while schools are closed during the pandemic.

The horrifying reality for many vulnerable children and young people is becoming trapped in a home with such individuals with no place to escape. As stress increases due to whole household isolation, so is the likelihood of violence and abuse against children and other vulnerable members.

Girls are particularly vulnerable. Sexual exploitation and abuse and other forms of gender-based violence could increase significantly, warns UNICEF.

For children and youth living through armed conflicts, schools not only offer a sense of normalcy and stability,  they also provide physical protection from exploitation and recruitment by militant groups. With school closures, this loss of protection, as well as psychological and emotional support, may have dire consequences.

This could interrupt learning and lead to limited, if any, social interaction with peers. But there are other threats for children. Staying at home also has repercussions for children’s behaviors and emotional wellbeing, including potential for the development of risky behaviors, mental illnesses, and substance abuse.

For those who have access to the internet, more time at home may expose them to child sexual abuse material and different forms of online violence, such as online bullying.

Limited support will worsen teachers’ economic situation and mental wellbeing

Teachers now find themselves under additional pressure. Some have already been sent home without any pay and others are being forced to work remotely, perhaps for the first time, designing and mastering new ways of teaching and engaging their students.

Many of these teachers are in under-resourced schools that cannot create digital classrooms or support every student. Already overwhelmed with the needs of their own families in such a challenging time, these new stresses are likely to lead to teacher burnout and increase mental health issues.

When schools reopen, teachers will be tasked with not simply resuming normal classes, but with supporting their students’ emotional wellbeing. They won’t be able to provide either if their own mental health and wellbeing are not taken care of.  Yet children need to develop resilience to face disappointment, learn from failure, cope with loss, and adapt to change. That is where their teachers can help: Resilient learning is necessary to sustain shocks in life, whether from COVID-19 or other threats.

What can be done to offset adverse effects of COVID-19 on education: Resilient learning measures

COVID-19 has shown to us how vulnerable, inequitable, and inflexible education can be in some contexts and how difficult it is to adapt to unique challenges posed by newly emerging shocks. We need a whole-society preparedness to have an immediate response to halt threats posed by a crisis of such scale and to lay a strong foundation for recovery. And the ability to recover from future threats will require putting in place what is needed for resilient learning.

Before we return to normalcy, however, it is critical to understand what immediate support is and will be needed in the coming months and even years to boost resilient learning.

First is re-enrolling students, especially in instances when their families cannot afford to pay fees. This will be especially a challenge in some countries where families’ economic vulnerabilities in the time of crisis may lead to child labor and child marriages.

Second is addressing any mental health issues among students and teachers as many could be traumatized due to the loss of a family member or other adverse impacts of the coronavirus. What education in humanitarian contexts has taught us is that one of the key initial steps is the provision of psychosocial support and social-emotional learning. If mental health issues are left untreated, they can lead to severe long-lasting mental health problems and even suicide.

Third is ensuring that students and teachers receive the necessary support to overcome challenges inflicted on their families by COVID-19. This includes identifying and addressing gaps in learning, helping them to adjust to school routine, providing them with nutrition, supporting pregnant and mothering girls, waiving fees and helping with other expenses for those who lost a breadwinner or whose families were financially hurt during the crisis.

Fourth is implementing and strengthening adult education and lifelong learning opportunities to help families in coping and understanding how to support their children’s and their own well-being during and after the crisis.

About the Author / Dr Yulia Nesterova.

Yulia is a research fellow at the Centre for Sustainable, Healthy and Learning Cities and Neighbourhoods, University of Glasgow where her work focuses on education and sustainable urban development in Africa and Asia. She previously consulted UNESCO on education for peace, sustainable development, and prevention of violent extremism and worked across the world on projects to support education, rights, and wellbeing of vulnerable and marginalised populations.

Source: https://impakter.com/schools-out-resilient-learning-covid-19/

Starting in selected primary schools, success came early to this particular public-private partnership and is now confirmed by an outside evaluator. We are pleased to present the account of this success achieved in just three years of operations. More information about Bridge’s activities and its teaching model is provided in another article: “The Challenge of Universal Education: The Bridge Model and How it Works” (March 28, 2019).

Study shows government education programme has significantly improved learning outcomes in Liberia

A few years ago the Government of Liberia started a pilot to see if they could improve education for children in a small number of primary schools, with the help of support from education organisations and using the model of public-private partnerships. 

Now, the impact of the intervention has been tested, and the results for the schools Bridge supports are very encouraging. 

• Eighty-one percent of Bridge LEAP students are now proficient or basic readers
• Bridge LEAP students are seven times more likely to be proficient readers than their peers

UNESCO’s Vice Chair of the Education Commission and Head of Education Delivery at the Ministry of Education in Liberia, Gbovadeh Gbilia, has released Learning in Liberia a co-authored study assessing the learning progress made in Bridge supported schools as part of the Liberian Education Advancement Programme (LEAP).

The study finds that 81% of students who joined a Bridge supported LEAP school in the first grade and have spent 2½ years in a Bridge classroom are proficient or basic readers; compared to only 33% of students in traditional public schools.

The government’s ambition is for all Liberian children to be proficient readers by the time they finish their primary school education. Significantly, the new study reveals that 53% of grade three students in a Bridge supported school have now achieved proficiency. A dramatic difference from the prevailing situation in non LEAP schools where only 8% of children in this grade reach reading proficiency.

LEAP is a bold initiative developed by the Government of Liberia four years ago to increase the quality of pre-primary and primary education across the country. Uniquely, it has thrived under two different administrations having being implemented as Partnership Schools for Liberia under President Sirleaf and continued as LEAP under the leadership of President Weah. Strong political leadership and clear focus on improving schools for Liberia’s children trumped the struggles signature policies often face with regime change.  

In 2016, 62% of primary school aged children were not enrolled in Liberia. Thirty-five per cent of women and 21% of men could not read a single sentence. LEAP had a singular goal, to improve learning outcomes for Liberian children. The Ministry of Education commissioned several studies including an independent randomised control trial (RCT) to ensure that progress against the government’s vision was objectively measured to form the basis of government policy decisions. 

In the first year of LEAP, Bridge supported 25 schools; in its second the Ministry allocated the social enterprise a further 43 schools with many in the remote south-east of the country. The programme was led and designed by the government—teachers remained public employees on the government payroll—school buildings were owned by the Ministry and the national curriculum was strictly adhered to.

Now, a collaborative study looking at the three year programme has been released. It focuses on Bridge—the largest of the LEAP partners—and indicates that the public-private partnership model has significantly improved learning outcomes as the Ministry of Education intended:

• Grade 3 students in a Bridge supported school—who joined in the first grade—are seven times more likely to be proficient readers than their non LEAP peers
• Overall average fluency is above 55 words per minute, compared to the 10 words per minute being achieved by third graders two years ago 
• Students now in Grade 3 with 2½ years of Bridge-supported instruction, read faster than Grade 5 students did in 2017

In addition, the impact on girls’ education is particularly noteworthy in a country where previously only 39% of girls completed primary school. Results across almost all grades show a reduction in the gender gap that Bridge-supported LEAP schools inherited in its opening year. In literacy, most performance gaps have been completely eliminated.

In the past 2½ years, 5th grade girls’ average performance on passage reading fluency increased by over 27 words per minute. Once lagging by 10 words per minute, girls now outperform boys. 

Equipped with evidence, and confidence of the learning gains being achieved by its children, the government has now expanded the LEAP programme into its fourth year to reach 225 primary schools across the country. Its ultimate vision of transforming learning for all 2,619 of its public primary schools is within reach.

By putting education at the heart of its public sector transformation agenda—the Liberian government has proven that poverty is not destiny.

Bridge is one of a number of independent school operators that are helping the Government of Liberia to transform basic education. After only three years of operation, the public-private partnership model is proving its worth, provided it uses a proven teaching model and is implemented with care.

Source: https://impakter.com/public-private-partnership-education-how-liberia-forging-ahead/

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Gender Ink’s editorial stance.

Discipline was key; I learned what is expected of me by society and especially how to behave’ myself when I get married. In my life of courtship, I met one guy who never believed in wedding ceremonies, let alone paying the bride price. His idea was, we movein together, and we ‘make it work’. I never got to respond to this statement and at the end of it all, I ended up being branded the most complicated individual he has ever met (truth be told, everyone says am complicated, and I think I am).

This got me thinking. For a start, let us get some words right. More than often, people confuse the meaning of bride price and Dowry.

SUSAN NYABENA

Bride price or bridewealth is money that is paid by the groom to the bride’s family at the time of marriage and Dowry is money paid by the bride to the groom’s family at the time of marriage or wealth transferred to the husband’s family.

Bride price is one of the beautiful traditions that is still practised today in many parts of the world despite civilization. It is seen as a form of bonding between the bride’s and the groom’s family, and it acts as a form of appreciation by the groom’s family to the bride’s family for taking care of the bride. It also shows commitment by the groom to having the lady as his wife.

In Kenya, the amount of bride price expected from the man varies with different situations including; virginity (it is higher if the lady is a virgin), social status (lady coming from a wealthy family increases the amount of bride price), level of education (woe unto the man who marries the lady with masters or PhD and a fat salary). Men give up on the women they love because they cannot afford to pay the bride price, others resort to cohabiting or unplanned pregnancies obliging the families to agree with them being married. People have gotten in debt just to offset the bride price, which entangles them in poverty.

Bride price has, for a long time, been seen as a factor in instigating gender inequality. It perpetuates Gender-Based Violence in marriages. Some of my male friends say the amount of money they spend on the bride price and the wedding is like buying a piece of land, and it gives them the ‘right’ to own the lady. It automatically reduces the status of the woman in marriage, her decision making power, her Sexual, Reproductive and Health Rights not to mention their financial status. There are ladies that undergo virginity tests; they are forced to get married to men they do not love as long as they can pay good dowry price. Women have had to stay in violent relationships because their families cannot afford to pay back the bride price. The fact is payment of bride price can lead to poverty, the debt that most people get into, and have fundraising committees. Bride price is used to gauge the financial stability of their future son in law. The man is expected to have a car, a house, bring bank statements and all. In my community, bulls have just to be part of the bride price regardless of how much money the man is offering. Parents use bride price to extort money from the groom that has presented the women as property to bought.

In communities that pay Dowry, it is considered as a form of protection of the women to avoid being taken advantage of. Dowry is considered as a token to the young couple as they start their marriage; it buffers the lady in case of the husband’s death or during a divorce. Dowry acts as a form of security or form of inheritance that is to be divided among the children.

SUSAN NYABENA

What would happen if our society considers the line of dowry payment instead of bride price? Will it reduce the violence experience in marriages? Will it reduce monetizing marriages and the pressure of marrying rich men? Will it allow women to make decisions about their lives without the permission of their husbands? Bride price ought to be a good culture that should be appreciated rather than being used as a money-making business.

Discipline was key; I learned what is expected of me by society and especially how to behave’ myself when I get married. In my life of courtship, I met one guy who never believed in wedding ceremonies, let alone paying the bride price. His idea was, we movein together, and we ‘make it work’. I never got to respond to this statement and at the end of it all, I ended up being branded the most complicated individual he has ever met (truth be told, everyone says am complicated, and I think I am).

This got me thinking. For a start, let us get some words right. More than often, people confuse the meaning of bride price and Dowry.

SUSAN NYABENA

Bride price or bridewealth is money that is paid by the groom to the bride’s family at the time of marriage and Dowry is money paid by the bride to the groom’s family at the time of marriage or wealth transferred to the husband’s family.

Bride price is one of the beautiful traditions that is still practised today in many parts of the world despite civilization. It is seen as a form of bonding between the bride’s and the groom’s family, and it acts as a form of appreciation by the groom’s family to the bride’s family for taking care of the bride. It also shows commitment by the groom to having the lady as his wife.

In Kenya, the amount of bride price expected from the man varies with different situations including; virginity (it is higher if the lady is a virgin), social status (lady coming from a wealthy family increases the amount of bride price), level of education (woe unto the man who marries the lady with masters or PhD and a fat salary). Men give up on the women they love because they cannot afford to pay the bride price, others resort to cohabiting or unplanned pregnancies obliging the families to agree with them being married. People have gotten in debt just to offset the bride price, which entangles them in poverty.

Bride price has, for a long time, been seen as a factor in instigating gender inequality. It perpetuates Gender-Based Violence in marriages. Some of my male friends say the amount of money they spend on the bride price and the wedding is like buying a piece of land, and it gives them the ‘right’ to own the lady. It automatically reduces the status of the woman in marriage, her decision making power, her Sexual, Reproductive and Health Rights not to mention their financial status. There are ladies that undergo virginity tests; they are forced to get married to men they do not love as long as they can pay good dowry price. Women have had to stay in violent relationships because their families cannot afford to pay back the bride price. The fact is payment of bride price can lead to poverty, the debt that most people get into, and have fundraising committees. Bride price is used to gauge the financial stability of their future son in law. The man is expected to have a car, a house, bring bank statements and all. In my community, bulls have just to be part of the bride price regardless of how much money the man is offering. Parents use bride price to extort money from the groom that has presented the women as property to bought.

In communities that pay Dowry, it is considered as a form of protection of the women to avoid being taken advantage of. Dowry is considered as a token to the young couple as they start their marriage; it buffers the lady in case of the husband’s death or during a divorce. Dowry acts as a form of security or form of inheritance that is to be divided among the children.

SUSAN NYABENA

What would happen if our society considers the line of dowry payment instead of bride price? Will it reduce the violence experience in marriages? Will it reduce monetizing marriages and the pressure of marrying rich men? Will it allow women to make decisions about their lives without the permission of their husbands? Bride price ought to be a good culture that should be appreciated rather than being used as a money-making business.

Tanzania’s Women Parliamentarian Group came together to explore pathways for mainstreaming gender into climate adaptation planning.

Article in collaboration with: CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) seeks to address the increasing challenge of global warming and declining food security on agricultural practices, policies and measures through strategic, broad-based global partnerships.

Climate change has been described as a wicked problem, with complexities, feedback loops and tipping points that can cause damage in the most undeserving of places. Across Tanzania, the climate crisis manifests in the form of higher temperatures, an increase in the frequency and magnitude of droughts and floods, and rising sea levels.

Related topics: East African Policy Makers Advocate for Gender in Climate Policy – Political Empowerment of Women in Africa: Influence or Number? – Specialized Economic Zones (SEZs) in Africa: Exporting Production, Performance, and Perils

Women face disproportionate impacts of the climate emergency, due to unequal rights and socio-economic status compared to men, meaning climate impacts will widen the gender gap. The World Bank estimates the gender productivity gap in Tanzania alone is $105 million. This gap could be decreased if national policies, programs, and plans enable women to use agriculture to lift themselves and their families out of poverty and contribute to economic growth, as well as through targeted adaptation and mitigation measures that are gender-responsive. The Bank of America predicts that such approaches could have positive economic impacts, estimating that achieving women’s equality could boost global gross domestic product (GDP) by up to 31 percent.

Mainstreaming gender and climate

In light of these challenging dynamics, Members of Parliament (MPs) came together in September 2019 for an awareness training on gender mainstreaming in climate change adaptation in Tanzania, with the objective to:

1. Enhance the knowledge of MPs on gender to facilitate the smooth implementation of the established gender-sensitive policies, plans and strategies at national and sub-national levels.
2. Provide an opportunity for MPs to understand the critical role gender plays in implementing climate change actions.
3. Strengthen the knowledge of MPs regarding methods and tools that can facilitate the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of gender-responsive policies, plans and strategies.
4. Provide a platform for MPs to kickstart the process of brainstorming on the revision of Tanzania’s Gender and Climate Change Action Plan.

The climate stakes

Extreme weather events have already led to major economic costs in Tanzania, estimated at USD$200 million per year for the agricultural sector alone (CIAT and World Bank (2017): Climate-Smart Agriculture in Tanzania), reducing long-term growth and affecting millions of people and their livelihoods. The net economic costs of addressing climate change impacts could be equivalent to one to two percent of the GDP per year by 2030.

In the past two decades, the country has experienced rising temperatures with frequent and severe droughts. Since 1960, average annual temperatures increased by 1.0ºC with projections to increase between 1.7°C and 2.5°C in semi-arid areas (SAs) by 2030. Mean temperature and rainfall changes including increased variability of rainfall will have devastating effects on agriculture, food security, and ecosystems.

Strides forward in the climate-gender nexus

While the Government of Tanzania has developed an extensive policy repertoire to address the complex challenges at the nexus of gender and climate, implementation is still lagging, particularly with regards to gender-sensitive adaptation and mitigation strategies. The MPs gathered at the gender and climate mainstreaming training, therefore, agreed to enable the implementation process through the following agreements:

1. Generate evidence to support engagement with MPs to increase their understanding on climate change and its impacts in Tanzania;
2. Identify gender and climate change champions to advocate for gender and climate change mainstreaming into national and district development planning and budgeting.
3. Enhance the capacity of MPs to effectively participate in the review process of the Gender and Climate Change Action Plan.
4. Support some MPs to attend the upcoming Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference, held in Uganda on 22-29 September 2019,  to share the outcomes of this seminar.
5. Strengthen engagement with MPs, relevant ministries, departments and agencies, District Executive Councils, CSOs and other actors at different levels in the design and implementation of climate change actions.

Once implemented, these actions could serve as important enablers moving gender-responsive climate policies from theory to practice across Tanzania.

About the author:Shakwaanande Natai is National Coordinator at the Tanzania Climate Smart Agriculture Alliance (TCSAA). Madaka Tumbo is Hydrologist at the Global Water Partnership (GWP) and Lecturer at the Water Institute (WI). Winifred Masiko is Member of the African Working Group on Gender and Climate Change (AWGGCC) and Consultant at The Skills Gallery. Henry Mahoo is Chairperson at the TCSAA and Professor at the Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA).

EDITOR’S NOTE: The opinions expressed here by Genderink.com columnists are their own, not those of Genderink.com.  Photo Credit: C. Njuguna (IITA)

Source: https://impakter.com/tanzanias-female-parliamentarians-to-mainstream-gender-in-climate-adaptation/

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Gender Ink’s editorial stance.

In this article we discuss the level of influence female politicians in Africa hold, and explore how beyond representation, female politicians’ access to political influence and leadership in social institutions reduces gender discrimination with respect to the rights of women in the family code, physical integrity, access to financial resources, and civil rights.

Political Situation of Female Politicians in Africa: Representation Without Influence

African women ministers, for instance, are half as likely as their male peers to be appointed to influential positions such as finance minister or prime minister. Approximately 50% of women in cabinet handle mostly social welfare portfolios, while only 30% lead the ministries for treasury, infrastructure, defense, and foreign affairs which are considered to have more political influence.

Women’s participation in the political party structures in Africa is also mainly limited to their reserved women’s wing position, tokenistic and ineffective at large — men remain dominant in terms of numbers at the highest level of decision-making. Further, in the last 50 years only 10 out of the 54 countries in Africa (Burundi, Liberia, Madagascar, Mali, Mozambique, Malawi, Namibia, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa) have had a female president or prime minister. Lastly, political representation of women from the lowest to the highest level has been more of a reactionary measure. The Executive Director for the NGO Women Africa Solidarity, Oley Dibba-Wadda ironically commented that “…when everything gets messed up, the women are asked to come in and clean up.”

Systemic gender bias against female leadership, entrenched in socio-cultural and religious values, still persists in Africa. Rwanda, for instance, may have the highest proportion of women representation in parliament (61.3%) and South Africa may have the highest percentage of female ministers (44.7%) but can we say these numbers translate to actual influence?

Women’s representation in political parties, the legislative and executive arms of government, and at points of crisis matter, but what matters most is how these numbers translate into improving policy content and direction. Comparing women’s cabinet appointments to the percentage of budget managed, on average women with cabinet positions manage a relatively low proportion (18.9%) of budgets. This is evidence that strides made in increasing the number of women in politics in Africa is at best only symbolic and at worst, redundant.

What Would African Societies Gain By Granting More Political Influence to Women?

When female policy makers have influence, they positively impact the lives and well-being of women, girls, and society in general. One important factor that restricts the rights of women in parts of Africa is the entrenched nature of gender discrimination in social institutions. By social institutions we mean norms, traditions and codes of conduct that are rooted in culture, religion and customs. These institutions can be long-lasting and difficult to remove, yet it is their removal that will create more egalitarian societies in which women may have the freedom and resources to reach their full potential.

Female policy makers are in better positions to understand the hurdles associated with gender discrimination in social institutions and may be better able to fight against them.

Policy makers are key actors who can implement and enforce laws against any form of gender discrimination. Female policy makers are in better positions to understand the hurdles associated with gender discrimination in social institutions and may be better able to fight against them. In this article we show that when female policy makers have more influence, they reduce gender discrimination in social institutions.

Testing the Relationship Between Women’s Political Influence and Gender Discrimination in Social Institutions

We test how an increase in female political leadership and influence would affect the different forms of gender discrimination in social institutions. To do so, we rely on two different indexes. One index is the Women’s Leadership Index from IRLI that measures the level of government and executive influence of female politicians in African countries. The index considers legislative and executive influence. Legislative influence captures the percentage of women represented in national assemblies and the percentage of legislative committees chaired by women. Executive influence measures the percentage of heads of the executive cabinet or ministry held by women and the percentage of the national budget allocated to ministries led by women.

Source: https://impakter.com/political-empowerment-of-women-in-africa-influence-or-number/

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Gender Ink’s editorial stance.

Most of the current sustainable development policies include gender considerations. However, the progress towards gender equity still goes at a snail’s pace. Experience from the ground shows that policy targets often fail to deliver inclusivity, at times reinforcing inequality and vulnerability.

Are our gender equality efforts missing the point? And if so, what do we need to do differently? Perspectives from ecofeminism and feminist political ecology suggest the path to gender parity may be blocked by our understanding of human interaction with the environment.

Gendered strife – a power layer cake

More often than not, gender policies propose activities specifically directed at women, usually found in the sections devoted to marginalized and vulnerable groups, together with children, elderly, disabled and the poor. This thinking underpins public and development policy and is also widespread in environmental initiatives.

Take, for instance, REDD+, a global policy framework for reduction of emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. While this policy framework mentions gender equality as one of its core principles, it does not elaborate on how exactly gender will be integrated with other environmental directives. Indeed, CIFOR has been working on mainstreaming of gender in REDD+ for a while. One of their studies, published in April 2018, reported that wellbeing of women in the villages with REDD+ implementation had, in fact, declined.

Another study shows that inclusivity on paper doesn’t necessarily translate into practice. Women attend decision making meetings, but it does not mean their opinions are heard and considered. Instead, the decisions often coincide, to a large extent, with the priorities of the people with more power and privilege.

In the attempts to elevate land rights, there have been cases where land titles were distributed to men under the assumption that a man would be the ‘head of the household’ and a rightful land owner. This way a project with good intentions cemented and reinforced gender inequality.

What are the reasons behind these unintended adverse effects? Is it merely the lack of mainstreaming and integration?

“People don’t exist in isolation from landscapes they inhabit. We need to understand and acknowledge that social relations are deeply connected to environmental issues and that decision-making in one area, has effects on the other. This interplay is foundational to how inequality is conceptualized and maintained within societies,” says Andrea Nightingale, researcher at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) and a member of the Focali network.

Think differently

Ecofeminism argues that the logic which fuels gender inequality is akin to the one underpinning overexploitation of the environment. Ecofeminism criticizes the separation of the world into categories defined as opposites, like nature-society, men-women, humans-animals, rational-emotional and so on. This categorization tends to obscure linkages between the pairs and ignores what they have in common.

Feminists have long argued that this kind of oppositional thinking leads to associations like: women are closer to nature and more emotional, whereas men are civilized and rational – associations that allow one set to be considered superior to the other.

Following this line of thinking, we can see that class, race, ethnicity, gender, and other forms of social difference are not separable, but rather emerge from the operation of power. Just like race and ethnicity, gender is a superficial construct designed for splitting society into “them and us”. Ecofeminist thinking exposes how gender is a dimension of power, explaining why prescribing separate norms, values and policy directives for women does not result in gender equality.

Think synergy

Feminist political ecology sees environment and gender as a dynamic mixture of human and nonhuman: Environment is a part of society, and people are part of nature. Everything in this system is a dynamic interaction, where all elements are constantly influencing one another. The relation between masculine and feminine is part of this system.

This makes it easier to understand that roles of men and women are not static but can change over time, and that gender roles reflect social structures and the environment, both natural and human-made.

A large-scale dam project in Turkey illustrates this point. The dam was implemented with a purpose to improve irrigation and drinking water supply. The assumptions about the needs and capacities of the local population shaped the functions of the dam, and changed the roles of men and women.

Abundant irrigation in an otherwise dry area provided locals with an opportunity to grow cotton, a cash-crop that earns better income than wheat, barley and animal husbandry, traditionally grown in the area. At the same time, because of the higher economic value of the crop, more men started to engage in farming and selling of the product, something that previously had been a women’s responsibility. Additionally, cotton requires larger maintenance than previous land use, and so women ended up with more jobs as they also have to attend the household and take care of the food. On top of that, with this new order, women can’t earn extra money from selling yoghurt, bread and yarn at the local market – a traditional income stream they used to manage.  

When gender relations are understood as dynamic and linked to land use in these contexts, then it is easier to see how well-intended development projects can make things worse for women.

A starting point for gender inclusive policy-making

Policy needs to consider how our perceptions of gender frame the design of the programs. Firstly, we need to change the meaning we assign to gender: masculine is not opposite to feminine and can’t be separated from being human. This way we can change how we define the interactions between men and women and the expectations upon each gender and their qualities.

Secondly, we can transform gender relations through environmental policy, but we must recognize that changes in the environment also impact social structures, and take human-nature symbiosis as an imperative.

Thirdly, it is crucial to acknowledge that when policies are developed, social relations are already mapped onto the landscape. Therefore, gender sensitive policy design needs to first map and acknowledge the existing social relations, then define a vision for desirable interaction between genders in a certain landscape, starting with the idea that both men and women are equally human.

After that, policy actions concerned with the environment and development need to be harmonized with this gendered vision, considering the synergy between humans and nature. “Social relations are not separate from environmental governance, they are foundational to which schemes are prioritized, how successful they may be, and how they may fuel existing conflicts,” says Andrea Nightingale.

This way policy makers can avoid reproducing inequality and unexpected environmental impacts.

Rooted in the analysis of how we structure our reality, with a special attention to such fundamental concepts as human rights and power, the work of Andrea Nightingale and other scholars who work with feminist theories opens the door to a new age of inclusive sustainability policy. At a time when many of our attempts to achieve gender equity have failed, it would be foolish not to consider this thinking in environmental policy.

This article is based on the learnings from the Encyclopaedia entry “Environment and gender”, by Andrea Nightingale.

Featured Image Credit: Oromo women Borana, Ethiopia (photo credit: ILRI\\Zerihun Sewunet)

Source: https://impakter.com/gender-equity-a-snail-pace-progress-and-how-to-change-that/

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Gender Ink’s editorial stance.