Gender Equality Strategy
The proposed Gender Equality Strategy for AREDP comprises of: 1) Key Principles, 2) Gender Specific Considerations for Components A & B, and 3) Gender Mainstreaming in Program Management.
1) Key Principles:
To achieve ‘gender equality’ results, the Afghanistan Rural Enterprise Development Program (AREDP) will be guided by the following principles:
Give a clear message that ‘closing the gender gap is everyone’s responsibility (and not just of the female staff)’!
Make a visible commitment at senior levels to the ‘GENDER AGENDA’ – through documents (reports, communication material, web site), speech, and demand for accountability at all levels (from m & f).
Support men at all levels – community, district, province and HQs – to advocate for women’s equal participation in economic development, so that they play an active role in adjusting the social norms and challenging existing gender roles and relations.
Facilitate women’s interactions with multi-stakeholder forums, male business leaders, and government officials so as to break down inhibitions on both sides, and strengthen women as leaders and change catalysts.
Provide ‘equitable inputs for equal results , so that women can receive the additional and extra inputs needed to come at par with men in the same situation or position.
Develop arguments and approaches on existing Afghanistan policy commitments and laws/regulations , and link the Program with national and international work on gender and Islam to counter the statement that gender equality is ‘Western,’ donor-driven, and/or anti-Islamic.
Bring on a retainer or full time basis a qualified Gender and Enterprise Specialist with a long-term objective to build senior and mid-level management, field staff, and program counterparts/ community members’ capacity to take forward the gender agenda.
Be prudent, and keep an eye to the security situation with respect to gender equality, but address the challenges through innovative thinking and experimentation.
2.1 Gender Specific Considerations for Component A – Community-based Enterprise Development
- Mobilizing women at community level may require extra effort (and hence resources) as compared to mobilizing men. The female VF may initially need to campaign door to door. Build into the male VF’s ToRs a requirement for him to advocate with the men in the community for women’s active participation in the program.
Women’s roles and responsibilities within the family (household chores, children, taking care of animals) must be assessed before finalizing group size, and designing program inputs, e.g. date, timing and duration for meetings and training.
Women generally lack a ‘common space’ where they can easily come together. AREDP should negotiate with the community to designate a space for women’s enterprise and savings groups.
Most rural women who participate in this program may be non-literate or semi literate. Consider developing a standardized module and identifying a village resource person to teach them numeracy and functional literacy.
Working with men may not be the same as working with women. Most rural women may have little or no exposure to formal business or markets, and limited literacy or numeracy skills. Years of marginalization will have left women behind, and their capacities are likely to be limited as compared to men. Therefore find amongst the larger group those women who show potential, and through additional training/exposure, market interface, and participation in stakeholder forums, build their capacities as ‘STARS’ or conduits between the external trainers/service providers and the other women at village level. In other countries the STARS have emerged as valuable honorary resources. However building their capacity is an additional cost to a project.
Ensure that all female trainers and service providers, employed to work with rural women’s groups, are as experienced and competent professionals as those working with the male groups. Programs sometimes need to look harder (and pay more) for competent female professionals.
Service providers should be competent and experienced at dealing with a non-literate or semi literate client group, the methodologies should be appropriate, and the handbooks and charts should be adequately and appropriately visualized. In a Program that addresses both men and women, unless careful, the visuals will often reflect the men doing important work, while women are shown in support roles.
The female VF, or the female members of Enterprise or Savings groups, may find it difficult to secure permission to travel without an escort or ‘Mehram’. However, this may not always be the case – but the community takes advantage when it finds that the Program has provision for escorts. Therefore do not have a standard policy for supporting escorts – assess the situation, challenge the norm, and allow women to come up with creative solution, e.g. 1-2 elderly woman may accompany twenty women. Also explain from day-1 that such facilitation is temporary and will be weaned off over time.
2.2 Gender Specific Consideration for Component B – Business Development Support for SMEs
Women owned SMEs do exist – but they may not be as visible or easily found. AREDP Program will require additional efforts to ‘find them’ or ‘flush them out’. Consider contracting an organization or a consultant to develop a directory of women who own small businesses – where the definition of ‘small’ may be different as compared to men. Link with MOWA, Bagh-e-Zanana, AWBF (Afghan Women’s Business Federation), AWBCs (Afghan Women’s Business Councils), and the NSP Facilitating Partners who are active in various provinces to develop a national directory of Women Entrepreneurs.
While the Program will preferably work with existing SMEs, an exception will be made for women, where the Program will invest in conducting 3-4 Enterprise Development Training for Women Entrepreneurs (for approximately 100 women). This support would be provided to the more literate women at provincial levels, who can act as the ‘pull’ factor for women in the rural areas. These women would also serve as an ‘example’ of the emerging role of Afghan women.
Whether in rural or urban areas, Asian women have to subscribe to given gender roles. Assess women’s roles and responsibilities within the family (household chores, children) before designing program inputs, e.g. date, timing and duration for meetings and training.
Ensure that all female trainers and service providers, employed to work with the SME women’s groups, are as experienced and competent professionals as those working with the male groups. Programs sometimes need to look harder (and pay more) for competent female professionals.
Make sure that all Program staff, men and women, working with these women, abides by established norms. Incorporate a monitoring and complaint system to check for exploitation or sexual harassment.
3) Gender Mainstreaming in Program Management
Conceptualizing the Program:
- Ensure that Program outcome indicators, and intermediate outcomes all demand gender equal results, and that the budget caters for equitable inputs for equal results. Ensure that the AREDP Program team articulates a vision for ‘Afghanistan Rural Women’s Economic Empowerment by Year 2013’, develops a strategy to drive towards it, and then commits to it.
Staff Recruitment and Selection:
All staff, recruited for this Program, should also be assessed for their commitment, or potential for commitment, to gender equality. Proactive measures should be made to hire equal numbers of women, particularly at senior levels. Ads should specify that ‘women are specially encouraged to apply’, and ads should be sent to national and international NGOs, and donor organizations, where there are greater chances of finding qualified female professional. In certain cases, the Program may have to compromise on qualification or years of experience.
As a more long-term strategy, introduce from Year-1 the concept of hiring female ‘Interns’ or ‘Associates’, where fresh graduates from Business Studies are employed for a period of six months to one year at a nominal salary, who may eventually be absorbed in the Program.
At village level, consider recruiting male and female VFs who are related to each other – e.g. husband-wife, sister-brother, father-daughter, mother-son, etc., so that the female’s mobility can be facilitated.
Ensure that male and female PEFs are equal in number, as well as competence. Given the extensive traveling to be undertaken by female PEFs, AREDP Program should ensure that appropriate facilitates are available at district and provincial levels for their travel and accommodation.
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- To retain qualified married women who have infants or toddlers, the organization can have the policy of encouraging women to travel with her children. The PEFs are the lynchpin of the AREDP Program. Therefore if female PEFs are deemed to require additional training and support, the Program should ensure that that is forthcoming.
Employ on a retainer consultancy basis, 1-2 Gender and Enterprise Specialists, who would closely collaborate with all Departments and Regions to build staff capacity to effectively mainstream gender concerns in the Program. These individuals would have direct field exposure and close interactions with female VFs, enterprise and savings group members, and women entrepreneurs.
Establish an Internal Gender Equality Policy for the Program. Incorporate in staff ToRs the following: responsibility for Gender Equality (GE) results in every Program staff members ToRs; the need to subscribe to appropriate behavior with all staff – particularly female staff, in all staff’s ToRs. Ensure that all staff receives a basic gender orientation.
Staff Training:
In addition to functional training, all staff (program and support) should receive a basic orientation on Gender and Development. The senior and mid-level program staff should also attend 1-2 day training in: Gender Mainstreaming in AREDP Program; Monitoring for GE Results; Creative Documentation and Reporting GE Results. Gender considerations should also be factored into all other functional and staff training (e.g. training for PEFs; VFs)
Program Implementation & Monitoring:
Ensure that Program supervision and monitoring assesses progress in terms of the gender agenda. In addition to other factors, supervise staff performance in terms of support (or lack of) to female employees – e.g. do they have the resources to perform their work? Are they safe from sexual and other kinds of harassment? Monitor Program results in terms of the gender specific results. Experiences in other countries indicate that the Program will be able to leverage national and international support if women’s progress is assessed beyond economic empowerment, e.g. social, political, legal, organizational, and leadership. Ensure that all information is disaggregated by gender, and where discrepancies are evident, further information is secured to identify the reasons for these discrepancies, and the potential solution.
The program should also ensure that all reports, for internal and external submission, demands a section on ‘women’s economic development’, and those case studies of success and issues are captured on a continuous basis. In the absence of a full time Gender Focal Person, the Program should designate one person at Regional Office level to take on the role of a gender focal person – with specific ToRs.
If a bear and a stork are both hungry, which will eat well will depend upon whether the food is served in a flat plate or an elongated and deep vase.
Government’s commitment to human rights, women’s development (e.g. MDGs)
