By Lorina Sthapit, Gender and M&E
Junior Consultant, Nepal and PTA Gender Desk
The 2014 Gender Awards Ceremony was organized at IFAD
Headquarters in Rome on 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination
of Violence Against Women. The Awards, initiated in 2013, spotlight one programme or project per
region that has used innovative approaches to address gender inequalities and
empower women.
The event concluded with a statement by the Vice President about the relevance of ending violence against women for food security, poverty reduction and rural development.
During the event, the representatives from the winning
projects in Ecuador, Pakistan,
Rwanda and Yemen discussed their achievements and the challenges they faced in
promoting gender equality and empowering women. The award for Sierra Leone was
accepted by the Deputy Minister of Agriculture Ms. Marie Jolloh. For further
details about the winning projects, click here Brochure.
The occasion was also
an opportunity to learn about household methodologies, an innovative set of approaches piloted by IFAD and
partners. With the support
of supplementary funds from the Government of Japan, IFAD has worked with field
practitioners to consolidate experiences on household methodologies across
sub-Saharan Africa into an Household Methodologies Toolkit.
The event concluded with a statement by the Vice President about the relevance of ending violence against women for food security, poverty reduction and rural development.
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| Representatives from the winning projects |
A
learning event in the afternoon provided an opportunity for the project
representatives to exchange their invaluable experiences and ideas among
like-minded practitioners.
The representatives from the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation
Fund (implementing
partner)- Mr. Isa Qazi Azmat, ChiefExecutive Officer; Ms. Samia Liaquat, Group
Head for Compliance and Quality Assurance; and Mr. Yasir Ashfaq, Group Head for
Financial Services - highlighted the importance of developing project
activities and products specifically suited to the needs of the rural poor
women and ultra-poor households.
PRISM is one of the
flag bearers for investing in women’s access to microfinance and women-led
value chains in the country. The project has supported almost 140,000 women
borrowers for income generating enterprises. This is a significant achievement
in a country where the number of women who benefit from microfinance loans is
traditionally very low and where women-centric microfinance programmes are
often questioned. PRISM has challenged those barriers and lived up to project
values that “development is about changing the status quo”.
The success of any project, they emphasized, lies in “starting
small, committing to bring social transformation, learning from failures and
rekindling the motivation of all staff”. Learning from one of their initial
shortfalls during the baseline survey, they included several gender-related
indicators in the impact survey to capture improvements in gender equality and
women’s empowerment. They recognised, while challenging, it is important to do
more to be able to tell women’s stories.
Mr. Abdulla Salem Al-Dogail, Project Director and Ms. Fatima
Al-Lahabi, Gender and Microfinance Specialist felt immense pride as well as a
sense of responsibility when the project beneficiaries said, “you are the
first ones to come to us”. Being the first to intervene in Al-Dhala, one of
the poorest and most remote governorates
in Yemen. They credited their dynamic and motivated team that,
despite the physical and social complexity of Al-Dhala, were able to
successfully implement project activities. The team conducted situational
analyses and initiated various activities targeting women. They addressed
women’s basic needs first by freeing their time from collecting water and
firewood. They progressed to literacy classes, health and nutrition training,
kitchen gardening and other income generating activities. When required, the
project team divided into women-only and men-only groups to address sensitive
gender-specific issues, issues that would otherwise not surface in a mixed
group. These initiatives have significantly contributed to women's inclusion
and the empowerment agenda in the communities.
Another major factor contributing to their project success was
using an effective communication strategy which was implemented by local women
who were able to build trust with other women in the villages. Action plans
were developed together with women and men from the community using
participatory processes. In addition, separate training sessions for women were
led by female facilitators because this gave rural women the
confidence to participate more actively and to voice their concerns more
comfortably.
Mr. Janvier Gasasira, Single Project Implementation Unit (SPIU) Coordinator, and Mr. Raymond Kamwe, M&E specialist and gender
focal person explained the role of community innovation centres (CIC) in
devising strategies to communicate and reach out to rural women. The work of
these CICs does not stop at providing technical
and organizational support to small farmers, they also conduct awareness
raising programmes on gender-based violence.
KWAMP through their CICs, came up with an ingenious idea of the 'women's
evenings'. It is a forum where village women meet on a regular basis to talk
about any violence and other social issues that require peer counselling and/or
help. Men are invited to attend. The forum has encouraged many local women to
discuss and report cases of violence. A gender desk has been established at the
local police station so that women who have been abused can talk to
policewomen.
Mr. Luis Heredia, Project Coordinator and Ms. Consuelo Aguinaga, Gender
specialist emphasised that the success of any project lies in ensuring equal
and democratic participation of women in all project activities and
decision-making processes. Often it is only at the implementation stage that
women’s participation is taken into consideration but to ensure that the
project is inclusive of women’s special needs, it is essential to assure
women’s meaningful participation from the planning stage.
In addition, the importance of allocating sufficient resources for
gender-related activities during Annual Work Plan and Budget was highlighted.
This is often overlooked but project gender strategies should be reflected in
the budget, reserving resources to support gender mainstreaming and women’s
empowerment.
Mr. Hubert Boirard, former country programme manager in Sierra
Leone, talked about the origins of a successful project. While a sound design
lays the foundation, most of a project’s success can be attributed to
implementation. Flexibility at the mid-term review is crucial. For example, the
Gender Action Learning System (GALS) was added by project staff during
implementation because they were convinced of the positive impact it had on
gender relations at the household level.