DAC Guidelines on Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment in Development Co-operation

Complete Document (37 pages) The members of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) have long recognised that sustainable development must fully reflect the needs of both women and men. The DAC adopted Guiding Principles to Aid Agencies for Supporting the Role of Women in Development in 1983 and revised them in 1989. An annex to the revised Guiding Principles identified areas of particular concern where lack of opportunity for women impaired their participation and impeded development efforts. The original and the revised Guiding Principles served as useful guidance for advancing gender issues in the development co-operation programmes of DAC members. These Guiding Principles have made an important contribution to the considerable progress that has been achieved in bringing gender issues to the centre in the formulation and in carrying out development co-operation programmes.

Experience with the Guiding Principles has contributed to a growing realisation that both justice and effectiveness in development now require a shift and a broadening in emphasis. The Principles had been focused primarily on incorporating special expertise, projects and activities with respect to women in development (WID) into development co-operation policies and programmes. What is needed now is a much stronger emphasis on gender equality as a development objective, and on the mainstreaming of gender issues as integral to locally-owned development strategies.

This shifting emphasis was given expression in two policy statements adopted by the DAC in May 1995, Development Partnerships in the New Global Context, and, more particularly, Gender Equality: Moving Toward Sustainable, People-Centred Development. (A summary of the latter constitutes Appendix 1 to this publication.)

At the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in September 1995, participating governments undertook to carry out a comprehensive platform for action intended to ensure, in the words of the conference declaration, "that a gender perspective is reflected in all our policies and programmes" (see Beijing Declaration).

In keeping with the Beijing Platform for Action and the DAC policy statements, the results-oriented partnerships strategy adopted by the DAC in 1996 expressly included gender equality as one of its goals. That DAC strategy, set out in the landmark report, Shaping the 21st Century: The Contribution of Development Co-operation, is representative of a widely-shared partnership approach to development co-operation. As the international community now moves forward to implement this approach, there is a clear need for new guidance on ensuring an effective incorporation of gender equality as a cross-cutting objective in all aspects of development co-operation.

The former DAC Expert Group, renamed in 2003 the DAC Network on Gender Equality, has performed a valuable service by drawing together a set of practical guidelines for advancing the goals identified by the DAC and by Beijing with respect to gender equality. The DAC Guidelines for Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment in Development Co-operation draw on the lessons of experience and incorporate illustrations of improved efficiency, effectiveness and coherence in development co-operation.

The topics covered are of particular relevance to the design and implementation of locally-owned strategies for sustainable, people-centered development. They range from broad policy issues to more specific sectoral themes. They make specific recommendations for donors, and also recognise the roles of others. A final chapter relates gender equality to other economic, social and environmental goals in the development co-operation agenda for the 21st century. In the course of preparing the guidelines, the authors developed a valuable collection of resource materials which they compiled into a separate publication. The DAC Source Book on Concepts and Approaches Linked to Gender Equality, like the guidelines, has been approved by the DAC and made widely available.

Undoubtedly, further progress and experience with development partnerships will lead to new insights in light of changing circumstances. These guidelines, like those which preceded them, will need to be reviewed and revised at some point. For the foreseeable future, however, they will be a most valuable tool for all who are concerned with results-oriented, people-centred development. We all owe a debt of gratitude to those who have contributed to the formulation of the guidelines (and the related source book), especially the leadership of the DAC Network on Gender Equality and the members of the OECD Secretariat.