Gender Equality: Moving Towards Sustainable, People-Centred Development (Policy Statement)

Gender Equality: Moving Towards Sustainable, People-Centred Development

The May 1995 High Level Meeting of the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, endorsed gender equality as a vital goal for development and development assistance efforts. What follows is a summary of the general principles and imperatives enumerated by the DAC.

A New Consensus There is strong emerging consensus that to achieve sustainable, people-centred development, progress towards equality in the roles of women and men is essential. This consensus is based on ample evidence:

• Investment in the education of girls quite possibly yields a higher rate of return than any other investment.

• Women are amongst those most affected by the problems of poverty - as economic actors they are clearly also key to reducing poverty and to improving the effectiveness of structural adjustment programmes.

• Since women fulfil important roles as managers of natural resources their active involvement in environmental planning is a precondition for success in efforts to protect and sustain the environment.

• Specific efforts to enhance the role of women in development remain as necessary as ever but the focus must widen to encompass both women's and men's roles, their responsibilities, needs, access to resources and decision-making as well as the social relations between women and men.

• The importance of focusing on men's roles and the extent and manner of their control of resources and decision making is becoming clearer - for example, in the area of sexual and reproductive health, and population, where it is evident that an exclusive focus on women is insufficient.

• Focusing on male attitudes and behaviour is thus crucial in tackling the causes and not only the symptoms of women's problems, across the range of economic and social issues.

Over the past decade considerable changes have taken place in developing country awareness and approaches. Most developing countries now have:

• national policies on women in development;

• dynamic activist groups and research institutions working on gender equality;

• local visions and priorities that are increasingly well established.

• Gender issues have been recognised as both indicators of and foundations for effective social and economic development, at the United Nations Conferences on Environment (1992), Human Rights (1993), Population and Development (1994) and Social Development (1995).

• The United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women: Action for Equality, Development and Peace in 1995 (Beijing) provides an opportunity for developing a coherent set of internationally-agreed strategies which should provide concrete guidance for the achievement of the goals set by the previous UN conferences.

• The Beijing Platform for Action focuses on power-sharing and more equitable partnerships between women and men as political, social and economic prerequisites for sustainable, people-centred development.

• Networks -- involving new partnerships between women in the North and South have made important contributions in preparing and conducting these international conferences which point to priorities for action.

Implications for development co-operation agencies of gender equality as a strategic objective Gender equality as a strategic objective for sustainable, people-centred development implies a broader approach to the issue of women in development than previously followed by both governments and aid agencies. While maintaining efforts to integrate women in development, the gender equality objective recognises the vital necessity that women and men, in equal partnership, take the responsibility to define the development agenda, set the vision and goals, and develop strategies:

• This involves a transformation of the development agenda to include the visions, interests and needs of women as well as men.

• Strategies in the coming decade must identify the structural gender differences and possible imbalances, and the structural causes of gender disparities.

• It is equally important to identify the cultural roots for gender structures.

• This will involve recognising and acting on basic gender distortions in economic activity, promoting increased and equitable participation of women in governance and civil society, and upholding respect of women's human rights.

• Responsibility for pursuing gender equality must be broadly shared by all actors, both men and women.

• Within institutions and organisations, this requires a shift from seeing gender equality as the responsibility of a small group of specialist staff, mostly female social scientists, to identifying the responsibilities of policy analysts, planners, managers, and programme staff -- including economists and technicians.

• This can only be achieved if senior management exert strong leadership for gender equality and develop methods for holding staff and consultants accountable.

• Specialist gender resources will continue to be needed, but their roles must be revised to focus on targeted catalytic, advisory and supportive functions.

• The further development of gender analysis, planning methodologies and qualitative impact indicators will be crucial to the achievement of gender equality.

• This requires in turn a more structured focus on "people centred" approaches to development thinking, integrating both socio cultural and economic analysis.

• Within agencies there is need for broader sharing of responsibility and accountability for gender equality, as well as increased levels of gender expertise to provide the necessary advice and support.

• Increased financial resources are essential for the development of the required methodologies and instruments and for the requisite competence within agencies.

DAC Members have already done much to innovate in analysis, policy and programme development, as well as institutional development. This is documented in the Assessment of DAC Members' Programmes and Policies for Women in Development, conducted by the DAC Expert Group on Aid Evaluation. They can continue to be trail blazers in designing and implementing policy commitments for women's participation in development.
Implications for policy To date gender issues have been more effectively addressed at the project level than in policy and programme formulation:

• The major focus has been the adjustment of project designs to incorporate gender concerns, or to mitigate negative effects, after the critical decisions have been made about priorities, resource allocation and types of interventions.

• However, the important achievements made by DAC Members in addressing gender issues so far should provide a strong foundation for addressing issues of policy and programme formulation in the future.

• Further strengthening of the capabilities of agencies in these areas could be managed through reallocating existing technical and training budgets.

It is important to remedy the weaknesses in development co-operation methodology which impede adequate and effective attention to women in development and gender issues. These include:

• the continued strong tendency to define development co-operation in narrow technical, economic, or sectoral terms;

• the lack of focus on socio-cultural aspects;

• the damaging separation of social and economic analysis.

• At project level the gender approach has led to considerable innovation with techniques for analysing target populations in their socio-economic contexts, as well as with methodologies for promoting consultation and participation.

• Work with a gender perspective has been at the forefront of efforts to address the socio-economic and human aspects of development and has made a major contribution to raising awareness and competence on these issues.

• The inclusion of gender and women in development issues at this level of consultation is a new means both for focusing attention on these issues in national policy development, and for ensuring adequate attention to gender equality in the follow-up to important international conferences.

• The overall objective of gender equality should be reflected in the focus on programme assistance, for example in the analysis of policy options for economic restructuring.

• Dialogue and programming on institution-building and development of national capacity should encompass the expertise required to identify and address gender-based needs and to reduce gender disparities.

• Endorse gender equality as an overall strategic objective for promoting the role of women and therefore sustainable, people-centred development.

• Re-emphasise the socio-cultural aspects of development and the general need for a more people-focused approach which integrates social, economic and political analyses.

• Reconsider the impact of non-project forms of co-operation, such as sectoral programme assistance, structural adjustment, public expenditure reviews, on women.

• Include gender implications in analyses, policies, country and sector strategies.

• Emphasise these principles in continuing and emerging areas of co-operation, in particular participatory development and good governance, human rights, and conflict resolution.

• Help partners strengthen their institutional capacity to incorporate actions in favour of women and to develop new instruments for addressing gender equality.

• Increase policy dialogue with partners.

• Focus on local communities' abilities to identify gender priorities and support actions in partnership with aid agencies.

• Emphasise competence development, management responsibility, accountability, and adequate monitoring and reporting of results. This could involve increased financial commitments and rewriting job descriptions and responsibilities to include gender criteria.

Implications for the DAC As a forum for consultation on policy development, and on the quality and effectiveness of development partnerships, the DACcan play a major role in furthering gender equality as a strategic objective of development co-operation. DAC consultations and initiatives to date on gender equality have mainly taken place under the auspices of the Expert Group on Women in Development. The Expert Group has taken responsibility for ensuring that the DAC, its other subsidiary bodies (the Working Party on Financial Aspects of Development Assistance, the Working Party on Statistical Problems, the Working Party on Development Assistance and Environment, the Expert Group on Aid Evaluation, the Ad Hoc Working Group on Participatory Development and Good Governance), and the Secretariat, are aware of and have the resources necessary to deal with the gender issues relevant to their deliberations on policy and sectoral issues. The establishment of gender equality as an overall strategic objective will:

• Entail a shift in the onus of responsibility to the DAC itself, its subsidiary bodies and the Secretariat.

• The role of the Expert Group on Women in Development will hence focus more on catalytic, advisory and supportive functions.

The High Level Meeting endorsed measures and principles for the work of the DAC in relation to establishing gender priorities and gender equality as a strategic development objective. The DAC will establish a gender plan for incorporating gender issues systematically in its work. The Gender Plan will:

• Specify steps, time frames, responsibilities, resources and time commitments for addressing gender equality issues in, for example, policy formulation, the aid review process, the development of principles and practices, and statistical reporting.

• Lead to a review by all DAC subsidiary bodies of their terms of reference and work programmes in the light of the gender equality objective.

• Ensure, in line with the specifications of the Gender Plan, that DAC meetings on topical and sectoral issues are provided with the substantive analyses needed to elicit adequate attention to gender issues.

• Provide DAC Member Aid Agencies the opportunity to consult on the implications of the Beijing Conference and its Platform for Action for their work, including institutional and financial arrangements.

• Lead to a revision of the DAC Guiding Principles for Women in Development along the lines suggested by the outcomes of the DAC Assessment, lessons learned and the Beijing Conference.

Conclusions The policy framework for the DAC and its Members outlined above reflects the emerging international consensus that gender equality, including specific attention to women in development, is key to achieving sustainable, people-centred development. The DAC can continue to show leadership to its agencies and provide mechanisms for mobilising and supporting the efforts of its Members. In taking the issue of gender equality further the DAC aims to provide concrete support to its Members and their partners and lay down solid foundations for concrete follow-up actions to Beijing. The DAC emphasises the importance of carrying this out through new and continued partnerships with developing countries.
Back to the Gender Equality Group home page Latest update 12 August 1999