How can gender equality be translated into practice? What processes are required to transform an organisation’s gendered structures, policies, practices and ideas? This book, published by Oxfam, aims to capture the difficult process of bringing about organisational change to promote gender equality. Focusing on the experiences of seven NGOs in South Asia and the Middle East, it finds that this is an endeavour concerned with politics and the power struggles that bring about change.
Novib (Nederlandse Organisatie voor Internationale Bijstand) formulated its Gender Focus Programme (GFP) in the 1990s with the aim of promoting gender equality in all aspects of its partner organisations. For most organisations, gender-mainstreaming focuses on programmes. While the long-term aim of GFP was to produce gender equality results in programmes, the starting point was exclusively internal organisational change. An underlying assumption was that gender-fair organisational practice would lead to gender-aware development programmes.
Participating organisations used a self-diagnostic tool derived from organisational development methodologies and adapted to address gender dimensions. It included analysis of structure and mandate, along with technical (policies and expertise), political (management) and cultural (attitudes and learning) layers. The findings were:
- At the outset, gender issues were addressed separately in programmes, generally through an isolated women’s unit.
- Lack of gender knowledge meant initial self-diagnosis was applied mechanistically and provoked resistance.
- The politically sensitive nature of gender issues meant the process had to be as participatory as possible to create ownership.
- Most organisations identified their strengths in the political and cultural layers, with technical weaknesses in terms of lack of a gender policy and expertise. Identifying primary weaknesses in the technical layer allowed them to ‘name’ gender inequality without blaming the people, management and values of the organisation.
- Models for change focussed on technical and political issues – the most visible aspects of the organisation. This left the most resistant aspects of change – ideas, practices and behaviour that perpetuate gender inequity – unaddressed.
During the implementation phase of the Gender Focus Programme, the focus for change activities largely shifted to the cultural layer. Shared meanings of gender relations and equality were fostered through a culture of dialogue which allowed voices advocating change and accountability to be heard:
- Setting up or reconstituting gender committees aimed to broad base responsibility for promoting gender equality throughout the organisations. This required strategies to facilitate political shifts, including training and debates and building alliances with mainstream departments and like-minded organisations.
- New measures were introduced to increase the recruitment of women. Most organisations did increase the number of female employees, although turnover remained high and most were ineffective in promoting women to management positions.
- Integrationist approaches to gender mainstreaming were successful in improving programme quality, but did not address unequal relations between men and women. Alternative strategies were necessary to push for women’s strategic interests, including advocacy to change public policies.
- The GFP provided the impetus to organise women politically, at the community level, around their strategic interests and not just their practical needs, facilitating the transformation of their self-image, leadership abilities, thinking and action.
