Introduction
Every year, March is celebrated as women’s month often geared towards raising awareness about gender equality. Although there has been significant progress in advancing the course of women on all fronts in the society, there remains some subtility that enforces relegation of women and their causes. Within the social sector, there has been a gradual shift from gender neutral interventions to gender responsive ones to ensure that programs meet the needs of intended beneficiaries. This article calls for an intentional approach towards gender responsiveness instead of an accidental approach as this will contribute to breaking the bias that limit females’ from benefitting maximally from interventions. It goes further to suggest actionable steps for promoting gender sensitivity in intervention design and programming. It culminates with call for the use of gender sensitive indicators that call out different aspects of a project and how they reinforce gender equality across board.
Gender can be defined as being the economic, social and cultural attributes and opportunities associated with being male or female. This distinction comes with roles and responsibilities (gender roles) that have far-reaching impact on how girls/women benefit from social interventions. According to statistics, women and youth form most marginalized and vulnerable groups in the world. The situation is more dire for women and girls in Africa as they face extreme exclusion and inequality.
Twenty-five years after the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, progress towards equality remains elusive. No country has achieved gender equality, and the COVID-19 crisis threatens to erode the limited gains that have been made so far. The Decade of Action to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals and efforts to recover better from the pandemic offers a chance to transform the lives of women and girls, today and tomorrow.
Advocating for Gender Responsive Development Interventions
Gender sensitive interventions emerged as a way of ensuring that social interventions and programming takes into consideration the lived realities and needs of the different genders. A programming process is gender sensitive when the gender dimension is systematically integrated into every step of the process, from defining the problem to identifying potential solutions. It is important to note that an accidental approach can no longer suffice when dealing with gender issues, a deliberate, intentional and sustainable approach must be adopted.
Here are a few steps resource persons and social sector organizations can adopt in fostering gender responsiveness.
- Recognition
The first step to breaking the bias in programming and intervention design is the recognition that gender does make a difference. This admission reinforces the need to tailor and design interventions that reflect these differences without devaluing girls and women. It is important to note that women and girls experience society differently, hence a gender non-responsive intervention already assumes that there is no difference.
- Planning and Budgeting
During project design and planning, gender responsiveness must be taken into consideration. Although approach may differ in planning for a female only project and a gender neural project, efforts must be made to prioritize marginalized groups. Budget must be made available to cater for the unique needs of girls and women during a project. For instance, a girl may need sanitary materials to participate fully in a leadership development training – a lack of which may affect her interest and influence the project outcome negatively.
From the initiation of a project, a needs assessment must be conducted, and it must reflect the needs and aspirations of girls and women. Implementation must be need based which means that a one-size fits all approach cannot be adopted in incorporating gender responsiveness in project design. The unique social context and lived realities of girls/women that excludes them must be understudied to ensure that they do not pose risks during implementation.
- Use of Gender Indicators
Gender indicators measures gender-related changes over time. It is designed to measure women’s empowerment and progress toward gender equality between women and men. These indicators help to provide sex‐disaggregated data, data on specific gender issues and gender‐ responsive data and statistics. can be measured directly or indirectly. Often, the lack of gender indicators in programming and intervention perpetuates exclusion of women/girls.
Use of gender indicators is important because what is measured is more likely to be prioritized and evidence gathered against indicators can help make the case that gender issues should be taken seriously. Interestingly, indicators can be used for advocacy and can help make the case for action by highlighting key issues, backed up with statistics and other evidence. Gender indicators can also be used to evaluate organizations and project outcomes revealing barriers to achieving success in gender equality.
- Media use and Communications
In many instances, it has been discovered that the messaging and framing of some interventions perpetuates bias and barriers to gender equality. Such communications reinforce inequality by promoting materials that either relegate women and girls or excludes them. There is therefore need for intentionality in media use and communications in executing social interventions. From the start of any project, the diversity of the intended beneficiary must be acknowledged. Gender responsive communication goes beyond featuring women/girls, it means deliberate efforts to project their voices. Their stories must be told in ways that reinforces equality using gender responsive language. For example: instead of using ‘Male’ and ‘female’ which defines biological distinctions used in the fields of medicine and biology; ‘Man’ and ‘woman’ which defines human beings should be adopted as they are the correct way to indicate personhood.
- Research and Evaluation
Gender should be fully integrated into research priority setting, research design and implementation such that innovations do no harm with respect to the existing inequalities and foster positive changes. Gender sensitivity in research involves understanding how anticipated outputs and outcomes affect women and men differently, and how the different roles and status of women and men affect the project activities and objectives. It also requires tailoring approaches and methods to the needs, priorities, and interests of women and men of different ages and socio economic and cultural backgrounds.
