Gender mainstreaming is a radical undertaking that requires a "restructuring of the way we think" so that women are taken into account "in all their productive and crucial daily roles which support the economy." According to Ms. Josephine Ouédraogo, Director of ECA's African Centre for Women (ACW), it is part of ECA's mandate to help African countries implement the Platform of Action adopted by the 1995 Women's Conference in Beijing, and the ACW aims to have strategic impact throughout the continent. One milestone was successfully convening the 28 April-1 May conference, which brought together such a range of people.
Photo: Libya Mullugetta
Ms. Ouédraogo says there must be a wide understanding of the "deep implications" of gender on the conception and implementation of development strategies in all sectors. This is why the ACW aims to help governments make a routine practice of factoring gender into national accounts and statistics. "We hope that some countries will agree to adopt methods that enable gender-di aggregated data to influence the priorities for investment."
For example, village women in the Sahel spend two or three hours each day to make one kilogramme of millet flour to feed the family, using rudimentary tools and tiring techniques. This daily effort is not factored into national accounts and "we don't know the real cost of each kilo of flour eaten every day in the village." When it becomes clear that those hours of labour have an economic cost, and also prevent women from doing other things, "then it is obviously beneficial to tilt investment priorities towards agro-industrial processing, to facilitate access to flour!"
Gender programmes should, therefore, be integrated in all the major ministries such as agriculture, education, trade, finance and health. She notes that some countries are already adopting this cross-sectoral approach.
But to be able to help governments, ECA had to begin gender mainstreaming within its own house, she told Africa Recovery during the conference. An important structural move was the upgrading of the ACW by making its head a director alongside the directors of ECA's seven other divisions, as part of the institution's "strategic reorientation."
Then began the process of integrating gender issues in the work programmes of all divisions. The first step was to assess precisely what would be required for each division's work, for example, social and economic policy analysis, or development management. There were two-day workshops (in November 1997 and February 1998), with senior staff ranging from Executive Secretary K.Y. Amoako's Cabinet Office and the division directors to the Sub-Regional Development Centres.
"It was quite tough at first, and nearly conflictual," says Ms. Ouédraogo. Some officials "had their own vision and felt we were trying to intrude in their personal conception, their traditions and their customs. Of course, gender issues reach deeply into people's sensitivities and behaviour. So we tackled them strictly on development issues."
For example, "we looked at macroeconomic indicators and said: how can you explain that some activities have a monetary value when others, performed by women, do not?" The target was to get the officials to see the problems in the same way. And the key was using two trainers -- Ms. Nalini Burn, a Mauritian economist, and Ms. Gladys Mutokwa, a Zambian lawyer -- who could talk to ECA directors and senior staff on a professional level. This made the discussions "straightforward," says Ms. Ouédraogo.
She recalls a meeting in New York last February at which all UN agencies had to report on progress in integrating gender in their work. She feels the meeting showed that the ECA was the first institution "to have gone so far and so deeply into the issue." In other agencies, "whatever measures they had taken were still at too low a level to have the structures and expertise that enable you to be taken seriously by the decision-makers."
Work continues on strengthening the tools and methods for mainstreaming gender in the work of ECA divisions, along with better indicators of progress. The two consultants will make detailed proposals for discussion at a workshop later this year. Ms. Ouédraogo says there is still a long way to go before gender analysis progresses from being an adjunct, to being a central factor in development policies and programmes in Africa.
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Gender-Responsive Development -- Compendium of Good Practice (Interim Report; May 1998)
The Status of Women -- Fact sheets on Africa's 53 countries (1998)
Traditional and Cultural Practices Harmful to the Girl-Child (1997)
A Study of the Economic Empowerment of Women and their Role in the Socio-Economic Development of Africa (1996)
The African Women Report: Participation of Women in the Economic Sector (1995)
International Legal Instruments Relevant to Women (1994)
A Roll Call of Africa's Distinguished Daughters (1994)
African Centre for Women
UNECA
P.O. Box 3001
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Tel: (251-1) 51-72-00 or 51-12-63
Fax: (251-1) 51-27-85 or 51-44-16
E-mail: <eca40th@un.org> or <ecainfo@un.org>
Website: www.un.org/Depts/eca/divis/acw
