Gender integration and mainstreaming in CGIAR and CGIAR Research Programs

GENDER: INTEGRATION AND MAINSTREAMING IN CGIAR AND CGIAR RESEARCH PROGRAMS

GLOBAL PLANNING MEETING

11-15 FEBRUAY 2012

Chanda Gurung Goodrich,

Principal Scientist- Empower Women

CGIAR Level

The CGIAR’s Strategic Results Framework

(2011) identifies gender inequality as a

critical area that directly affects the

achievement of its 4 system-level outcomes –

SRF- conceives research on gender as

a theme that cross-cuts the CGIAR RPs because significant

opportunities exist for cross-program

synergy and efficiency.

Establishing a robust, properly resourced capacity to address

the gender dimensions of

agricultural research and development at the Consortium level

is central to the CGIAR’s new results-oriented approach.

Consortium Level Gender Strategy (2012) commits to:

(a) deliver research outputs with measurable benefits to women farmers in target areas within 4 years of inception of any given Program

(b) ensure the deployment of best-in-class scientific talent for this purpose

Specific outputs to be produced:

• CGIAR RPs implement a high standard of gender analysis that is firmly mainstreamed into their research by 2015

• A Consortium-wide policy on quality standards for gender analysis

• A premier gender and agriculture research capacity established via strategic partnerships fostering a high level of scientific rigor in social and gender analysis in CGIAR

• CGIAR RPs deliver gender-responsive research outputs with positive impacts on gender equality benefiting at least 1 million women in the CGIAR RPs’ main target areas by 2015

Critical to success will be:

• Recruitment of gender specialists because many CGIAR RPs do not have sufficient capacity to implement Gender Strategies

• Improved capacity for using gender and social analysis among non-specialists

• Collaboration across Programs – for synergies in capacity-development, shared research sites & methods, joint M & E, and to establish shared quality standards

• CGIAR RPs to allocate sufficient funding to gender research - need to invest in high quality social science that is the foundation for gender-responsive research

Approach: Clear and enforceable accountability mechanisms designed

• Monitoring of each CGIAR RP’s Gender Strategy results

• Budget - the resources it allocates to achieve these

• Capacity - deployment of gender expertise.

Gender Performance Scheme

Key procedures to ensure accountability established by the Consortium :

• All CGIAR RP’s are required as a minimum to have (i) an approved Gender Strategy (ii) a work-plan that integrates implementation of the Strategy and a dedicated gender budget in 2013.

• If monitoring (annually)shows that a CGIAR RP’s implementation of its approved Gender Strategy is below minimum standards agreed with the CO, the CO will give feedback and require the CGIAR RP to improve its gender research.

• A CGIAR RP that is not implementing an approved Gender Strategy or that fails to improve after feedback will be put on warning that its overall performance could be qualified by the CO as unsatisfactory.

Steps taken

• In early 2012 a senior advisor for gender research was appointed at the Consortium office

• Gender and Agriculture Research Network established to support the development and implementation of a Gender Strategy by each Program.

• Gender Performance Scheme

What all this means…

• In 2013 all CGIAR RPs are required to engage in effective implementation of their gender research strategy.

• “Opting out” from the integration of gender into CGIAR RP research is no longer an option.

PROGRAM LEVEL

Key actions

1. All CGIAR RPs have an explicit Gender Strategy (GS) -

(a) integrate attention to gender inequality into the Program’s main agenda

(b) conduct strategic research on overcoming crucial impediments to a more gender-equitable flow of benefits.

Contents of the GS: Rationale; Goal and Objectives; Theory of Change and Impact Pathways; Activities; Monitoring and Evaluation; Budget; Team and Management Structure; Capacity

Formal submission process: by the CGIAR RP Director, to the Chief Science Officer, copy to the CEO and to the Sr. Gender Advisor, who will then provide the CSO with a written assessment.

Final approval will be in the form of an answer by the CSO to the submission by the CGIAR RP Director

2. The GS has to be implemented within 6 months of the CGIAR RP’s inception

3. Formulation of an annual Program-level gender work plan based on the GS that specifies the activities required for integration and mainstreaming, with well-defined responsibilities assigned at all relevant organisational levels (16 February 2013)

4. Address the need to front-load capacity via recruitment, training and partnerships with sources of gender expertise external to the CGIAR

5. Institutionalise the practice of budgeting realistically for gender research as part of the normal plan of work and budget so that commitments to do gender research are actually met.

6. Ensure that research outputs bring demonstrable and measurable benefits to women farmers in target areas within 4 years following the inception of the CGIAR RP.

7. By 2014 staff training , recruitment and strategic partnerships ensure sufficient gender expertise in the CGIAR RP.

8. Collaboration of gender researchers across Programs: to minimise duplication & fragmentation of effort among scarce human resources; exploit strategic opportunities for synergy.

9. Implement rigorous performance monitoring with incentives- meet internationally recognized quality standards for social science research on gender; for institutionalizing the policy and practice required for mainstreaming.

WORK PLAN:

Outcomes and Indicators

Type of outcome

Given the expectation that CGIAR RPs will begin to show measurable benefits in target areas within four years of inception (this will be the time-frame, at least initially):

• R & D outcomes should be such that they can be evaluated for relevance and importance in relation to results-oriented criteria that any Program needs to deliver on poverty and on gender

• Gender-responsive indicators should to be highly sensitive to change in a relatively short time-frame, easy to measure and significant.

Therefore the Outcomes should be intermediate outcomes

Top 3 indicators in an agriculture R4D program*

• The extent to which women are involved in the crop/sector in terms of production, marketing, or processing has not decreased (or has increased) as a result of the program

• Reduction of gender disparities in access to productive resources and control of incomes as a result of the program

• Improvements in diets or nutritional status of individuals, particularly in areas where there are marked gender disparities in nutritional status/nutrient adequacy

*Meinzen-Dick and Quisumbing (2012)

Examples of gender-responsive intermediate outcome indicators

• Improvements in men & women’s knowledge relevant to use of related technology

• Gender-differentiated changes in workloads (qualitative + quantitative)

• Increase in the returns to women’s (unpaid) farm labor

• Integration into plant breeding of sex-differentiated preferences for proposed varietal traits

• Men & women’s adoption rates of new technologies (e.g. an index across commodities, systems and natural resource management )

• market entry rates for men & women (in various market channels)

• Shares of income going to men vs. women from increases in productivity and increases in sales

• Food access & consumption ( qualitative + quantitative measures)

• institutional changes in the inclusiveness of value chains

• Changes in norms governing gender relations in production and marketing

• Men & women’s use of agricultural advisory services to access the technologies

• Gender-differentiated participation in and income shares from payment for environmental services.

THANK YOU