Gender Equality, Women’s and Girls’ Empowerment in CARE

April 29, 2014

Why address gender inequalities in Food & Nutrition Security ?

1. Countries ranking highest on the index of global hunger are also those where such inequalities are more severe 1

2. Multi-country data illustrate the strong correlation between higher levels of the gender equality index and lower child mortality 2

3. Cross-country comparisons show that in all regions, women perform the bulk of unpaid work in the “care” economy leaving them with a time debt that could be used for rest, education, services and/or income-generation 3

4. Parents with less rigid gender role stereotypes scored highest in parental warmth and support for their children, and tended to impart greater flexibility to their children , foster better school performance, and their children – both boys and girls– displayed higher self-esteem.4

5. CARE’s data from Bangladesh shows that women’s empowerment interventions were found to have a strong independent impact on stunting of children under 3 years 5

1. von Grebmer et al. 20092. Turner (2012). Compilation based on data from the United Nations Development Programme Human Development Report (various issues) for Gender-Related Development Index and the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Database for child mortality3. Bread for the World Institute 1995.4. Spence, J T & Helmreich, R L. Comparison of masculine and feminine personality attributes and sex role attitudes across age groups. Development Psychology. 1979.5. Admissible Evidence in the Court of Development Evaluation? The Impact of CARE’s SHOUHARDO Project on Child Stunting in Bangladesh . IDS 2011

• Her own aspirations and capabilitiesAGENCY

• The environment that surrounds and conditions her choices STRUCTURE

• The power relations through which she negotiates her pathRELATIONS

WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT is the sum total of changes needed for a woman to realize her full

human rights – the interplay of changes in:

• Lower self-confidence, lack of formal education, lack of information, business or other skills, capacities, lack of voice or say in decisionsAGENCY

• Lower wages, more informal workplace settings, lack of land rights, structural barriers to extension services, barriers to banking services, norms that restrict women’s movement, women’s and girls’ education, risks for exploitation, violence in getting to work place or in work place, norms that restrict agricultural /cropping or nutrition choices for women and girls and place responsibility for care-taking primarily on women and girls, cultural stereotypes that reinforce women’s inferior social status

STRUCTURE

• Inequitable food sharing at HH• Less access to resources and assets at HH• Decision-making not equitable at HH level• Social isolation may restrict social support networks• Threats of domestic violence influence choices and opportunities for women• Women and girls primarily responsible for time spent on unpaid work at home

RELATIONS

Gender barriers to be addressed?

Gender continuum

CARE’s Gender capacity strengths, gaps, opportunities

2014 Mapping:– High interest across the membership, as well as among MENA,

ECSARMU and LAC regions on GBV, gender in emergencies and gender integration across sectors and gender-issue advocacy

– There are clear niche areas among members across and within gender areas of work (oppty for role delineation?); gender’s link to resilience and FNS was identified as a gap area

– Most gender staffing especially is paid by restricted funding ; staffing on unrestricted funding will be reducing in FY15 and FY16 across members

– Mechanisms to coordinate or work interdependently on gender issues among offices on specific topics is unclear

– Found to be helpful: Gender policy, gender toolkit, emergency strategy, WE framework, Explanatory note

– The development of a centralized collective way of coordinating among CARE members/units on gender is still ongoing, TBD!

For discussion:Learning questions, competitive niche areas

1. What is the link between gender and resilience to shocks?2. What is the value-add of ‘gender-synchronized’ approaches to

FNS that work to address gender barriers by working with both men and women at the same time?

3. What is the value-add of promoting women-only, men-only or mixed group self-help groups?

4. Should we pay more attention to: household-level stereotypes and role boundaries? And/or to time poverty /unpaid work load?

5. How does violence/threat of violence play out in FNS?6. What key outcome measures can we be exploring beyond

“WEA”?

Donor Priorities re: GenderDonor Requires gender analysis Gender and Food SecurityUSAID √ √ Feed the futureDFID SIDA √ NORAD √ Austrian √ √Australia √ √European Union √ √ECHO √ Danida CIDA √ Finland √France √Germany √ √Netherlands Japan √Global Fund Gates √ √Ford √ √√Novo √ √√

Thank you!