THE GENDER AGENDA: TIME TO ACT./THE PARTICIPATORY GENDER AUDIT
The
Ministry of Education and Sports in the month of January 2013, undertook a
Participatory Gender Audit with staff from the different sub-sectors and
members of the development partners and civil society organizations.
The
audit revealed that Ministry of Education has been involved in pushing the
gender agenda forward but no resources or budgetary allocations have been put
in place to support gender initiatives in the sector.
Given
the nature of gender as a cross cutting issue, somebody knows everybody will do
it, everybody knows somebody will do it, ultimately nobody does it.
Time
has come for us to walk the talk and push the gender agenda with support and
budgetary allocation of resources towards gender initiatives in the sector.
Below
are some of the priority actions that need to be addressed by the sector in the
short run:-
·
Allocate
a percentage of the overall MoES budget to gender with a 2% to start with, in
order to ensure the sustainability of the Gender Unit and its programmes.
·
Solicit
and get support of all Top Management and strive to bring them on board as
Gender
Champions.
·
Engender the draft communication
Strategy for MoES, in terms of establishing guidelines on gender responsive
content, images, graphics and language, use of case documentation of success
stories on achieving gender equality.
This would
enhance and boost the public image of MoES on gender issues.
·
Strengthen
already existing monitoring and evaluation matrices to capture gender progress
and to ensure that gender mainstreaming in reality remains a high priority in
implementation of all programmes and activities throughout MoES.
·
Conduct
contextualized capacity and expertise to development across the entire Ministry
and among stakeholders for gender integration into all dimensions of
implementation through emphasis on use of gender analysis and survey tools that
are gender responsive.
Gender equality must be a lived reality in the Ministry of
Education and Sports.
FACT BOX
Gender Mainstreaming
Gender mainstreaming is a strategy to
make women's as well as men's concerns and experiences an integral dimension of
the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programs
in all political, economic and societal spheres [ECOSOC]
Importance of gender mainstreaming.
It makes women's as well as men's concerns and
experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and
evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal
spheres so that women and men benefit equally and inequality is not
perpetuated. The ultimate goal is to achieve gender equality.
The Ten Steps for Gender Mainstreaming includes:
1. A Mainstreaming Approach
to Stakeholders: Who are the Decision-Makers?
2. Mainstreaming a Gender
Agenda: What is the Issue?
3. Moving towards Gender
Equality: What is the Goal?
4. Mapping the Situation:
What Information Do We Have?
5. Refining the Issue:
Research and Analysis
6. Deciding on a Course of
Action: Designing Policy Interventions and Budgets
7. Arguing Your Case: Gender
Matters!
8. Monitoring: Keeping a
(Gender-Sensitive) Eye on Things
9. Evaluation: How Did We
Do?
10. En-Gendering
Communication
