New EU Plan of Action on Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment in Development Cooperation
An EU ‘Action Plan’ is expected to be launched at the beginning of 2010 to further place gender at the centre of the EU's development policy, involving more coordination with the European Union’s 27 member states, says Victoria Correa, in charge of gender issues at the EC’s Directorate-General for Development and Relations with African, Caribbean and Pacific States
Women in Swaziland, 2005.
© Reporters/AP
Drawn up by the EC’s Directorate General for Development, in tandem with the External Relations Directorate, and with the help of EU Member States, the action plan will aim at further translating the existing policy into practice, explains Victoria Correa. The EC’s gender equality policy for developing countries is already laid down in the ‘EC Communication on Gender Equality and Women Empowerment in Development Cooperation’ but Victoria Correa says that the new Action Plan establishes concrete steps for the European Commission and EU Member States to further jointly deliver on their gender equality commitments and have more of an impact on the ground.
Still on the drawing board when the Courier went to press, the ‘Action Plan’ will propose a three pronged approach involving further political and policy dialogue with developing country partners on gender issues, the mainstreaming of gender this means ensuring that a gender perspective is integrated into all policy areas, programmes, strategies and interventions from road building to rural development for instance - and specific actions to address situations that require targeted support. Building on existing EU and EC resources, instruments and mechanisms, the Action Plan will put forward a series of activities and performance indicators to be carried out jointly during the period 2010-2015.
Between 2000-2007, a ‘mainstreaming’ approach to projects was adopted as opposed to specific gender projects but the ‘2007 Communication on gender equality and empowerment’ also recommended specific actions as a complement to gender mainstreaming in order to achieve targeted results and foster women’s empowerment in developing countries.
2007 Communication
The EC’s 2007 Communication refers to the Millennium Development Goals (see previous article) and goes beyond them, highlighting some of the critical areas that are not addressed in the MDGs, and in particular in MDG 3 (promote gender equality and women empowerment) and MDG 5 (improve maternal health). For instance, the Communication lays emphasis on addressing issues such as female genital mutilation (see separate article); gender-based violence in all its manifestations, and trafficking in women.
Daniela Rofi, Gender Desk Officer at the EC’s EuropeAid Co-operation Office, explains that the EC provides assistance to advance the gender equality agenda in the partner countries through the European Development Fund and the EC Thematic Programmes. The European Development Fund (EDF) assists ACP countries in their structural reforms of the education, health and justice sectors to make them accessible to both boys and girls, women and men. The EDF is also instrumental in building the national capacity to design and implement gender policies. Through the Thematic Programmes, especially “Investing in People’ 2007-2013, which contains a budget for ‘sexual and reproductive health and rights ’ and ‘gender equality and women’s rights’, the EC supports the civil society organisations active for gender equality and women's rights. Also the EC cooperates with the United Nations (see below).
Female genital mutilation
A four million EC project co-financed by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) started up in December 2007 to work for the abandonment of female genital mutilation practices. Due to the sensitivity of the issue, since it deals with a traditional practice, the project is based on the development of a social convention model which brings the issue out in the open. Within communities, religious leaders speak out against the myth that the practices are tied to religion. Parents’ concerns and the harmful effects of the practice are addressed. The abandoning of practices thus becomes a collective decision of the community and there is no fear of retribution and isolation of individuals. The project is being run in three ACP states - Senegal, Sudan and Eritrea.
Mapping gender equality in budget aid
The ‘EC/UN Partnership on Gender Equality for Peace and Development’ came out of the 2005 EC Conference with the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) where the shift in aid to new aid modalities such as budget support was discussed. The project focuses on 12 pilot countries: Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Ghana, Indonesia, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Honduras, Nicaragua and Surinam. All results can be found on a website (www.gendermatters.eu). The Partnership has enabled capacity building and knowledge on how to make aid more gender sensitive and is helping to build gender equality best practice in all EC programmes.
For more information see: www.gendermatters.eu
Swaziland furthering women’s rights
Swaziland ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in March 2004. A 42-month programme co-financed by the EC and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is aimed at enabling government and non-governmental organisations build their capacity as state actors to undertake the necessary legislative and policy changes under CEDAW. It is raising awareness and sensitising and providing technical assistance to policy makers, civil society and traditional authorities. It includes an audit of legislation for gender sensitivity and compliance with CEDAW, support to the drafters of new legislation to ensure compliance with CEDAW and development of a national gender advocacy programme.
Ethiopia: harnessing women’s potential
A €3.64M project for Ethiopia under the 10th European Development Fund (EDF) for ‘Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality through Institutional Capacity Building and Entrepreneurship’ is expected to be launched in Spring 2010. Gender inequality is one of the root causes of poverty. To halve extreme poverty by 2015, Ethiopia must harness the full potential of both men and women. The programme will support the Ethiopian government's national Action Plan for gender equality in strengthening the institutional capacity on the one hand and, on the other, in equipping women with entrepreneurship skills to improve their livelihoods. . Selected target groups are men and women working in the Women's Affairs Structure for the capacity building component and women working in the informal sector, in particular those who are literate and living in an urban setting, for the empowerment component (this component will be piloted in certain areas of the country).
