Gender in NGOs

Gender policies & approaches among ACFID agencies

This research is funded by a small 2010 Universities-ACFID Linkage Grant and in-kind support from the ANU.  Dr Patrick Kilby, Coordinator of the Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development Proram at the ANU, will work with Joanne Crawford, IWDA’s research and policy adviser and Co-Convenor of the ACFID Gender Equity Working Group, to survey the approach to gender among 15 ACFID member agencies, map the current approach and identify factors contributing to the gap between policy and practice.

Background to Research

Gender in development has been an issue for development agencies — NGO, bilateral and multilateral — since the mid 1970s and the México Women’s Conference when the first women and development approaches to aid and development were agreed to.  Since then, and particularly following the Fourth UN World Conference on Women in 1995, bilateral, multilateral, and NGOs, have all agreed to develop gender policies which address inequalities in access to development resources between men and women.  While some progress has been made in the fields of education and health, overall, the history of gender integration in development resembles Chris Patten’s characterisation of collective European foreign policy making — ‘extremely strong adjectives and nouns and extremely weak verbs.’[1] Despite virtually universal commitment at the level of goal and strategy, implementation of gender equality policies has proved challenging. A 2005 review[2] of nine OECD bilateral donors found very significant ‘policy evaporation’ in the progression from commitment to implementation and resourcing.  There were similar stories about key challenges (eg lack of appreciation that all activities have a gender dimension) and what makes a difference (involvement of gender expertise in planning and design, specific responsibilities for gender,[3] mandatory requirements, incentive-based approaches and good management practice).[4] Most development assistance organisations, whether governmental or non-governmental, have not yet institutionalised approaches for addressing gender issues in their work.’[5]

The picture in Australia is similar. AusAID and NGOs have struggled to develop and implement workable gender policies which redress gender injustices (Kilby and Olivieri 2008). AusAID (and ADAB its predecessor) have conducted a number of reviews of Australian NGOs which indicate weakness on gender and NGOs themselves perceive this as an issue.  While anecdotal evidence through the ACFID Gender Equity Working Group, and from NGO accreditations, suggests that both gender policy development and gender policy implementation are areas needing both strengthening and support, we do not have a detailed picture of how NGOs are currently approaching gender and development, where the challenges lie and what is working well.  This research is a first step in developing a clearer understanding of the range of ways in which NGOs are seeking to integrate gender in their organization and activities, where the challenges lie and what is working. 

The research will fill a gap in the publicly available evidence regarding factors influencing gender integration in Australian NGOs.  It will inform thinking about how to assist agencies to implement the gender provisions in a revised ACFID Code of Conduct (assuming it is approved at the Council meeting in October) and accelerate  progress towards gender equality.

The research approach

Patrick Kilby has conducted research on developing country NGOs (Kilby 2006; Kilby 2010), particularly Indian NGOs, positing three reasons why gender is weak: the gendered nature of society in which the NGO is embedded, often with strong patriarchal norms; the lower status accorded gender compared with social categories such as class, caste, ethnicity etc; and the dual role of government as regulator and donor, and international donor policy. The research proposed directions to improve gender performance among developing country NGOs (Kilby 2010). This research will follow up the developing country study by exploring gender within Australian NGOs to map the current approach and identify factors contributing to the gap between policy and practice. To what extent are gender equality issues ‘mainstreamed’ in policy and programming? What is the evidence of gender in policy ‘framing’ and content and in institutional mechanisms and procedures? What is the extent of understanding, ownership and resourcing? 

The researchers will survey 15 ACFID members which are accredited to receive ANCP funds (around one third of NGOs in the ANCP) in the latter half of 2010 in Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra, using stratified sampling to ensure that large, small, faith-based, and secular NGOs are represented.  NGOs receiving ANCP funds are required to have a gender policy.  Responses to a questionnaire will be sought from (a) working level program, communications, marketing, fundraising staff; (b) staff with specific responsibility for gender; and (c) senior staff with responsibility for overall direction, management and compliance with AusAID and ACFID requirements.

This will be supplemented with the views of at least two key informants in each organisation but preferably more (up to five), using a focus group approach. The information collected about the current approach to gender integration, current gender work and priorities and views about gender and development will be used to (a) map the current location of gender in the organisational structure, policies and programs; (b) explore cultural and organisational factors influencing the integration of gender; (c) identify common approaches and issues, barriers and enablers; and (d) identify organisation-level and sector-level information, coordination, support and advocacy priorities. 

The research findings will be written up as a working paper available to ACFID and AusAID, and presented at the International Society for Third Sector Research (ISTR) regional conference in mid to late 2011. We are also looking at potential development of a larger research project to more comprehensively review gender in organisational structures, programs and budgets, potentially using the methodology employed by Socialwatch and Eurostep in its 2005 study of OECD donors, to systematically track gender integration from policy commitment through organisational policies and practices, staffing, development programming, monitoring and evaluation, and resourcing.

Personnel

Lead Researcher: Dr. Patrick Kilby currently coordinates and lectures in a Masters Degree Program in participatory development at the Australian National University (ANU), and supervises PhD students researching gender and participatory development.  He is actively involved the evaluation of both policy and programs for Government in the community development, emergencies humanitarian action, and education sectors; as well as development programs of NGOs.  Dr Kilby has established appraisal, accountability, evaluation for learning, systems with an international development organisation in Australia.  He has been involved in complex emergency management, and community based program and evaluation experience in the 1980s and 1990s.  He is on the AusAID NGO Accreditation Panel, and an advisory panel for AusAID’s policy for engagement with civil society.  He has conducted research on NGOs, poverty, women’s empowerment, and program management.  His book, NGOs in India: The Challenges of Women’s Empowerment and Accountability, is due for release in September 2010.

Co-researcher: Joanne Crawford is IWDA’s Research and Policy Adviser, and a Research Associate on an ARC linkage project, Assessing development: designing better indices of poverty and gender equity, administered by the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the ANU.  As co-convenor of the ACFID Gender Equity Working Group, she has an ongoing focus on strengthening gender analysis and mainstreaming within the NGO sector.  She was centrally involved in an IWDA-convened think tank on gender mainstreaming and intersectionality in 2003 and wrote the background paper for the IWDA-convened symposium on gender indicators in 2006, proceedings of which were published as Measuring Gender Equality, Development Bulletin 71, in September 2006.

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[1] ‘Europe in the World’, Background Briefing, ABC Radio National, 12 November 2006.

[2] Mirijam van Reisen with Maxi Ussar (2005), Accountability Upside Down: Gender equality in a partnership for poverty eradication, Eurostep and Social Watch.  The report looked at gender policy implementation by nine OECD donors ? Canada, the European Community, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK and the US.

[3] The 2006 OECD DAC peer review of the Netherlands identifies inclusion of gender equality in strategic plans and embassies’ annual planning and reporting process as one of the factors that has avoided the problems with mainstreaming experienced by other donors. OECD (2006b), Peer Review of the Netherlands, Development Assistance Committee, OECD, Paris, pp.41-42. The need to embed responsibility across organisations at all levels was also noted in the evaluation of Norad’s work on gender equality. See Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research (2005), p.10

[4] AusAID (2002).  DFID’s 2006 evaluation reported that its main findings ‘are also in line with the outcomes of similar evaluations by other bilateral donors on. This would suggest ‘a wider systemic problem in addressing gender inequality.’ DFID (2006a), Evaluation of DFID’s Policy and Practice in Support of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment: Summary (EVSUM EV669), DFID, UK, August, p.4

[5] Interaction website, http://www.interaction.org/caw/services.html.  This assessment is confirmed by OECD peer reviews and independent evaluations, eg of the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad).

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