FY15 Q4 Progress on the Gender Internal Change Goal
May 2015
FY15 q4 Progress on
Highlights from FY15 Q4
The Gender Internal Change Goal Key Themes of the GICG
Theme 1 Appropriate planning and MEL to facilitate learning and strategic decision making including increased rigor in research
Theme 2
Higher bar for partners on women’s leadership including strengthened capacity that ultimately protect women’s rights
Theme 3
Investment in staff capacity for gender analysis and gender integration
“Integrating and highlighting gender in all our work” is the clearly stated commitment in the OASP to advance the gender justice agenda. This update provides key organizational, programmatic, and policy and campaigning highlights on quarterly progress against the OA Gender Internal Change Goal (GICG). The previous update of FY15 Q3 can be found here.
Appropriate planning and MEL to facilitate learning and strategic decision making including increased rigor in research
In Q4, the regions conducted indepth analysis to strengthen programmatic approaches while empowering partners. In partnership with UNICEF, CAMEXCA is supporting the development of a pilot project for the Ministry of Education to establish key indicators for decision-making at the highest level of the Ministry of Education in schools, with an emphasis on sexual violence. A second phase is anticipated that will ensure the monitoring system has a national scope.
WARO worked with an external consultant to conduct a gender analysis in R4 intervention areas in the Kolda and Kaffrine regions. The ToR included several objectives: • Assess how gender is mainstreamed in the social protection, safety nets and resilience policies of the Government of Senegal; • Understand gender relations that influence the resilience of communities including the division of labor between men and women, access to and control over resources, decision making and gender needs; • Understand the barriers and opportunities for a greater role of women in decision making and resources management within the households. IN CAMEXCA, a WISE-MEL Advisor visited Guatemala to train the Baseline Study & TA Partners in the new information/results collecting tools/instruments for the WISE-
MEAL system. The mobile app TaroWorks (developed by the Grameen Foundation) and Salesforce, are designed to include KPIs of gender specifics that measure the real impact on social themes and the empowerment effects within WISE’s participants households.
Higher bar for partners on women’s leadership including strengthened capacity that ultimately protect women’s rights
International Women’s Day (IWD) was an opportunity to build awareness around agency-wide initiatives including those in the extractive and agriculture industries in Q4.
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FY15 Q4 Progress on the Gender Internal Change Goal
Sofia Vergara, Hannah OwusuKoranteng, Nadine Kone, Ann Veneman, and Mary Jo Kilroy celebrate Hannah's Right the Wrong Award Policy & Campaigns organized four US regional conferences around International Women's Day focused on EI issues. 154 people were in attendance plus 17 expert speakers, including 62 SOPs (40% of participants). The conferences offered an opportunity to learn from experts about issues around EI especially as they relate to women. Participants brainstormed and committed to taking actions after the conference which included in-district meetings, blog/op-eds, actions with local organizations, and outreach to the private sector. In Bolivia, SAM and partner organization KURMI’s work on the indigenous fund, included a gender approach identifying lack of gender in project finance. Additionally, the new grant with CEDLA on tax justice, focused on job opportunities for women and local government support for productive initiatives with a gender approach. Oxfam’s update report on the TOTAL COBHRA case also assesses the gender approach related to labour right for indigenous women. As a result of Oxfam input and a win for our EI team, Anglo American included specific criteria on gender as part of a review of their policies on stakeholders.
As part of HARO’s Female Food Hero (FFH), winners have participated in regional radio, TV and social media. A TV and radio documentary about the regional winners from Amhara and Tigray, has received a great deal of media attention. Birtukan, the 2013 FFH winner, traveled to the US to lobby. She has also been featured in major media outlets including the DevEx forum and USAID reports. At the 9th Board meeting of the Green Climate Fund in Korea in March, the GCF Board approved their Gender Policy and Action Plan, making it the first financial mechanism associated with climate change worldwide that approves a gender policy before the funds have even been disbursed. Oxfam America and OI have substantially contributed to this win with sustained advocacy directed at the fund over the past 5 years alongside coalition allies such as the Women’s Environment and Development Organization and the Global Gender and Climate Alliance.
In our Humanitarian and Advocacy work, Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) is realizing a congressional letter to Sec. Kerry focused on the impact of the Syria crisis on Syrian women, using OA-recommended asks and will be co-signed by other women Senators. Oxfam’s Hanging by a Thread, instigated and co-written by OA, includes an extensive gender analysis that shows how the Somali remittances cut-off would have a particularly devastating impact on women. In CAMEXCA’s SfC project, the team is continuing to incorporate gender in the SFC manual and generate discussions on empowerment and gender
May 2015
equality into savings groups. At the end of 2014, 94 groups of Morazán in ELS recognized that they are increasing their level of confidence that is allowing them to strengthen and gradually gain empowerment not only at group level but also in the family and community context. In Community Engagement, 45 offline events were held that specifically highlighted Oxfam’s work around women and gender for IWD (They included womencentered Oxfam Jams, Oxfam America Hunger Banquets, award dinners, tabling, and panels). These events had more than 2000 participants. Approximately 400 offline petitions were signed at these events and close to 1000 IWD e-Cards were sent by Oxfam supporters and some new ones to family and friends.
Attendees at Oxfam's International Women's Day Conference in Chicago USRO is making strides in the food industry with two new developments. They are working on a grant for FY16Q1 to produce a series of training videos for growers and farmworkers on sexual harassment laws. USRO also brought a poultry worker to Boston to speak at the “Just Food?” conference at Harvard about her experiences as a woman working in a poultry processing plant. The worker was also interviewed on video and participated in an OA staff brownbag speaking on gender issues in poultry.
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FY15 Q4 Progress on the Gender Internal Change Goal In WARO’s Gates Sanitation project, mother and child care takers are those targeted in the different interventions for communication in behavioral change related to hand washing with soap. For the toilet test in households, 60% of the households selected are led by women and the other40% are men’s. This will help give consideration in women perception for future acceptation, usage and maintenance of these toilets.
subnational response, as a means to enhance the gender mainstream approach. In WARO Humanitarian, a working session on gender was included in the learning exercise of the MidTerm review. Discussions are ongoing on gender mainstreaming of the Cross Boarder Ebola Response project and budget has been allocated for gender-sensitive activities.
May 2015
have provided an analysis of lowwage workers, amongst whom female workers are the majority. This fact is striking in the interactive maps when comparing the map of female low-wage workers to male low-wage workers.
Investment in staff capacity for gender analysis and gender integration Actions across the globe solidified the results of the 2014 regional staff assessment on gender capacity, which stressed a desire for more training opportunities among staff. EARO contributed inputs to the Gender Mainstreaming Working Group at MAFF for developing Gender Mainstreaming Policy and Strategic Plan 2015-2018 in order to ensure that the voices of women farmers were included and addressed. EARO also worked with Oxfam Cambodia to design one project concept that focused on Gender-sensitive ICT-based approaches for improving women‘s access to markets. The proposal was submitted to the 2014-2015 Global Center for Food Systems Innovation Grants. SAM organized and implemented a Gender in Emergencies workshop in the Lambayeque region. The purpose was to put the inclusion of vulnerable women and children at the center of local and
The survey results for the 2014 regional staff assessment on gender capacity were released! This was a follow up survey to the 2012 baseline to gather information about staff knowledge regarding gender, gender mainstreaming, and how gender issues affect our work. Key reflections showed: 1) Investments in gender training show increased gender knowledge; 2) Programming staff are interested in more applied learning and trainings 3) Operational staff seek foundation gender training.
Highlights from the rest of FY15 FY15 started off strong with Behind the Brands and GROW as MARS, Mondelez & Nestle all released their gender/cocoa assessments and action plans to address gender in their cocoa supply chains. The assessments rd underwent 3 party review meeting the asks of the BtB gender roadmap. USRO’s “Working Poor in America” study and online interactive maps
Senegalese Humanitarian and Resilience participants in Gender Action Learning The Gender Action Learning Global Initiative with grant partner Gender at Work began implementation in Ghana, Senegal, and East Asia! Over the course of 1.5 years, GAL helps country program teams and partner NGOs/CSOs to improve their personal and organizational performance and their skills in ensuring their actions contribute to gender justice. The unique methodology consists of tai chi, interactive debates, and drawing. A short one-minute video can be found here. EARO’s FLAIR program saw continued success with the Gender Road Maps. They seem to provide quick results in term of changing gender roles, gender relations and behavior change in a short period of time. FY15 proved exciting with the launch of the Confederation’s official Gender Roadmap entitled “Beyond Gender Mainstreaming:
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FY15 Q4 Progress on the Gender Internal Change Goal Roadmap on Putting Women’s Rights at the Heart of All We Do.” In Q1, Oxfam also released the Transformative Leadership for Women's Rights Guide. The guide is developed to explore the meaning of transformative leadership and how it links to gender justice and women's rights. This guide is developed for Oxfam staff and partners to demonstrate practically how we can apply this approach in our programs and organizations. WISE raised resources ($600k) for first 5 years of operating costs and capacity building and completed its first pre-investment training round for a small pilot of 20 women entrepreneurs. Sisters On the Planet (SOP) sent a sign-on letter to President Obama about the situation in Syria with 70 women whom signed the letter. 10 SOPs from 10 states participated in the August Recess action which focused on asking their representatives to support poverty-focused foreign aid and sign on as a co-sponsor for the Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act and well as the Food for Peace Reform Act. Eight actions were in- district meetings and two were phone calls.
The Oxfam-wide Gender Justice Learning Series, an e-learning training course available globally, went through finalization steps of the first module Gender Justice at Oxfam: An Introduction. It is a tool now ready for all staff to access and utilize in order to build Oxfam staff capacity on gender and led by OUS L&D, RPD, HR, and Comms staff.
May 2015
FFH tours in the USA, raising the awareness with American audiences and policy-makers about the important role women farmers play in agriculture and feeding the world.
The Global Gender Retreat/GMLAI IV Conference was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with 36 Oxfam staff members representing 11 countries, 13 cities, 6 affiliates, and the Secretariat. At the retreat, participants drafted the GICG FY16 AOP, responded to the ELT with a memo and internal culture and looked at how to implement Oxfam's Beyond Gender Mainstreaming Roadmap.
As a joint effort amongst Learning and Development, the Diversity Committees, and the Gender Resource Group, the Gender and Diversity Series kicked off creating spaces to explore topics ranging from sexual orientation, culture, gender identity, and working across generations to accompanying notions of power, inclusion, and diversity.
AET served as an example throughout the year to build capacities in gender from conducting an internal survey to identify top priorities/questions the team needs to pursue in its gender work to training 100% of the team to introductory training on gender frameworks to joining two gender working groups sponsored by Women Thrive Worldwide. The Humanitarian Advocacy and Campaigning team released the Oxfam report “Behind Closed Doors” focused on women’s rights in Afghanistan and pressed the international community and the Afghan government to do more to empower women in Afghanistan. OA garnered coverage for this report in the New York Times, CSM, and other outlets. As a GROW win, $250,000 was secured in Gates funding over 3 years for O&A work related to agriculture. This money will help to support Female Food Hero (FFH) and Sisters on the Planet (SOP) work and enable us to do more
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