Every donor's darling - and headache

Gender interventions at high level, does not necessarily guarantee the empowerment of women at the local level.

A widow in Aregorego village, Soroti - Uganda

Gender has become every donors concern. The Convention on the elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Beijing Platform for Action recognizes gender equality as both a human right and a core development issue. However, the interpretation of the term gender has remained a dilemma for many. Some even believe it is something to do with women only. “Gender – those are women’s issues” or “Women again” are comments often made.

Gender is key
The donor direction is rather interesting in that gender emphasis is the key in every strategy document, conduct or intervention. This is because gender equality has been recognized to play a key role if equitable and sustainable development is to be achieved at community level. As a result, mainly the government and the many different institutions and civil society organisations CSOs have managed to reach the donor expectation at that level. But this does not necessarily mean that a difference in terms of gender empowerment has occurred to the affected men and woman at the local level.

Asking the hard questions
The donors need to start questioning how community, institutional and household level circumstances form the relative opportunities and resources available for men and women. The fact that nobody is asking these hard questions alone indicates that donors rarely explored the gender dimension explicitly. Many donors have supported programmes simply because there is a gender desk, usually headed by a woman. The follow up to assess whether that offi ce actually has adequate resources compared to other departments is not usually a priority.

The gender issue is still vulnerable with many injustices in the social, economic, political and cultural arenas. Yet in all these situations, gender rights are important. In Uganda, the Affi rmative Action has brought women to nearly 25% in parliament and a minimum of 30% of local government councillors placing Uganda well above the regional (Sub-Saharan Africa) average of 14.3% (2005, DENIVA Publications Towards Effective Political Participation and Decision making in Decentralised Local Governments and the role of NGOs in Uganda). Even at such a high level, women cannot claim to be fully empowered. The amorphous constituencies, ambiguous identity and naming are still a challenge: the affirmative seats have quite different terminologies, aspirants to the general seats are referred to us constituency MPs, while aspirants to the Affirmative Action seats are referred to as women MPs. In local government, councillors on the woman seat are referred to as woman councillor.

Not a guarantee
We need to go beyond numbers to understand gender equality, and follow up to cater for equality before the law for both men and women. Equality of opportunity in political, social, economic affairs, and the dignity of ones internal worth as an individual. It’s only in this way that we shall together be able to overcome poverty at household level, promote equitable and sustainable development. The donors are currently operating at high level that does not necessarily guarantee the empowerment of women at all levels.

Harriet Namisi is Programme Coordinator Governance and Advocacy – DENIVA
Email: hna@deniva.or.ug