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WIDE is a European feminist network of women´s organisations, development NGOs, gender specialists and women´s rights activists. WIDE monitors and influences international economic and development policy and practice from a feminist perspective.
New Aid Modalities Through a Gender Lens
Interview with Nathalie Holvoet
Since the turn of the century a shift has taken place in the aid instruments advocated for low-income countries, characterized by a conversion from project to more programme oriented aid. Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) and sector programmes constitute a framework for policy negotiations with the recipient government as well as a new set of rules for aid implementation. Aid terminology has been broadened with notions such as ownership, participation, results-orientation, harmonisation, alignment, general and sectoral budget support.
The working party "gender and economics" of the Belgian Commission on Women and Development (advisory board to Belgian Development Cooperation) has recently published a brochure "Evolutions in Development Thinking and Policy: New Opportunities for Gender Equality?! PRSPs and SWAPs from a Gender Perspective" that contributes to the current thinking on "engendering new aid modalities". What follows is an interview by Gea Meijers with the author of the brochure, Nathalie Holvoet.
Conferences of Monterrey, Rome, Marrakech and Paris have unfolded an ambitious reform agenda for both donors and recipients. How is "gender" reflected in this "new" agenda?
"Gender" does not figure prominently on this agenda. The 2005 Paris Declaration, for example, clumps gender equality together with other crosscutting issues in paragraph 42 (highlighting the importance of harmonisation efforts for cross-cutting issues). The gender blindness even risks to go largely unnoticed as so far none of the ongoing monitoring or evaluative exercises has given due attention to gender. Just browse through the surveys on Harmonisation and Alignment that are initiated by the OECD/DAC or the Special Programme for Africa, or see the Joint Evaluation of Budget Support, which is one of the most ambitious evaluative exercises ever undertaken (See OECD/DAC, 2007).
In order to avoid another case of "gender-retrofitting", there is a need to bring gender issues more to the forefront, both in the current "aid" thinking and in practice (see Aasen, 2006). This can often be done by just refreshing existing publications on the effects of holding gender-blind policy assumptions on aid effectiveness, efficiency and impact. For one often gets a sense of déjà vu when reading through donors´ policy documents or recipient countries´ PRSPs and sector programmes. While the discourse may at best have a "gender" flavour, the underlying assumption about the relationship between "gender equality" and "poverty" emanates in most cases from the anti-poverty and efficiency approach. There is still a belief that poverty reduction, particularly through opening up the access of women to productive resources, will automatically lead to higher equality between men and women. Research that has sharply evidenced the contrary and that has pointed at the overarching influence of "gender" as a construct that determines men´s and women´s interests, opportunities, constraints and responsiveness to policy measures is largely neglected.
Do you see potential for strengthening gender equality within the new aid modalities?
It is not that new aid modalities are in principle counter to gender equality or empowerment, maybe even to the contrary. One could argue that new aid instruments embody a number of principles that offer opportunities for gender equality. The transition, for instance, from sometimes isolated projects to supporting the more global picture of sectoral and national poverty policy and programmes could benefit the integration of transversal issues like gender, which require a more all-encompassing broad-based approach. The "participation" conditionality, which in principle entails a move towards more "inclusive" policy and budgetary processes, could also give women and gender experts both within and outside government a higher stake in decision-making.
More emphasis on results-orientation could in theory reduce the phenomenon of "policy evaporation". This necessitates of course that there are also targets being set for gender equality and empowerment and that those targets are translated into indicators which are monitored and evaluated. In fact, anyone who takes the principle of "results orientation" seriously would argue for the inclusion of socio-cultural constructs as gender that so strongly determine an individual´s behaviour. Smart results-orientation necessitates the inclusion of a gender dimension throughout the various phases of a policy cycle: from diagnosis, selection of priorities, budgeting and implementation, to monitoring and evaluation.
In short, one could conclude that there is enough evidence available that explains the rationale for the inclusion of a gender dimension in new aid modalities, in terms of pay off for effectiveness, efficiency, (gender) equity and empowerment, but it has been poorly taken on board so far.
What ways do you see for including a more gender-sensitive approach in the "new" aid agenda?
The often-heard claim that the approaches and instruments to engender new aid modalities are lacking is not entirely legitimate. The approaches and instruments that have been elaborated under the umbrella of "gender budgeting" are for example particularly valuable. Like I mentioned, it is often just a matter of reframing some of the existing tools and explicitly showing their applicability in the context of the current aid reforms. Most of the tools and instruments are in the first place interesting for actors in recipient countries, who are in the drivers´ seat when it comes to engendering PRSPs and SWAPs. This does however not imply that donors can that easily take their hook when it comes to gender equality. Donors do use new entry points, including ex-ante screening, policy dialogue, capacity building, new-style monitoring and evaluation exercises. However, they have not invested in making these more gender-sensitive.
There is an urgent need to maximise efforts by pulling together and reforming the valuable input that already exists, investing in additional research where needed and demonstrate the applicability and impact on the ground.
References
Aasen,B. (2006). "Lessons from Evaluations of Women and Gender Equality in Development Cooperation", NORAD Synthesis Report 2006/1. Oslo: NORAD.
OECD (DAC) (2006). Paris Declaration Commitments and Implications for Gender Equality and Women´s Empowerment. Paris: OECD/DAC, DAC Network on Gender Equality.
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