Capacity Building for Gender Mainstreaming in FAO

FAO has adopted gender mainstreaming as the key strategy for addressing the concerns of rural women. This has been reflected in the initiative undertaken in 1989 when FAO formulated the first Plan of Action for Women in Development (1989-1995) that included gender analysis training for all its professional staff (at headquarter and field offices) as a priority area.

The gender training programme was implemented between 1990-1992 and was the first of its kind in FAO. The Organization committed considerable resources to this important capacity building process. The training programme had the following objectives:

• to sensitize FAO staff by providing relevant information on the issue of women and development;
• to introduce programme participants to a gender analysis approach and to the appropriate methods and tools;
• to assist participants in the development of skills permitting them to integrate gender considerations.

This capacity building initiative reached 80% of the 1200 professional staff, through more than 40 two-day workshops. The workshop evaluations indicated that they were successful as gender-sensitization exercises, but also that the participants needed more concrete guidelines on how to integrate gender concerns into policies, programmes and projects.

This first Plan of Action for Women in Development was also viewed as the strategic framework within which the UN WID-related mandates, such as the Nairobi Forward Looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women and the platform for action of the World Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development, could be implemented. In 1995, a revision of the Plan was carried out not only in view of refining its scope, but also as a response to the resolutions and recommendations from the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in September 1995.

Within the context of the new Plan of Action for Women in Development (1996-2001), FAO committed itself to meeting the request from the earlier workshop participants to have concrete guidelines for gender mainstreaming in all FAO activities. This included the development and testing of the materials on Socioeconomic and Gender Analysis (SEAGA) in Member Countries, and from which best practices are now emerging. This has been and is being done with the financial support of the Netherlands, Norway and Finland, and in initial collaboration with International Agencies such as the World Bank, the United Nations Development Fund, and the International Labour Organization.

It is important to stress that FAO has gained valuable practical experiences from the testing phase of the SEAGA packages, in terms of the relevance and the suitability of the SEAGA approach and process in development planning and how this could be enriched. FAO will, therefore, continue to revise the Framework and Users Reference, and the three Handbooks in 1999, with full participation of key stakeholders( Member Countries, relevant International Agencies, and specialists from various disciplines).

This will be paralleled by a systematic capacity building programme for gender mainstreaming in FAO and in the Member Countries. Towards this end, FAO will continue to work closely with other UN Agencies to build on the existing efforts.