SEAGA Newsletter No. 3, November 2002

Upcoming Events & Activities

  • The SEAGA Livestock Sector Guide will be field tested in January/February 2003.
  • The Household Resource Management Guide will be tested in Uganda in March 2003.
  • A Training of Trainers (TOT) on Gender Disaggregated Data (GDD) will be held in Turin in March 2003.

Training Activities

Africa:

Zimbabwe

A Gender Disaggregated Data (GDD) workshop was held in Harare from 13 to 19 May under one of the Integrated Programme's activities. The 35 participants came from Central Statistical Office (CSO), Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, Ministry of Youth Development, Gender and Employment Creation. The workshop included:

  1. an overview of gender concepts and issues (sex versus gender, gender division of labour, access to and control of resources)
  2. a gender assessment of different sections of Zimbabwe's Agriculture and Livestock Survey-Communal Lands (ALS) 1999 Questionnaire and accompanying documentation
  3. a mini-retabulation of manipulated ALS data
  4. an analysis and interpretation of the data set from the same survey for presentation to stakeholders.

The second module of the workshop focused on translating concepts learned in Module 1 into practice through a retabulation and analysis of the data set from ALS. Participants were introduced into different aspects including: setting up of and updating queries using Microsoft Access, sending queries to Microsoft Excel to retabulate, calculate averages and graph results. The objectives of the workshop were:

  • to provide participants with improved skills for the management and analysis of gender disaggregated data for agriculture and rural development
  • to develop a work plan for each participant's working environment using concepts and methods discussed during the workshop
  • to discuss GDD concerns and issues within the context of Zimbabwe's policy framework

Near East and Europe:

Portugal

A SEAGA training workshop was held in Portugal,in collaboration with Programa LEADER (EU) and Profiforma-AGROS. It was divided into two sessions of two weeks each. The first one (3-15 June) was a technical training on the SEAGA Tools for Field Level and the second (1-12 July) on Project cycle management. The assumption was that a workshop is time for reflection, so all the activities were developed in a manner that would enable the participants enough time to have thorough discussions. In addition, between the two sessions there was a two weeks pause so that participants were able to assimilate SEAGA tools and concepts. The goal of the workshop was to promote SEAGA programme with the Portuguese Associations for Local Development, in particular those who are members of LEADER initiative. The specific objectives were:

  • enrich participant's knowledge on gender issues and socio-economic approach in development
  • strengthen comprehension of PRA tools
  • develop SEAGA case studies from the participants' personal experiences, adapted to Portuguese situation
  • stimulate communication capacities

To promote group learning, field visit were included and considered as moments to practice tools in a concrete way and to strictly connect them to the Portuguese reality. All the 19 participants worked in rural development initiatives promoted by their organisations, and their aim was to continue their cooperation after the end of the training.

Italy

A two day training workshop for gender mainstreaming was held in FAO Headquarters on the 26-27 June 2002. It was organised in response to a felt need on the part of the gender focal points appointed to the different divisions in FAO in order for them to become more familiar with what gender mainstreaming is and to practice the tools. The goal of the workshop was to practice some SEAGA tools, look at some good practices and lessons learnt in order to better understand the role of Gender focal points in implementing the Gender and Development (GAD) Plan of Action in FAO, specifically integrating socio-economic and gender considerations into their everyday work and that of their division, unit or service. The specific objectives were:

  • Reach a common understanding of the different roles in the gender mainstreaming process in FAO, through the GAD Plan of Action
  • Promote inter-disciplinary networking and collaboration, not only with Gender and Development Service but also with and among other technical units within FAO.
The workshop was preceded by a pre-training questionnaire that allowed the facilitators to identify the areas where most people felt they would require some support. At the end of the workshop each participant identified some immediate and long term actions they could undertake to mainstream gender in their service.

Latin America

Chile

From July 26 to September 2, six one-day SEAGA sensitisation workshops were held, one for each of the following Chilean regions: I, IV, VI, IX, X, Región Metropolitana. They were organised in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture and the aim was to strengthen the capacity of specialists within the Ministry of Agriculture to mainstream gender. The participants were 146 professionals with managerial duties at regional, provincial and sector specific areas within the Ministry of Agriculture, such as Servicio Agrícola y Ganadero, Corporación Nacional Forestal and others. The workshop combined theoretical and practical contents of the SEAGA methodology. The presentation consisted in the:

  • Acknowledgement of SEAGA concepts
  • Introduction of gender approach in all the activities of the different services of the Ministry of Agriculture to integrate socio economic and gender aspects in their daily activities, especially in those concerning rural women.
  • Dissemination of the activities of the Commission for equal opportunities of the Ministry of Agriculture.

Colombia

A training workshop on Monitoring and Evaluation ("Analísis de Género para el Monitoreo y Evaluación: el Marco Lógico con Enfoque de Género") has been held in Colombia from 28 to 30 August in the National Park Panaca, Armenia, under the FAO project PACOFOR "Proyecto de desarrollo de la participación comunitaria en el sector forestal". It was organised in collaboration with the International Service for National Agricultural Research (ISNAR), with 24 participants from the PACOFOR Project, Educación Ambiental Continua and the University of Manizales.
The materials for this workshop were just translated from English into Spanish and adapted to the Latin America context; this was an opportunity to further test the Training Module prepared by ISNAR and FAO in English in 2000. The workshop objectives were:

  • To identify the importance of gender analysis in the project management.
  • To strengthen monitoring and evaluation for programme management in a gender perspective.
  • To apply gender mainstreaming in the logical framework.
  • To utilize tools and capabilities developed during the training in planning and working activities.

One of the most important results was the application of the logical framework with a gender focus in Phase III of PACOFOR, which is now in its beginning. The PACOFOR is a project where it has been very difficult to involve all people, and in particular women in other roles besides the reproductive one. As there was internal and external resistance to this subject, women's empowerment and gender sensitization of all people involved in the project of participatory forestry development has been considered of great importance.

Another result was the formulation of action plans for individual and collective follow up activities, according to the new input received during the training. FAO and ISNAR, whose collaboration was successfully strengthened by this workshop, will monitor the implementation of these plans.

SEAGA Publications

The SEAGA Programme has recently published "Passport to Mainstreaming a Gender Perspective in Emergency Programmes".

This Passport has been produced as an interagency collaboration with WFP to support agencies in gender mainstreaming in the participatory planning of emergency programmes. This involves assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies or programmes, in all areas and at all levels.

The Passport was prepared in collaboration with WFP for humanitarian officers who work directly with local communities in emergency situations, and also for insiders such as community organizers and leaders of local groups and institutions. It consists of key questions to be asked in an emergency situation for data collection to help guiding the design of emergency interventions in order for them to be sensitive to gender differences. The basic questions are broad and provide a useful framework for any emergency worker to gain a full understanding of the emergency situation at the field, intermediate and macro levels. In this regard, the Passport is similar to other emergency guides. The uniqueness of the Passport is that questions have been added to provide a gender perspective.

The Passport is available in English and soon also in Arabic, Chinese, French, Portuguese and Spanish.

The completed hadbooks and guides will soon be available on our web site. Please send your requests to SEAGA@fao.org

Other Activities

A presentation illustrating the SEAGA programme and its activities was given graduate students at John Hopkins University (Bologna, Italy) in May.

This Newsletter provides a platform for gender experts to share their experiences, announce upcoming activities and events. We welcome your inputs; please send your contributions to the SEAGA mailbox at the following email address: SEAGA@fao.org