Substantive actions to implement the plan
3. The FAO Plan of Action places priority on three areas: mainstreaming gender within the Organization, providing WID/gender policy and technical assistance to Member Countries, and affirmative action, as indicated below.
4. Mainstreaming Gender. FAO made considerable efforts in the early 1990s to sensitize its professional staff to gender issues and concerns. Subsequently, the Organization has worked to strengthen the commitment, skills and capacities of its staff to mainstream gender in the technical areas of its programme of work. The Fourth Progress Report highlighted a major mainstreaming initiative: the consultative and participatory process to develop the WID/gender Programmes of Action for three biennia, 1996-2001, in 24 Divisions. These are the bases for the FAO Plan. The individual Programmes were finalized, with each defining achievable targets and identifying strategies, instruments for implementation, and monitoring indicators. Each Division has the responsibility to implement, monitor and report on its respective Programmes
5. In order to enhance the mainstreaming of gender issues within FAO, the Director General established an inter-Departmental Committee on Women in Development (COWID) in February 1996 to function as the highest level co-ordinating and advisory body on the FAO Plan. With support from assigned focal points and/or core groups within each of the 24 Technical Divisions, the Committee provides policy guidance and facilitates coordination and decision-making on substantive and operational matters relating to Women in Development. COWID decided to meet every quarter and has met six times since March 1996.
6. In addition to fostering institutional support for mainstreaming gender issues by developing Programmes of Action, a supporting Committee and focal points, the Organization has been developing the diagnostic and methodological tools and training to build the capacity of the professional staff to implement the WID/gender policies and priorities. Since 1993, FAO has been developing the Socioeconomic and Gender Analysis (SEAGA) Programme, which is a fully participatory approach to policy, programme and project formulation. It is designed to assist development professionals by providing the necessary diagnostic and methodological tools to mainstream gender and other socioeconomic concerns. Under the direction of SDW, FAO has been systematically introducing the model, methods and tools available through the SEAGA Programme to FAO professional staff in 1997. As of June, explanatory seminars with fairly extensive discussions had been held with all or selected staff from eight Divisions.
7. Another important aspect of mainstreaming is maintaining the visibility of gender concerns within the Oganization. In this regard, the WFS offered a unique opportunity to highlight the importance of rural women to the achievement of the Summit's goals. FAO undertook broad-ranging activities before and during the WFS to focus on the role of women as key agents in ensuring national and household food security. With support from numerous FAO Divisions, these activities included the production of background and issues papers, press releases and briefings, success stories and reports, special seminars on gender issues, videos, the publication of one of the four daily newspapers distributed during the Summit, and interviews with press, radio and TV. Celebrations of International Women's Day at FAO Headquarters in both 1996 and 1997 also marked important steps in institutionalizing and mainstreaming both gender issues and this important worldwide event.
8. Assistance to Member Nations. The Organization assists Member Nations in a variety of ways. A key concern in mainstreaming gender in their development activities is to ensure that policies and legislation adequately reflect WID/gender issues. In this regard, FAO offers gender-responsive policy advice, develops guidelines and methodologies for use in gender-sensitive policy planning, and advises in the preparation of regional and national WID/gender Action Plans, which provide a coherent framework for achieving gender-based equality in agricultural development. For example, the Regional Office for the Near East (RNE) is in the process of implementing priority activities with 18 countries included in the FAO-supported Regional Plan of Action for Women in Agriculture in the Near East (RPAWANE 2000).
9. To make informed policy and programme decisions, FAO recognizes that it is crucial to have accurate and up-to-date information and data on gender-based constraints and opportunities for rural populations. These are generated from research and analysis, surveys, case studies, and project evaluations undertaken by FAO, other UN and international agencies, INGOs/NGOs, and research/academic institutions. The dissemination of the resulting information is a crucial activity of the Organization. For example, FAO's World Wide Web Site gives prominence to key issues affecting women in development, especially in "SD Dimensions," which has a page that provides monthly updates on summaries of case-studies, news stories, reports, and articles contributed by FAO staff from headquarters, regions and the field.
10. Gender disaggregated statistics provide a particularly important source of information for decision-makers deciding upon policy and programme alternatives. Recognizing this, FAO focuses particular attention on generating reliable, gender-responsive, statistical databases. For example, based on case studies drawn from seven countries, the Statistics Division (ESS) and RNE demonstrated a method to improve statistics on women that can be obtained by introducing suitable modifications in regular national agricultural censuses and sample surveys. These findings were published as "Guidelines for the Improvement of Statistics on Women." With the objective of integrating a gender perspective into data collection, ESS and SDW also organized a three-week sub-regional training course, using newly-developed training modules on gender in agricultural statistics, to introduce gender issues in the preparation of agricultural censuses to technical government staff from 10 Central American and Caribbean Countries.
11. While print and broadcast media offer excellent avenues to disseminate gender-based information, various kinds of workshops/expert meetings provide opportunities to deepen understanding of WID/gender concerns through dialogue. For example, the Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean (RLC) recently coordinated a workshop on women and gender in artisanal fishing and coastal aquaculture, which was attended by specialists from six countries, and by representatives from agricultural and fishery development institutions and projects funded by IFAD. The Agricultural Support Systems Division (AGS), together with the Swedish-funded AGROTEC, conducted a workshop on gender and agricultural engineering in Zimbabwe, in 1996, which was intended to reduce stereotypical attitudes that consider that women and gender issues are not compatible with the technicalities of equipment, tools and machinery.
12. FAO also continues to provide technical support to Member Countries. This includes such activities as capacity building, gender analysis training, and gender-responsive project formulation. In the final analysis, all of these activities are aimed at increasing rural women's access to and control of productive resources and services, such as decision-making, labour, financial services, extension, education and training, information and technology, markets and trade, and on and off-farm income-generating activities. Some examples follow.
13. In 1996, the Research, Extension and Training Division (SDR) published "Improving Extension Work with Rural Women." These guidelines aim to counter the lack of gender-sensitive materials for training extension and community development workers. The package is based on five African case studies, and has been designed for adaption and use at various levels and different formal and non-formal educational settings.
14. In addition to guidelines, FAO focuses on training in participatory approaches that empower women by fostering their access to, and full participation in, power structures and decision-making bodies. For example, the Land and Water Development Division (AGL) continues to backstop a plant nutrition programme in Tanzania that has increased the number of block demonstration activities in fertilizer applications with womens' groups. Extension work has proved more efficient in groups and, through a revolving fund, participants are able to purchase the necessary farm inputs and improve management skills. A project in Honduras is focusing on training 120 women leaders as "Rural Promoters" of technical "know-how," in such areas as agriculture, administration and accountancy, management, and the judicial system. Rural promoters are expected to master participatory methodologies and communication techniques in order to transfer knowledge to an estimated 1200 rural women and their families.
15. An integral part of many activities in FAO is gender analysis training. For example, the use of gender analysis in designing wood energy projects was the theme of a 1995 Sub-Regional Training Workshop on Women in Wood Energy Projects. The workshop was attended by staff of forestry and energy departments, teaching institutes and NGOs from seven Asian countries. The course followed a regional expert consultation that recognized that women's interests were best served by adopting a gender approach to improve all wood energy projects, programmes and policies. A second workshop, in 1996, with participants from nine countries, focused on women's health in the context of wood fuel collection, processing and use.
16. As a follow-up to the gender-sensitization training, the SEAGA Programme has been developed for use in capacity building for governmental and non-governmental personnel, consultants and experts in Member Countries. It provides a clearer understanding of the relevance of the socioeconomic and physical environment as well as gender, people's participation, conflict identification and resolution, demographics, and constraints analysis to sustainable development. The focus is to strengthen analytical and managerial capacities at the national and local levels through training of trainers by providing them with the SEAGA methodologies and tools. These materials, with local adaptations, have been pilot-tested in five countries over three regions, and further adaptations and tools are being developed. The materials are being developed simultaneously in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese, and support for an Arabic version is being sought.
17. Just as importantly, FAO continues to offer assistance in project planning and formulation to ensure that women are considered equitably, and that gender concerns are reflected. For example, during 1996, the Investment Centre Division (TCI) was involved in 32 project formulation exercises, 50% of which incorporated gender analysis and made appropriate design adaptations in light of that analysis. For the activities under the Special Programme for Food Security (SPFS), the Policy Assistance Division (TCA) is backstopping the constraints analyses, including gender. These analyses are undertaken by national experts in the LIFDCs. The SPFS itself is following a participative approach to set-up field experiments through a constant dialogue with both men and women in rural households. Data on female participation in the SPFS, in terms of women demonstrating technologies on their fields, is currently collected. Preliminary results show that the variation in such participation is high, ranging from 10 to 75%. In the problem analysis of food production, specific attention is devoted to identifying gender-related constraints.
18. In 1995/96, SDW led a participatory project formulation exercise to prepare a regional project in Southern Africa on gender, biodiversity and local knowledge systems to strengthen agricultural and rural development. Fact-finding missions were conducted in Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Mozambique and Swaziland and a formulation workshop was held in Zimbabwe, in late 1995. This was attended by representatives of several regional and national projects, NGOs, governmental bodies, and international agencies. The project funding was approved by the Government of Norway in late 1996 and activities began in 1997.
19. Affirmative Action. The Plan of Action for Women in Development foresaw that FAO would increase the access of women to professional employment within the Organization in order to make progress toward reaching the United Nation's target of 35 percent representation of women in professional posts. At the COWID meeting of 17 December 1996, it was acknowledged that, while the details on implementation of this aspect of the plan were included in the AFP Divisional Programme of Action for WID, the achievement of the overall goal should be the responsibility of all FAO Departments/Divisions. It was agreed that COWID should serve as the focal point for monitoring progress toward these goals, with AFP providing guidance to other units (as necessary), in order to meet the human resource management objectives of the Plan.
20. The COWID members recognized that, in view of the differing availability of women candidates in the various technical and non-technical fields covered by FAO, it was difficult to achieve a uniform 35% (or more) across all FAO organizational units. In addition, however, it was noted that the overall level of women's employment in FAO had remained at approximately 19% for several consecutive years and that specific actions are clearly required.
21. In early 1997, on the basis of recommendations from COWID, the Deputy Director-General requested each Department to review present and foreseen future vacancies, identify those for which there was a reasonable expectation of finding suitable women candidates, and establish specific Departmental strategies and targets. Each Department was requested to organize, in cooperation with AFP, a brainstorming meeting among departmental/divisional managers for the development of strategies to identify candidates and establish the goals for recruitment. As of June, these meetings had been held in six Departments. The response in all instances has been positive, cooperative and receptive. Many excellent ideas to recognize and overcome barriers to the employment of women have been obtained.
22. Even while these longer term recruitment measures are being activated, progress is being made. In a recent speech, the Director General noted that, in 1994, there were 5 women in the director category in the Organization. As of June 1997, there are 12. There have also been advances in other professional levels. For example, the Office of Legal Counsel (LEG) has increased the percentage of women professionals on Regular Programme funded posts to 26% (i.e. 4/15). In order to assist the Divisions increase the recruitment of qualified women, SDW has created a roster of international experts working on women in development to be considered for future consultancies and vacancies in the Organization. This list is being continually revised and updated and will be included in organization-wide Corporate Roster System.
