Community perceptions of gender norms and economic opportunity in Solomon Islands
•Download as PPTX, PDF•
1 like•86 views
This presentation was given by Neil Nuia (Oxfam), as part of the Annual Scientific Conference hosted by the University of Canberra and co-sponsored by the University of Canberra, the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and CGIAR Collaborative Platform for Gender Research. The event took place on April 2-4, 2019 in Canberra, Australia. Read more: https://www.canberra.edu.au/research/faculty-research-centres/aisc/seeds-of-change and https://gender.cgiar.org/annual-conference-2019/
Recommended
More Related Content
What's hot
What's hot (20)
Similar to Community perceptions of gender norms and economic opportunity in Solomon Islands
Similar to Community perceptions of gender norms and economic opportunity in Solomon Islands (20)
More from CGIAR
More from CGIAR (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Community perceptions of gender norms and economic opportunity in Solomon Islands
- 1. Community Perceptions of Gender Norms and Economic Opportunity in Solomon Islands A study funded by Oxfam and the Australian Government initiative Strongim Bisnis
- 2. Strongim Bisnis in Solomon Islands •Inclusive economic development program funded by the Australian Government •Focus sectors: tourism, cocoa, coconut •Strengthening women’s participation and empowerment
- 3. Strongim Bisnis – Why women? • Women have vital roles across the whole value chain and produce positive, long-lasting economic results. • Storngim Bisnis believes Improving women’s capacity of engaging in business will improve the competitiveness of its focus sectors – cocoa, coconut and tourism – and it makes business sense for the private sector to promote WEE
- 4. Oxfam in Solomon Islands • Since 2003 • Gender Justice, Active Citizenship, Resilience, Humanitarian • Partnerships: communities, NGOs, government, aid agencies, CSOs
- 5. The study • In-depth qualitative study in 3 communities: Guadalcanal, Malaita and Western Provinces (161 participants) • Community participatory gender analysis workshops (SEED/SNAP) • KIIs (positive deviants) • A detailed discussion and analysis of the norms explored through the vignettes (below) Norm: Men should not be involved in unpaid care work Scenario summary: Anna is a successful virgin coconut oil producer and is active in community work. She recently secured a contract with a large coconut oil buyer. The contract has increased Anna’s workload and made it difficult for her to manage the business and the domestic work, to the detriment of the business. Anna asks John to do more to help her more around the house and share the household and business responsibilities.
- 7. What people said about sanctions for John and Anna
- 8. Example finding: unpaid care work • Unpaid care work a significant barrier to WEE (time and risks). • Strong norm with sanctions • Change is wanted and possible if spouses & community members receive financial/other benefits
- 9. Cutting-edge • Context • Approach & tools • Community ownership of information
- 10. Relevance of the study for program design & implementation • Provided recommendations for programming/partnerships (address norms, economic opportunities, access) • Deep internal gender reflection/learning by study team -> gender transformative practice 11/04/2019 Enter Footer here 10
Editor's Notes
- I am thrilled that you could all join us today for this session - The importance of cutting-edge gender social norms analysis in the design phase of programs My name is Neil Nuia, and I am a member of the study facilitation team from Oxfam and Strongim Bisnis. For the next few minutes, I’ll be taking the room briefly though to the background, highlights and relevant recommendations of our gender norms study. Prompt: As well know, Unspoken rules in a group about what is acceptable Recognizes that behavior is influenced by what people think others do and what others approve of An example of a social norm in some cultures or situations is waiting in line for service. People wait in line for service because: 1) they expect that everyone else around them will do so; and 2) they expect that others expect them to do, because if they skipped the line, they expect a negative social reaction from others around them.
- Strongim Bisnis is an inclusive economic development program funded by the Australian Government. Its goal is to stimulate growth in the tourism, cocoa and coconut sectors through activities that strengthen business and increase women’s participation and empowerment. It’s a three-years program ending in June 2020. Strongim Bisnis’ definition of Women’s Economic Empowerment: Women improve their income individually or at the household level and their control over it through improved access to the target value chain support functions, improved market opportunities and more supportive business and cultural environment.
- In Solomon Islands, women are limited in their capacity to engage in business by factors such as: violence, sexual assault, black magic practices (vele), limited decision-making rights, poor access to finance and training opportunities. ► Only 20% of women have a bank account ► 81% of women are unpaid in agricultural rural areas ► 1 in 4 women were vocational trainees in 2014
- Oxfam was the other partner in this project. Oxfam’s program in the Solomon Islands was established in 2003 by Oxfam Australia. It is part of our Pacific regional program. Our work in the Solomon Islands falls under the broad themes of gender justice, active citizenship, resilience and humanitarian support. We work on issues related to the elimination of violence against women, emergency response, human security, disaster risk reduction, climate change, youth empowerment, strengthening of civil society, livelihoods and economic empowerment.
- The study looked at the key norms constraining/enabling women’s economic opportunities and their main components. It had a particular focus on time spend on unpaid care work and activities, and recommendations for shifting norms to support women’s businesses in the focus value chains. Unpaid care work was a particular focus for the study as it’s widely recognized locally and internationally as a major barrier to WEE. You can find Key study questions in the report The main social norms, inside and outside the household that influence women’s ability to do (and lead) business generally, as well as in the cocoa, coconut and tourism value chains The main components of these norms and how they influence women’s business ability The amount of time women and men spend on average in unpaid care work and their main activities Recommended actions to shift or leverage existing social norms to increase women’s ability to make business in the selected value chains Recommended actions to reduce the unpaid care work burden for women and therefore increase their ability to make business in the selected value chains Selection of rural communities was based on Geographic spread to learn from community experiences in both matrilineal and patrilineal land systems. They were also Selected based on Strongim Bisnis’ strategic focus on engaging rural communities in the cocoa, coconut and tourism value chains. Another selection criteria was communities having no formal NGO or savings and microcredit programs operating in the community. Tools used: The study used a Community participatory gender analysis tools selected from Oxfam Australia’s Gender Just Social and Economic Empowerment Design toolkit. The toolkit supported communities to themselves assess the interactions of social norms with different forms of work, including on unpaid care work, household and community decision-making, as well as on economic opportunities and their gendered barriers and enablers. CARE International’s Social Norms Analysis Plot (SNAP) was a tool used to develop and structure vignettes/stories and probe on norms, especially related to unpaid care work and women’s business opportunity We identified positive deviants through the workshops and interviewed them to understand how change has happened in their lives. 161 participants: 42 women, 45 young women, 38 men and 36 young men Limitations: Quantitative tool issues contradicting qualitative: missed the nuances in quantitative data that you get from qualitative Team was told that there are none or one person with disabilities in the communities, but having more time to conduct snowball sampling (using Washington Group questions) would have been more effective. Reluctance of community leaders to involve that 1-2 people in each community is indicative of their need to be included. With limited time and resources, the role of education needs to be analysed further and its impact on shaping norms at primary/secondary levels. Lastly, another limited was, we did not include gender and sexual minorities explicitly as participants or categories for gender disaggregated analysis
- Oxfam was the other partner in this project. Oxfam’s program in the Solomon Islands was established in 2003 by Oxfam Australia. It is part of our Pacific regional program. Our work in the Solomon Islands falls under the broad themes of gender justice, active citizenship, resilience and humanitarian support. We work on issues related to the elimination of violence against women, emergency response, human security, disaster risk reduction, climate change, youth empowerment, strengthening of civil society, livelihoods and economic empowerment.
- We looked in-depth at care work! Women and young women themselves spoke about this as being their biggest barrier to economic opportunity. Young women have the biggest burden of care work: this is a life cycle issue, where many young women have infant children and see themselves as always being on duty, including throughout the night to feed. Women’s and young women’s time spent also indicates multi-tasking, so for e.g. doing child care while cooking or washing clothes. Care work tasks also are challenging and put women and young women at risk: time burden, mobility constraints, health and safety risks, and risks of violence Child care was seen by women and young women as the most problematic activity and biggest barrier for economic opportunity Vignette on unpaid care work was discussed and analyzed by community members, where a woman had a business opportunity but needed her spouse to take on more care work. We found that the expectation that women would prioritize care work is a strong norm So what expectations do we have around this? We found that men are Not expected to engage in unpaid care and domestic labour, although there are a minority that undertake some care and domestic tasks. Those men that undertake some tasks do it on condition or will only provide some ‘help’, with the woman still retaining primary responsibility on top of her business commitments. We also found that men’s help is conditional on women being respectful and on men’s access to the income that she earns. Key to the power of a norm are the sanctions that are imposed and how sensitive individuals are to these sanctions. We learned that the punishments range from teasing (many people talked about calling men a woman as an insult) and gossip, to social isolation (not being invited to gatherings), financial disadvantage (destroying the business), demands for compensation and black magic. We found that men are very fearful of and responsive to these sanctions if economic benefit is slow or small. If they don’t see quick benefit, they are likely to drop their care work. If economic benefits are seen, then they are likely to ignore social pressure and continue. Likewise, if the community is benefiting, sanctions will reduce or stop. So change is possible when men and other community members access the economic benefits of women’s business, but there are risks that this will further burden women and of course, there is the challenge of the lag time that is commonly experienced to reach profitability or a significant increase in profitability. Other drivers for change in care work that we learned from positive deviants: Gender transformative parenting Exposure to egalitarian ideas and role models Equal partnerships: shared goals and visions.
- Understanding Community context is important Its important for us to understand the context of the communities that we wanted to visit before actually making the committing. The team were able to be straight forward with communities and reduce community expectation of the study. For eg, people expect money in return for their participation and the team were able to change that by breaking down the benefits to the community Tools and approach It was important for us to select best tools that suits each community context. Community feedback suggested the term “(You gain, we gain)” meaning people have learned instead of survey interview research approach. The approach allowed for a much more nuanced understanding of how gender norms influence access and control over resources across the focus value chains. E.g. access to decision making on land, dynamics for control over income in the household, positive deviants. Ownership of information – men and young men put up personal commitments on how they reduce women’s unpaid care work. In Western province, community leaders put up their community commitment on butcher paper and had it pinned up at the community centre to remind all members of community to their commitments.
- Following the recommendations of the gender norms study, Strongim Bisnis/Oxfam have taken the following actions: The Gender norms study has been officially launched with main public and private stakeholders and it became a shared tool for the whole country. Oxfam youth and Governance programs is now including young people from one study location in Guadalcanal in its youth inclusion and youth small grants program. Engaged faith based organizations to support their work around gender norms. Preliminary discussions started with the Mother’s Union of the ACOM. Engaged Saving Groups Networks (like WARA) to improve women’s access to solar power to improve their access to technology and possibly reduce unpaid care burden. Supported a private sector partnership with SunPower to start a new commercial distribution model for small scale solar panel through saving clubs. Started a partnership to support a local business distributing re-washable sanitary pads in rural areas to improve women’s access to menstrual hygiene. Started a partnership with a youth group to test the feasibility to distribute small scale biodigesters in the rural areas to improve women’s access to gas stoves to improve their health and reduce cooking / firewood fetching time. Tested the establishment of separate men’s saving clubs in the WARA network to respond to their request of inclusion in these activities and sensitize them around the importance of women’s saving clubs. Supporting a major retailer to increase investment in fresh vegetable value chain through the engagement with women’s groups (initial scoping phase). Started new awareness raising activities around GBV and gender equality through theatre and arts in partnership with a local youth organization called Dreamcast Theatre. Started discussions to revive a government led WEE platform to coordinate actions to influence gender norms among key stakeholders. Engaged the private sector to sensitize them around the business benefits or fighting gender based violence and discrimination during the 16 days of activism. Learning by study team I’ve manage to reduce unpaid carework with my partner by Cooking more after 5pm Take turn to pick up and drop of kids at school Multiple joint bank savings account