1. GOV 1: Gender training for Government
Dr June Kane AM
National President, BPW
Australia
2. It’s all about ownership
•
Gender cannot be a ‘second thought’ – an awareness
of gender must be embedded in all policies and
programmes and in everyday actions of government
•
This means looking beyond individual outputs of
government and changing approaches and processes
•
This is what “mainstreaming” really means: ensuring
that gender is taken into account from A to Z
3. Ownership and Leadership
•
Internationally, there have been two main obstacles
to this:
•
“Ownership” – a reluctance to take up the effort to
mainstream gender, in favour of one-off, piecemeal
and token “gender-friendly” statements or actions
•
“Leadership” – clear signals from someone who leads
government that gender is not an optional
consideration but fundamental to good governance
4. What does this mean for BPW?
•
It is not enough just to “help” governments to
understand gender and take it into account – we
have to get to the stage where we can step back,
knowing that gender is now fully embedded and
government has taken ownership
•
We must identify potential leaders within
government/authorities and, give them technical
support – this is not as easy as it might seem!
5. Some important considerations
•
Remember that “government” exists at many levels
– national, municipal, district, county, village – ideally
BPW work to promote gender mainstreaming needs
to take place at every level
•
Gender doesn’t “belong” to any particular portfolio –
there may be a Minister for Women, for example,
but gender is also relevant to Finance, Justice,
Labour, Youth, Employment...
6. Crucial first steps
For each level of government:
•
Identify where change begins
•
Which is more likely to give results – working with
decision-makers or those who influence them?
•
Are there any obvious “champions”?
•
Don’t forget players outside government who have
influence
7. In Australia
•
Our Prime Minister has taken on the role of Minister
for Women!
•
Who “whispers in his ear”? (Chief Advisor Peta
Credlin)
•
Do we have other options to influence policy?
(Opposition parties, individual MPs, others?)
•
Champions? (Some individual political figures –
Elizabeth Broderick, Natasha Scott-Despoja)
•
However, women are disappearing from high office
8. Australia’s gender ranking
•
We rank 43rd in the World Economic Forum’s
Gender Gap Report for Political Empowerment
•
Two years ago we had a female Governor-General
and a female Prime Minister – now there is only one
woman in Cabinet
•
This makes it difficult to identify obvious women who
might be suitable targets for training in gender; we
need to work at lower levels (party ranks, local
authorities etc)
9. Giving something back
When we do identify potential champions, or at the
very least government representatives/officials who
are open to improving gender equity, what can we
offer them?
•
Technical support
•
Information
•
Profile
•
“Nurturing” rather than “training”
10. Ultimately, gender equality is not
something you “do”, it’s something you
“feel” – it’s a belief that is so embedded
in your being that everything you say,
think or do takes gender into account.
Helping governments to get to this point
is not an easy or a quick process – it takes
time and sustained effort.
But it can be done!
Editor's Notes
In this very short time, I want to share with you some of the lessons that have been drawn from programme design and evaluation in a number of areas of UN work that I’ve been involved in, in particular in relation to providing technical support to governments in implementing international conventions.
I should say from the outset that one of the problems UN offices find, across the globe and in all areas of work, is that governments are usually quite willing to work with UN staff to do all kinds of planning, including putting together national action plans, frameworks for change and so forth, but that, once UN technical support ends, these plans and frameworks just get shelved away to gather dust, and nothing more happens.
The UN has spent some time looking at how they can change this and how the issues on which they’re working, whether that’s women’s rights or child labour or violence against women or other issues, can become part of national processes for change, led by government and with full government support.
This is what we want for gender – we don’t want it to be something that governments think about once they have already made plans, laws or policies; we want it to be so well mainstreamed that it is a natural component of the thinking process. In other words, if the Ministry of Transport is considering building a new railroad, we want them automatically to ask “what will that mean for women in this area?” “how can women be involved in the planning?” “will women be in any way disadvantaged?” “will women and men have equal access to the new trains?” and so forth. In many ways, this involves more than just training government officials on what gender means and how it works – it begins first of all with governments taking ownership of efforts to achieve gender equality.
This might seem complicated but, in many ways, it’s an easier process than “training” government officials, which can be quite problematic. One of the biggest problems in fact that faces anyone who regularly trains government is that governments change so often and officials at every level get moved around all the time. You can put a lot of resources into training one group of officials only to find that a month later they are working on something completely different and you have to start again with a different group.
This is why the aim must ultimately be to mainstream gender into all policies, programmes and actions of government. This means looking beyond the individual outputs of government and changing approaches and processes – the way people think and the way they do. Let me give you an example: let’s say a government wants to change the law relating to the age at which young people can get married – this kind of revision happens fairly frequently. In the early sixties, when women’s groups were first lobbying governments to ensure gender equity in legislation, what usually happened was that government would draft a law and then (maybe!) ask someone to look at it “from a gender perspective”. This was better than nothing, but essentially it left things unchanged. One law might be better but those drafting the laws just carried on as usual. What we really want is for the people drafting new laws t automatically take a gender-sensitive approach to what they’re doing. Embedding gender in the minds of government officials, though, is not easy. It takes time and a number of obstacles have to be overcome.
The first is that government, perhaps understandably, wants instant results. They want to be able to say that they’ve “done gender”, and so they tend to highlight immediate successes, for example they may create a post for a woman and give her a grand title such as “Gender advisor” or “Focal point for gender” and then, invariably, expect her to carry the load on everything to do with gender appropriateness within government outputs. Or a government minister might make a statement saying how important gender is to the government, labelling this particular government as “gender friendly” without much changing. What we’ve learned is that the only way to cut through this kind of tokenism is for there to be real leadership on gender, and clear signals from someone in a leadership role that gender is not an optional consideration but a fundamental tenet of good governance.
One of the main tasks for BPW, then, is to identify who these people are and then give them the sort of technical support they need to be able to demonstrate that what they are saying is right. That may mean just advice, or it may mean providing reliable research and data, or suggestions for specific actions that can be taken. I stress that this is not political support, but technical support.
It’s worth reminding ourselves at this point that when we talk about government we aren’t only talking about the Prime Minister and cabinet – we are talking about the authorities at all levels, from municipal councils to district committees, from village tribunals to national parliaments – mainstreaming gender has ultimately to happen at all these levels. Sometimes, in fact, it may be easier to begin at lower levels of government and then help that to move upwards to central authorities.
Also, gender doesn’t belong to a specific portfolio – in fact, focusing gender issues into one ministry or department can be counter-productive and too often has been a way of pushing gender onto the sidelines. There may well be a Minister for Women, for example, as we have in Australia, but gender must find its place also in the ministries of finance, justice, labour, youth, employment, sport, religion, social services – everywhere, in fact. The example I always give of this is the importance of the department of finance, for example, automatically asking themselves what the impact on women will be of a rise in the tax on tobacco – think about it. When finance ministers can answer this question fully in relation to gender, then we’ll be winning!
So, some crucial first steps to begin to embed gender into government, even before thoughts of training begin: The most important step of all – identifying where change actually begins. A change in the law on violence against women, for example, won’t begin with the Minister for Justice. Where in that ministry do the new ideas come from? It might be one person; it might be a lobby group; it might be a research institute that works with the ministry; it might be the minister’s wife (or husband) – and don’t ever exclude that possibility. The aim is to find where the seeds of change are first planted, so that you can work to integrate gender already at that stage.
The second step is to decide whether there are any obvious gender “champions” within or around government that might, with some support, move the gender agenda forward. Again, don’t exclude the family and friends of government officials, especially if they have a high profile, since they may be ready to speak out when government cannot. A good example here is Bono and Geldof, rock stars who have espoused poverty reduction as a vital key to development and whose influence has reached into governments across the world at the highest levels. But a champion might also be the brother or daughter of a minister whose influence on the minister is considerable but who is not held back by political considerations and can speak out.
In Australia, we now have a Conservative government that is not particularly gender-friendly. A number of policies aimed at improving gender reporting in business, for example, are under threat. One of the first acts of the government when it took office was to close the Office of Women and the Prime Minister took on the role of Minister for Women – not surprisingly, he hasn’t done anything to improve gender equity!
The PM has a female advisor who, unfortunately, does not consider ‘gender’ to be an important issue. To continue promoting gender equity, therefore, we are obliged to look at Opposition parties and individual Members of Parliament who may be more sympathetic, and to take a longer-term view.
Australia currently does not fare well in relation to gender and politics: we rank only 43 in the Gender Gap Report, for example, in relation to political empowerment. Women are disappearing from the higher echelons of government. It is therefore a challenge to identify suitable targets for lobbying and influence in relation to gender promotion.
When you have identified where change can begin and who might lead it, then it is time to consider how you are going to do that. For some of the people you have identified, then offering or sponsoring training might be the best option. That might be one-on-one informal training in the form of mentoring and guidance, or it may be a formal training course offered by your BPW affiliate or another organization. It might be ongoing technical support which, as we’ve seen, can take the form of advice, or maybe regular briefings and updates. It may also take the form of information, reliable information collected and provided to the person you’re supporting in a form that they can use. These are not “training” as such but rather “nurturing” the individual or individuals so that their ability to promote gender and integrate it into the areas in which they work is enhanced.
