Cooperation in development policy - Aspects

• System: A sustained development policy requires that gender perspectives are taken into account in all project phases, from the identification, planning and implementation of projects right through to their monitoring and evaluation. For this, gender-differentiated indicators are needed. These help to assess:
  
  • which qualitative and quantitative differences exist in the participation of women and men in the projects in question and
  • what different benefit does who get from a project and in what respect?
    
• In/formal sector: If gender perspectives are not taken into account, whole areas are left out which are very important for fighting poverty. For instance, measures for supporting transport infrastructure in African countries are often geared to the demands of the formal sector. So it is mostly the needs of men that are catered for. Women, who spend far more time transporting goods for the household or the local market, have far fewer transport routes and means of transport available to them. Gender Mainstreaming tools then help to integrate gender perspectives into transport policy to take equal account of the needs of women and of men. Bearing gender in mind means taking into account not just the formal sector but also the informal sector, in which women are often more present than men.
  
• Competence: The design, and hence the success, of development projects is affected by the perception of gender relations, or even by shutting them out altogether. Gender training courses can make staff aware of ways of organising the implementation of development policy so that projects can be planned and implemented in a way taking proper account of gender. What is important here is to combine gender knowledge with intercultural competence.
  
• NGOs: An important part of cooperation in development work that takes proper account of gender is the support of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and lobby groups which are committed to gender equality between women and men. One example is the support of the Society for Technical Cooperation for the South African NGO “Women’s Budget Initiative”. This group, in keeping with the principle of gender budgeting, is lobbying the South African state to implement a budget and finance policy that takes proper account of gender.

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