Introduction
More than ten years after Beijing, has gender training made a difference?
Gender training as a concrete mechanism for building capacity for gender mainstreaming, and a way to make development cooperation more inclusive and responsive, has been implemented - from differing perspectives, with differing methodologies, and with varying levels of commitment - since the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995. It has been presented as crucial to organizational development and capacity-building, as well as key to changing attitudes and behaviours and building capacity at the operational level. However, …the current utility of gender training is increasingly being questioned. Although it was born out of the global women’s movement generally, gender training has assumed a life of its own over time, almost attaining the status of a panacea for gender equality, especially in the developing world. In most cases, integration of the gender component has translated into gender training of staff or the constituents. Gender training is an activity that will always appear in the Logical Framework of many an organization (state or non-state) and as a mandatory activity for those who profess to do any gender-related work. Because a number of donors have tended to make gender integration a condition, government departments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and a host of other organizations are in some sense forced to train staff, at least, on what gender is all about. (From: Ahikire, J. “Gender training and the politics of mainstreaming in post-Beijing Uganda.” in M. Mukhopadhyay and F. Wong (eds.), Revisiting gender training, The making and remaking of gender knowledge: A global sourcebook. The Netherlands: KIT (Royal Tropical Institute) and Oxfam GB, 2007)
While both institutions and governments have attempted to instill gender-sensitivity and responsiveness into their staff, the range of what has been delivered under the name of gender training or gender equality training has had mixed results regarding its wider purpose of supporting, contributing to, initiating or effecting transformative change in gender relations. It has also had these uneven results regarding an increase in capacity to deliver development programming services for women equally with men. In review, the results of gender training, whether part of larger gender mainstreaming processes or not, have been mixed. What has been delivered as “gender training” has covered such wide variety of experiences, topics and audiences that there is no longer an agreed definition on what gender training is, how it should be done, and with whom. “Gender training” has included primarily briefing, sometimes advocacy, occasionally learning (on knowledge, skills, or attitudes and values), but there is little rigour to the concept of gender training. There exists no single discipline in the sense of a body of research and experience on “gender and development” that has generated “gender training"
Though evaluations of individual gender training sessions may be positive (people are enthusiastic about the session, the questions it raises, the opportunity to learn more), evaluations of gender training overall have not indicated significant organizational level change in programme and practice. Individual, one-off, or ad-hoc training delivered on short-term contracts gives the people responsible for gender training – at the programmatic and oversight levels - no opportunity to compare experiences, forge relationships with other practitioners for mutual support, feedback and possible co-facilitators, or identify what works in gender training and how to capitalize on it.
A contemporary critical review seems timely…
…The tenth
anniversary of the Beijing Conference has coincided with a series of
evaluations of bilateral and multilateral agencies and their gender
policies and strategies. Gender training has been a common subject as
have recommendations for more and better training for staff. As a
result, development agencies are presently reviewing and revising
gender training strategies. For those of us who have ‘been there and
done that’, this is akin to recommending a bigger hammer; for the
nature of the tool (i.e. training) and the thinking behind the tool are
not being questioned…" (From: Mukhopadhyay, M. and F. Wong.
“Introduction: Revisiting gender training. The making and remaking of
gender knowledge.” in M. Mukhopadhyay and F. Wong (eds.), Revisiting
gender training, The making and remaking of gender knowledge: A global
sourcebook. The Netherlands: KIT (Royal Tropical Institute) and Oxfam
GB, 2007.)
As part of its collaboration in the development of the Gender and Security Sector Reform Toolkit, UN-INSTRAW organized a virtual discussion on “Good and Bad Practices in Gender Training for Security Sector Personnel” (April 2007), which fed into the production of a tool and several other initiatives.
In addition to an enormous amount of enthusiasm for the topic of gender training, one of the highlights of the virtual discussion were the concrete observations, experiences and recommendations that came from the participants, many of whom were practitioners with years of practical experience in gender training. This virtual discussion spawned the idea of a Community of Practice on Gender Training that would bring together practitioners from all over the world with a diversity of knowledge and experiences, in order to take stock of where we are in gender training – what have been the real successes and failures and how do we strengthen gender training as a component of gender mainstreaming and sustainable development?
Community of Practice
Concept
The concept of a Community of Practice refers to the process of social learning that occurs when people who have a common interest in some subject or problem collaborate over an extended period to share ideas, find solutions, and build innovations. It refers as well to the stable group that is formed from such regular interactions. More recently, Communities of Practice have become associated with knowledge management as people have begun to see them as ways of developing social capital, nurturing new knowledge, stimulating innovation, or sharing existing tacit knowledge within an organization. It is now an accepted part of organizational development (OD). From: Wenger, E. Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
During its first year of work, the aim was to lay the foundation for a Community of Practice on Gender Training.
Activities carried out during the first GT CoP year include:
• Creation of a Virtual Platform for the Gender Training Community of Practice that includes a Clearinghouse of Gender Training Resources and a Gender Training Wiki.
• Creation of a network of gender training and gender specialists and practitioners and making it available to the public in general.
• Establishing an ongoing forum to facilitate communication between CoP members, encourage virtual discussion of topics of interest and requests for information and data.
• Holding three Virtual Dialogues on “Current Situation of Gender Training”, “Gender Training Methodologies” and “Gender Training for Women’s Political Participation and Leadership”.
• Creating an online compendium of Good Practices in Gender Training.
• Establishing the “Ask the CoP!” feature, a Gender Training help desk so that both GT members and interested people in general can submit specific questions to CoP members.
The month long Virtual Dialogues provided useful information on current initiatives in Gender Training, their strengths and weaknesses, common needs of Gender Trainers, and useful information and recommendations on how to make Gender Training more effective. For its second year, actions and challenges for the GT CoP include:
• Improving the virtual platform by adding more interactive tools to facilitate members’ participation and interaction in different activities; continuing expanding the clearing house of materials; translating the virtual platform to other languages; among others.
• Help build a bridge between academia and trainers by encouraging dialogue and communication between researchers and trainers and reflection on professional practice in gender training in a continuous process of doing, reflection and learning and making available to a wider audience results of research studies and other documents to trainers and practitioners working in the field.
• Combine different type of online and face to face activities: webconferences, chats, webinars, virtual dialogues and face to face global and regional meetings and professional development activities, trainings of trainers, among others.
Esta es una iniciativa de UN-INSTRAW desarrollada con el apoyo del gobierno de México.
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