Supported by the CGIAR Systemwide Program on Participatory Research and Gender Analysis (PRGA Program) and the International Development Research Center (IDRC).
Project site: Eastern Himalayan Region (Sikkim, Meghalaya, Nepal and Bhutan) and Lao PDR
Synthesis
There is an increasing demand on agricultural and NRM research and development institutions to address the needs of those constituents who are highly vulnerable to the effects of poverty, land degradation and climate change. Perhaps, nowhere is this more significant and urgent as in mountain areas, where the vulnerability of marginalized groups such as poor women and indigenous minorities requires that research and development systems focus attention on the underlying causes of their marginalization.
One significant causal factor contributing to marginalization of such groups is the ineffectiveness of R&D systems to address the demands and needs of their constituency groups, particularly of female small holders. Often, such systems are constrained by a limited capacity to conduct gender-sensitive research and the predominance of a ‘supply-driven' agenda of innovation that cannot effectively respond to the complex social and environmental realities of such vulnerable groups.
This major aim of this project was to strengthen the capacities of women agricultural and NRM professionals and rural women's groups to themselves control the process of research, while simultaneously building their capacities and power to demand agricultural and NRM development in their own terms; an approach that meets both the practical and strategic needs of poor rural women for empowerment and poverty alleviating technologies. A key component of this approach is the transformation of the institutions and organizations that address food security and their involvement of end users in the process of innovation. Strengthening the capacities of both rural and professional women's networks to do this is an investment in social capital that complements other forms of capita - natural, physical, human and financial (Dasgupta and Serageldin 2000).
The project aimed to undertake action research through change agents - selected from partner organizations - who diagnosed and designed specific action research approaches using a framework that enabled one to view an organization as being composed of three systems: technical, political, and cultural. Used as an analytical tool, this framework enabled the assessment of opportunities and constraints to mainstreaming social analysis/gender analysis (SA/GA) approaches in the organization.
The principal findings of the action research can be characterized as follows. There was a general absence of technical expertise to conduct gender-sensitive approaches, no specific policies nor internal fund allocation for gender. On the other hand, the management staff of most organizations agreed that gender was a critical and important component that needed to be integrated into organizational practice; the majority of the partner organizations did indeed have gender components within certain projects. However, they did not possess the technical capacity to integrate ‘best practices' from these projects into the organizational context.
However, as a result of the project, there has been a significant increase in the capacities of partner organizations to integrate gender-sensitive approaches within the various stages of the project cycle, as well as in the structures of the organization. There has also been an increase in the individual capacity of the change agents, and in cases where they have moved onto other organizations, they have continued to be part of the network, while continually seeking to affect transformations in their new organizational settings.
Considerable achievements have been made in terms of the individual capacities of the change agents. Several of them (Sikkim, Meghalaya, Nepal and Laos) have already been functioning as ‘trainers' with other organizations than their own. These participants will function as trainers in an upcoming project supported by CARE/Nepal, to build capacity for gender and organizational change among forestry organizations in Nepal.
It is important however to continue building on existing capacity of change agents. As members of WOCAN, these change agents will be continually exposed to future opportunities to train others as well as to enhance their own learning processes.
Several lessons have also been generated from the implementation of the project. These ‘best practices' have been summarized in a video production of the approach adopted by WOCAN and refined during this project. This video is being shown at the United Nations Commission for Sustainable Development meetings in May, 2008 and is accessible through the WOCAN website. As well, this approach is being replicated in new initiatives in the Himalayan region as well as in Africa through partnerships with CARE/Nepal, Heifer International and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in several countries of Sub Saharan Africa and South Asia.
