Special Issue | Impact Post | Mainstreaming Gender
Issue #30 | Mon, Mar 6, 2023
Dear Friends of NuSocia,
When we started NuSocia, the only consideration in building the team was pure merit and no aspect of nationality, region, religion, or gender was ever taken into consideration. However, as we grew - we were hearing about the concepts of gender and diversity around us. This made us take a pause and look at the team - to our surprise, we were already 65% plus females in the team - from different parts of the country, with different specialisations; leading key functions, from field researchers to graphic designers, from analytics to communications, from interns to the CEO. Did it happen by design? No. It happened subconsciously, probably because of not trying to create diversity, but truly believing in the concept and we are proud of it all.
8th March is International Women’s Day and our Impact Post this time is a dedication to the progress being made on women's empowerment and to remind everyone at the same time, how far we have to go to achieve Sustainable Development Goal #5 - Gender Equality by 2030. The three sections of your Impact Post this month are - (a) A breakdown of CSR / Philanthropic funding towards gender; (b) Understanding GESI or Gender Equity and Social Inclusion and (c) a Gender Audit of Social development programs. Therefore, this edition of Impact Post is for everyone out there - The Corporate, The NGOs, The Students, The Government and every individual, as we believe- everyone can make a difference
The Journey towards Women Empowerment : Where's the Money?
While there is a significant rise in the levels of education amongst women (66% in 2018) in India, with enrollment rates for girls exceeding enrollment rates for boys (World Bank, World Development Indicators, 2021), the achievement of gender equality is far away from the 2030 target. From the latest available data on SDGs in India, as of 2019, only 4 of 29 states and union territories had reached the halfway mark to the objectives (NITI Aayog, 2020). Practices like sex selection, child marriage, and domestic violence are still a reality, despite being illegal. On the work front, ILO Data from 2020 shows that almost 50% of women aged 15-24, are neither in school nor are they employed. Despite recent strides in economic growth, The World Economic Forum (WEF) ranked India at 135 out of 146 countries in its Global Gender Gap (GGG) Index for 2022 and this should concern us all.
What to focus on, when talking about Gender initiatives?
Various research and frameworks and global best practices boil down to the following six areas of focus when talking about interventions in gender parity and women empowerment.
Sex ratio at birth - Covering aspects like IMR
Girl child access to education
Preventing gender violence - domestic, workplace, and societal
Labour force participation - Formal sector vs informal sector
Access to digital and financial resources
Women’s sense of self-worth and ability to impact society
Are there resources for gender initiatives?
Looking at how philanthropy and CSR is allocating resources to address gender inequality can help assess if we're likely to address the right gaps, how long it could take, and the direction we’re steering towards.
Let’s first see, what’s the total resource pool we are talking about. As per OECD, Private Philanthropy for Development – Second Edition: Data for Action, The Development Dimension, 2021, India is the largest recipient of international philanthropy in the developing world. Between 2016 and 2019, the country received USD 1.7 billion from 58 large international foundations. As per MCA CSR 2021 data, CSR funding from over 16,000 companies shows that nearly USD 12 billion was put into social development between 2016 and 2019 in India. However, according to the report of the High-level Committee on Social Responsibilities (2018) by the Union Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), the Gender equality share is roughly 0.5% and the women empowerment share is just 1% of the total CSR spending. Looking a little deeper, we also get to see that vocational training, SHG creation, and entrepreneurship development are the most favourite areas of intervention in CSR whereas Philanthropic funding has supported four gender-related areas: reproductive health, family planning, support to women’s rights organisations and ending violence against women
From 2016-19, only 35% of all funding to reduce inequalities targeted specific states, while the remaining 65% is classified as a national fund. Most state-level funding has been directed to three states: Maharashtra (10%), Karnataka (6%), and Andhra Pradesh (5%). Interestingly, these are not the states with the lowest female labour participation or female/male wage ratios (states like Bihar, Assam, and Jharkhand). Even within states, the distribution of CSR funds is not spread. In the highest recipient state Maharashtra, 12 districts have almost nil share of CSR funds as per MCA data. Similarly, funding for ending violence against women is not targeted at the states with a higher prevalence of domestic violence or female victim crime rates (OECD, Gender Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI), 2019). Probably because corporate, while donating funds, tend to prefer their local areas causing inequity in the distribution of funds.
Our conclusion is - there are enough funds, it just needs to get rightfully targeted.
Recommendations for CSR decision makers, to contribute toward gender equality
There any many different facets of women’s empowerment: Social empowerment, educational empowerment, economic and occupational empowerment, and legal empowerment.
Relevance: Conduct need-based assessments to understand and design programs that meet the needs of females in specific area: The distribution of funding towards gender equality is unequal across different states and does not necessarily target areas with the greatest needs. Need assessments could help target philanthropic funding and CSR in support of gender equality - both in terms of geography and program design
Coherence: Build strong ties with international and domestic donors that can commonly solve gender gaps and inequalities.: Domestic and international philanthropy working on gender equality could support a tighter community of practice. They can help set common priorities for organisations working on gender equality. This, in turn, can help draw additional support from both international and domestic donors as it will increase the visibility of the work carried out through a collaborative model. Collaboration can also help influence policy interventions.
Design: Women-centric CSR.: A women-centric program is cognizant of various aspects and lifecycle of women's empowerment. Such an approach not only focuses on the women but also related stakeholders and works on a holistic approach
Long-term, flexible support to grassroots organisations.: Organisations working on gender equality often require reliable, long-term, and consistent financial support to deliver on their mission. However, philanthropic donors tend to provide primarily short-term support that can hinder the grantee’s capacity to develop effectively.
Impact: Using the right measures for your CSR program.: A closer look at CSR statistics reveals that reporting on women impacting CSR is broadly limited to the number of women covered (input focussed) and not really touching on qualitative improvements in the life of women (output focussed). Also, while defining the metrics for any CSR program, consider introducing sex-disaggregated data to better track support for gender equality.
Gender Equality & Social Inclusion
Large infrastructure and development projects have long-term impacts on the communities living in and around them. It has the potential to change the entire social and cultural fabric of the community. In a one-of-a-kind project that NuSocia team worked on last year, we did a Gender Equity and Social Inclusion study on a highway construction project in Rajasthan, to evaluate the impact of a highway on the community (especially womenfolk) in the villages around the highway.
The objective of the study was to understand the concerns in the region regarding access, affordability, safety, employment, and economic activities in relation to transport. The focus of the study is on the Elderly, Women, Children, and Disabled (EWCD) and other vulnerable groups. The study used a mixed methodology including a survey with user groups and KIIs with key stakeholders.
The findings of the study confirm the fact that poor road conditions can have multiple impacts on people’s lives, directly and indirectly on their health, education, livelihoods, etc., limiting opportunities for life. While a significant percentage of people who use roads for transportation are men, women also need to feel safe when they commute, and transportation has to be made affordable, accessible, and available for women to enable their participation in economic activities.
This study provided specific recommendations to the client, a global development agency to help them implement Gender Equity and Social Inclusion (GESI) design for all the road and highway projects supported by them in the state of Rajasthan.
Gender Impact Assessment
In assessing social impacts, experts all too often tend to see ‘the community’ as a homogeneous unit, without taking into consideration the different roles, positions, and situations of women and men. Normative assumptions about men’s and women’s roles (as ‘breadwinners’ and ‘mothers/carers’ respectively) remain, even in the context of rural areas in developing countries where many women work as farmers or act in other ways as the primary subsistence providers. Even where women are engaged in paid work, they tend to be portrayed primarily as homemakers.
At NuSocia, our Gender Centre of Excellence (GCoE) provides expertise to our consultants and assessment team - about gender aspects in a program assessment/program design.
During impact assessment, it is the estimation of the different effects (positive, negative, or neutral) of a program or activity implemented or a policy toward gender equality. It often involves a dual-pronged approach: the current gender-related position (in a socio-economic demographic study) in relation to the program area under consideration, and the projected impacts on gender-segregated results. Rama P, from NuSocia GCoE team, says “The increasing focus on women empowerment as an intervention area is ensuring a positive influx of funds and attention for women’s development. At NuSocia, we strive to push it further for a sustainable future. We do this by introducing our clients to the larger gender perspective and ensuring an intersectional approach which acknowledges diversity.”
Having studied Gender and International Relations at the University of Bristol, Rama specialises in putting the gender lens into our projects.
We sincerely hope that this Impact Post has added value to you and your team. On behalf of all of us at NuSocia, we wish you a very happy International Women’s Day. Let’s work together to create an equal world. After all, if this generation won’t, who will?
If you have any questions about the GESI framework or want to analyze your CSR program for gender audit, or if you just want to express your views and would be interested to participate in our webinar series on gender equality, do write to us and we will be happy to set up a call with you.
Regards,
Manju Menon,
On behalf of Team NuSocia