Joint Programme on Gender Transformative Approaches to Food Security, Nutrition and Sustainable Agriculture: Inception Workshop and Launch, Rome, May 2019: A Summary

A paradigm shift is underway; business as usual is not an option for promoting gender equality.  This was the clear message that emerged from a 2-day workshop held in Rome to prepare the ground for a new joint UN programme on gender transformative approaches to food security, nutrition and agriculture. This programme is funded by the EU, inspired by the central theme that gender transformation plays in the EU’s current Gender Action Plan, (2016-2020). 

Dynamic theories and innovative practices around Gender Transformative Approaches (GTA), including some introspection on our own organisational culture, were shared by workshop participants from the three UN Rome-based agencies (RBA), the EU, the Government of Canada, NGOs, CGIAR, and the private sector. Senior agency staff also showed their commitment by attending. 

If energy levels might flag after two days of intense discussions, there was no sign of it here; the language of gender transformation brings with it a renewed energy to conversations around gender equality. 

GTAs attempt to move beyond the symptoms of gender inequality and to tackle the underlying structural impediments that discriminate against women and girls. As we heard in the workshop, gender transformation is political and complex. Outside agencies need to find creative ways to support women and men to become agents of their own transformation because change happens from within. 

To set the scene, experts from CGIAR provided an overview of the theoretical underpinnings of gender transformation and the challenges that proponents should be prepared to face. This was based on their in-depth discussion paper funded by the EU as a launchpad to kickstart innovative thinking.  CGIAR challenged participants to be clear about the nature of change envisaged, and to reflect on the role that external agencies should adopt in the change process, with their in-built gender biases. They listed the challenges of scaling up GTAs, which are daunting, not least because of the resources involved. They posed the question: what are the core ingredients embedded in a GTA that must be retained when all else is trimmed away at scale so it can still be considered transformative?

An enlightening array of presentations and discussions followed, each focusing on a variation of rural GTA in practice, using stories, anecdotes, pictures and songs to inspire fellow participants. 

We heard about household and community level methodologies that encourage men and women to work together to change negative behaviour patterns and plan for a shared vision. This included the now famous Gender Action Learning Systems (GALS) approach, supported by IFAD, which moves from change catalyst workshops to community action learning to participatory reviews. We heard how the GALS methodology has been adapted for the private sector in Tanzania and about couples’ seminars in coffee growing households in Uganda, Ethiopia and Tanzania. 

We also heard how community-level organisations, such as farmer field and life or business schools or farmers organisations, can be catalytic vehicles for social change. Through these, dialogue can be facilitated between women and men that triggers changes in attitudes of community leaders towards women, or that results in the promotion of women as leaders, or that reduces levels of violence. FAO’s very own Dimitra Clubs, for example, are self-organised groups of women and men who discuss common challenges and take action to overcome them. Working through farmers organisations in Latin America  we learnt that for change to be sustainable it must happen at the three levels of the individual, the organisation and the society, and that building alliances between men and women is key.

We heard about a practical and yet transformative toolkit for smallholder outgrower schemes that includes promoting women’s leadership, joint decision making and joint household budgeting.  Importantly we learnt that with the private sector the language (if not the spirit) of gender transformation must be toned down in order to be acceptable in a corporate environment.

Defining and measuring the scope of gender transformation is critical but remains a challenge. A final instructive presentation from WorldFish described different frameworks, methodologies and indicators that can be applied to capture the qualitative impacts of GTA.

Moving on to a reflection of our own organisational culture, we heard about WFP’s drive to internalise and strengthen the agency’s commitment to gender equality and transformation with a specific focus on men and masculinities, inspiring IFAD and FAO (and the EU) to follow suit.

Then came the hard part; in the closing hours of the workshop participants grouped together to seek some discipline to so much creation. They returned to the difficult questions: what are the core characteristics of GTAs and how do we take these to scale? How do we measure gender transformative change? How can the RBAs and their partners bring about a mindset shift within their own organisations and how can they challenge and change the minds of policy makers as well? All these questions were based on the common agreement that traditional tools of working – frameworks, M&E systems, indicators, funding cycles and reporting requirements - are ill fit to accommodate these new ideas.

Discussions raised more questions than answers, but agreement on key principles was reached. We need to establish a business case for gender transformation. To do this, we need to build partnerships that will establish a broad community of practice to centralise evidence of what works, where and why. We need to strengthen our M&E systems so they capture effectively the impact of GTAs. We need to engage with policy makers to help us address the challenges of taking GTAs to scale. Finally, and crucially, RBAs and their partners must examine their own gender norms and work hard to strengthen capacity and understanding of GTAs, particularly amongst technical staff and senior managers. This last principle – that change comes from within - resonates strongly with the EU’s current Gender Action Plan (2016-2020) which requires an institutional culture shift within the EU and its partners to strengthen their commitment, understanding and capacity in driving the gender equality agenda forward.

The energy generated from the workshop filtered through to a third day when the UN Joint Programme was launched.  This is a €5 million grant to the RBAs from the EU to run for four years. It aims to support them in embedding GTAs in their policy dialogue, programmes, institutional culture and working modalities, and to improve the way in which the agencies collaborate around gender equality. Actions will include collation and dissemination of lessons learnt, capacity enhancement of staff, knowledge sharing, and evidence-based dialogue, all of which respond directly to the key conclusions that emerged from the workshop. 

As the EU Ambassador to the UN agencies in Rome said during the programme’s launch, in order to respect the human rights of women and girls what is needed is huge societal change. GTAs can help to bring this about and all actors involved in the process need to experiment and learn together. The Joint Programme will help the RBAs and the EU to deliver on SDG2 by pushing the frontiers of change.

Webcast: http://www.fao.org/webcast/home/en/item/4981/icode/

Joint Press Release: http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/1193249/icode/

Flickr album: https://www.flickr.com/photos/faonews/sets/72157708480114024/