Long
before women’s issues became fashionable in the West,
Chinese leader Mao Zedong proclaimed in the mid-1960s that
“Women hold up half the sky”. He understood that
economic development in China would not be possible without
the resources of half of the adult population. Almost 30 years
later, this axiom was repeated in an International Fund for
Agricultural Development report on rural women living in poverty:
“Development without the active participation of women
is a contradiction in terms.”
Humanitarian organisations began to warm to this concept
in the 1970s but only belatedly have committed themselves
to what came to be known as “Women and Development”
projects. The Federation now has a unit devoted to women and
development. The United Nations, for its part, launched a
Decade for Women (1975-1985).
During the early part of this decade, most organisations
believed that general economic development would automatically
benefit women. However, experience revealed that women did
not necessarily reap the rewards from general programmes aiming
to assist wide segments of a given population. The focus thus
shifted from important, but narrow, concerns such as “equal
pay for equal work”, to more global ones. Development
became central. By the early 1990s, the scope of some programmes
had broadened to include women, while others had tightened
to target women exclusively. This
reorientation was encapsulated in the catch-phrase “gender-sensitive
development”.
As a result, most organisations incorporated women and development
(WAD) programmes into their strategic plans. The Federation
was part of this shift. During the 1970s and 1980s, women’s
issues were the subject of numerous Red Cross and Red Crescent
decisions, resolutions and action plans.
Subsequently, WAD projects have gradually multiplied, especially
in Africa. Some of these projects enhance the role of women
in development. Others help women by promoting their status
and lightening their burden: community health programmes,
vocational training and labour-saving projects. Recently,
gender issues have been made an integral part of health and
refugee policies, psycho-social programmes and support for
victims of rape and other forms of violence.
In the Federation’s Development Plan for 1995, “Targeting
the Vulnerable”, funding is requested for a dozen WAD
projects in Africa. Another 27 health care projects worldwide
could be considered “WAD-type” since they endorse
and promote safe motherhood and family planning. Other projects
meet the needs of women by including them in the planning,
design and implementation process.
A “typical” WAD project does not exist. They
run the gamut from raising poultry to computer training and
from child care to pottery cooperatives.
For instance, the Sinkat Women’s Programme, begun in
1986 in the Red Sea Hills of Sudan, provides vocational handicraft
training to supplement family income and to raise funds to
support women’s centres – independently run and
managed by women participants. The Nepal Red Cross Society
has a programme to increase literacy among women and to teach
them entrepreneurial skills.
The results of these WAD projects vary as much as the projects
themselves. Thirteen women’s centres were established
within the Sinkat Women’s Programme in Sudan. The community
development programme in Nepal is already operating in 15
locations and will be extended to five more this year. However,
a comprehensive evaluation of these WAD projects, including
cost-effectiveness, has yet to be done.
The Federation’s Development Plan does not necessarily
reflect what is going on at the grassroots level. Therefore,
the Secretariat’s Women and Development unit is carrying
out a survey to determine the current status of women in National
Societies, to identify the extent of women’s participation
in programmes and to identify specific local programmes for
women. Its outcome should provide the basis for greater improvement
in a large percentage of vulnerable women’s lives.
Despite the increased interest in the feminine face of development,
donor support has generally been inadequate for WAD projects.
Funds sought
for such projects amount to less than five per cent of the
total. Rashim Ahluwalia, the Federation’s Senior Adviser
for Women and Development, gives a number of reasons for the
lack of support.
Increased needs in emergency relief operations have resulted
in the reduced availability of funds for development-oriented
programmes. Funds are less available for international aid,
especially from traditional sources. It takes time to integrate
gender-awareness into specific activities, both at policy
and programme levels, within the Federation.
In addition, many of the changes that result from WAD projects
are very subtle, and certainly not quantifiable. Their full
impact may never be known. It is difficult, for example, to
calculate the impact of a gender awareness component in a
Federation Basic Delegate Training Course. Certainly, the
daily lives of many women have improved with access to health
care, water and sanitation, and labour-saving devices. But
how can one measure such intangibles as empowerment and self-esteem
or, for that matter, heightened awareness of women’s
needs?
The Federation recently implemented a vulnerability/capacity
analysis tool, integrating the gender dimension into it for
use in programme planning and evaluation. This tool is based
on the work of Dr Mary Anderson, co-author of Rising from
the Ashes, and its use allows the Federation to identify better
whom it should assist and how to target its resources more
effectively – linking “vulnerabilities”
and “capacities” of target populations. However,
more needs to be done in terms of monitoring and evaluating
programmes if the Federation is going to be able to gauge
their appropriateness and impact.
The WAD projects are a beginning: 12 widows learning to sew
in Herat, Afghanistan; 100 women being trained in embroidery
in Pita, Central Guinea; 200 women trained in weaving in Nepal;
and 10 to 15 IUDs inserted per day in one of the health centres
of the Pakistan Red Crescent Society. But much, much more
is needed to improve the situation of women, especially in
the developing world. The international community will have
failed if the following statistics are unchanged or get worse:
two-thirds of the world’s illiterates are women; more
than 500,000 women die annually from childbirth-related causes;
and 15 years after the launching of the United Nations Decade
for Women, an estimated 565 million rural women are living
in poverty.
The Federation is committed to closing the gap between programme
goals and programme results for millions of marginalised,
disadvantaged and victimised women. One way to meet this ambitious
challenge is through its participation in the UN Fourth World
Conference on Women and Development to be held in Beijing
in September of this year. This conference is billed as an
attempt to “reshape the global development agenda”.
It could also provide a further impetus to strengthen support
for WAD projects within the International Red Cross and Red
Crescent Movement.
Hopefully, the current global interest in women will not
go the way of other “fashions” – into the
dustbin of history – but will proliferate the number
of WAD projects throughout the developing world. More to the
point, one hopes that the number of WAD projects will not
only multiply but will improve the lot of half the world’s
population — halving misery, poverty and unnecessary
deaths and replacing them with success and hope.
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