GENDER RESPONSIVE ECONOMIC POLICY MAKING IN AFRICA COURSE
CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP, 30-31 MARCH 2006
DRAFT SUMMARY REPORT
VENUE: AFRICA UNION HEADQUATERS
3RD APRIL 2006
1. INTRODUCTION
The African Union Commission (AUC) in collaboration with the IDEP organized a 2-day Curriculum Development workshop for Gender Responsive Economic Policy Making Course the first of the kind in Africa.
The aim of the workshop was to prepare a curriculum for a training course on Gender- Responsive Economic Policy –Making in Africa. The training course is to fill the capacity gap for African economic policy makers, budget planners, development practitioners and policy advocates in designing and implementing gender sensitive economic policies and programmes.
The Beijing Review, 2005 identified the lack of skills and limited understanding of gender among the policy makers as one of the main reasons why economic and trade policies as well as bilateral and multilateral trade agreements in Africa have continued to be gender- blind and consequently have negatively impacted on women and gender relations.
Similarly, African economic policy-making remains largely informed by orthodox thinking, which does not include gender as a variable in macro-economic analysis and formulation. Policies such as trade liberalization, privatization, fiscal, monetary and exchange rate policies recognize market-oriented work and ignore non-market work, most of which is the unpaid subsistence, reproductive and care work done by women in households and informal sector. At the same time, the trade policy-makers and trade negotiators need to focus not only on market access but also on the social and infrastructural needs of various groups in society.
Economists have little literacy of gender yet the gender experts on the other hand equally lack adequate understanding of economics. There is therefore need to bridge the knowledge gap of the economists on gender issues and to improve the economic literacy of the gender experts.
The training course will therefore equip the policy makers, advocates and legislators with gender analytical and conceptual skills needed to understand gender in the context of economic and social development, and provide some practical tools for integrating gender into poverty reduction, development policy frameworks and processes on the continent. The course will also enhance the gender awareness of African trade negotiators. The first session of the course is planned to take place in the last quarter (October and December) 2006 and thereafter two sessions will be held once a year.
2. REPRESENTATION AND PARTICIPATION AT THE WORKSHOP
The curriculum development workshop drew participants from a cross section of institutions from a number of countries, namely; Benin, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa with different professional backgrounds in economic policy, trade and gender.
· Dr. Bola Akanji, Nigerian Institute of Social Research (NISER), Nigeria
· Ms Maggie Makanza, Gender Education and Training Network (GETNET), South Africa
· Ms Angela Nakafeero, Development Alternatives Consult (DAC), Uganda
· Prof. Christina E. Okojie, Department of Economics and Statistics, University of Benin
· Dr. Grace Ongile, NEPAD Kenya Secretariat
· Ms. Mohau Pheko, Gender, Trade Network in Africa, South Africa
· Ms. Zo Randriamaro, UNIFEM-Dakar
· Mr. Elston Seppie, Gender Education and Training Network (GETNET), South Africa
· Mr. Richard Ssewakiryanga, Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development (MFPED), Uganda
· Ms. Hellen Wangusa, All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC), Kenya,
· Ms. Winnie Byanyima, African Union Commission, Ethiopia
· Dr. Diery Seck, UNIDEP, Senegal
· Dr. Alfred Latigo, UNECA, Ethiopia,
· Ms Ini Onuk, AUC, Ethiopia.
3. OVERVIEW OF THE COURSE
3.1. Target Participants
The course targets development planners and practitioners in particular the junior and middle level public sector professionals from national governments, regional economic communities (RECs) and the AU including NEPAD, management level staff members of national, regional and international civil society organisations and researchers who want to increase their capacity to analyse and integrate gender issues in economic development.
3.2. Expected Skills upon Completion
The course is expected to enhance gender awareness and assist participants to become familiar with, analyse and utilizegender concepts, tools and strategies especially in the economic sectors. Some specific objectives include:
· Fostering a better understanding of gender concepts, enhanced theoretical and practical knowledge of gender;
· Enabling participants to Acquire knowledge and expertise to formulate, implement, and evaluate policies, programmes and budgets from a gender perspective;
· Increasing participants knowledge about international instruments for achieving gender equality;
· Equipping participants with sufficient knowledge and expertise to introduce a gender perspective in national development policy dialogue and planning, as well as in international negotiations;
· Increasing capacity to conduct research/inquiry on gender issues at the local level.
· Providing an opportunity to share relevant experiences and materials among participants from different countries.
3.3. Mode of Delivery
It is planned that the course will be delivered in bilingual French\English sessions with simultaneous interpretation. Resource persons will be drawn from top-level professional and academic experts in the subject areas. Half of the trainees will be economists (including legislators especially those from the committees on economic affairs); a quarter will be drawn from the national gender machineries and another quarter from CSOs. At the end of each session, a comprehensive evaluation of the course will be carried out to enable UNIDEP and AUC make appropriate enhancements for future delivery.
3.4. Pedagogical Approach
These include lectures; class discussions; group work; short analytical papers; analysis of policy documents and research approaches; in-class debates, oral presentations; and computer exercises. Participants will have opportunities to bring their experiences into class discussions and into some written and oral assignments. Attention will be given to relevant and important case studies in Africa and making an interesting comparison with other countries and continents.
3.5. Assessment
By the second week of the course, participants will be assigned to discussion groups. Each group will be given specific policy scenarios – based on their own work experience - in Africa to discuss and analyse. The group will come out with a 5-page report indicating the relevant gender dimensions. The trainers will assess the course and an Assessment Committee will produce a technical report on the course.
3.6. Number of Participants and Duration
Each session will target about 25 participants for 4 weeks for a total number of 100 hours (5 hrs per day). The course has five modules.
3.7. Proposed date of Commencement
The course is to be piloted between October and December 2006 and thereafter run two times every year at UN IDEP.
3.8. General Discussion and Recommendations on the Course
The experts discussed at length issues regarding the course and made recommendations as presented below;
· Evaluation of the Course
The need to have all aspects of the course evaluated was emphasized. Aspects to be evaluated are the trainers, course content, available facilities, delivery methods, trainees and with time the impact of the course on economic policy making and practices in the specific countries that will benefit from the course. Having both qualitative and quantitative evaluation forms and reports from the trainers and trainees, and instituting an evaluation committee were some of the proposals made.
· Overlap of topics was observed
There were topics that were overlapping and could be reorganized under the same module. Some modules like module 1 were too short yet others like module 3 was too long and could be re arranged into two. The experts re-organised the modules and introduced a new logical flow of the course.
· Concern over the language
The challenges of a bilingual course were discussed at length e.g. the different budgeting systems (Napoleonic and Commonwealth), the different levels of development and use of gender concepts etc. It was agreed that the pilot test running of the course be bilingual and the issue be revisited after an evaluation of the pilot course.
· Clarity of economic policy making
It was noted that economic policy making is not clear to most people, so that there may be economic failures that are not necessarily due to policy making but due to how processes are undertaken. The course therefore needs to enable the participants to reflect on economic policy making processes in Africa.
· Drawing a balance between Theory and Practice
The course should enable the participants acquire both the theoretical and the practical knowledge of gender in macroeconomic policies in Africa. In particular, efforts should be made to draw from the existing African knowledge. This will make the course unique and add value to the existing economic policy frameworks. This uniqueness of the course should be clearly defined and ought to be based on the African Instruments in place, African concepts and ideological approaches and the African specificities and peculiarities on various issues.
· Section on Appraisal of the Gender Mainstreaming Strategy
The course should have a section where a critical appraisal of the gender mainstreaming strategy is done in order to strengthen the justification for the course. This section should among other things respond to questions such as why gender mainstreaming has not succeeded so far, what challenges have been faced in the past and how this particular course will be addressing them.
· Criteria of selecting participants and the selection process
The selection criteria and the process should be well defined and must answer questions like what level is targeted by the course, what incentives are in place and the requirements for the participants in terms of working experience, professional skills and expectations when they go back to their countries. The ideas of awarding certificates, accreditation of the course to recognized universities and linking the trainees to ongoing projects in their respective countries where they can apply their new skills were some of the proposals made.
· Concern over the Duration of the course
The proposed length of 4 consecutive weeks was an area of concern, particularly because it was considered as being too long to attract the full participation of high-level policy makers and planners. There were proposals to have some modules delivered online, preparing the participants before the course and having projects assigned to the participants to be done from their respective countries. These proposals will be discussed further and a decision made.
· The need for an additional module or section on gender, labour and employment policies
§ Clarification on the Objectives of the course
The key question on what the course intended to achieve was raised. This was in reaction to the concern that quite often the same people end up attending the same course for more times and little or no impact is achieved in terms of application of the skills acquired. The selection process must guard against such shortcomings. The application of the skills and information acquired, and how this will be assessed, should be emphasized in the long-term objectives of the course.
· Possibility of Cost sharing with Countries
The possibility of cost sharing with the benefiting countries was discussed however; the experience of UNIDEP showed that it was better to ask member States to pay their assessed contributions rather to pay directly for participants at UN IDEP courses. This is mainly because human capital development is very important for all African countries and it would be undesirable for the poorest countries to be excluded from the course on the basis of their inability to pay.
Other issues raised included;
· Need to consider other cross cutting issues – HIV/AIDS, environment and gender (HEG), labour and employment.
§ The need to be realistic and flexible on what will be achieved was emphasized
§ The trainees should also be seen as potential trainers in their respective countries.
§ Deliberate efforts should be taken to ensure a measure of gender balance among the participants and a right mix in terms of the relevant professional backgrounds for the course.
Observation
The course once in place will provide a good opportunity to integrate gender into other UNIDEP courses for greater impact. This is already being done and the outcomes of the gender course can be taken on as sub-courses in other courses.
Recommendation
The course should also target legislators and private sector actors.
4. COURSE MODULES
The Experts adopted 5 modules that are more of building blocks on gender and economic policy making for Africa. The modules benefited from presentations and long discussions by the experts focussing on title, objectives and content. The full report gives more details about the presentations and comments made on each module. The detailed comments will be useful in planning the modules in more detail and in delivery of the course.
4.1. Module 1: Highlighting Gender in Development
Objectives of the Module
1. Introduce relevant gender concepts in economic development
2. To critique economic development theories from a gender perspective.
Content
· Theories, paradigms and concepts on economic development (dominant and alternative theories). Introduce African perspectives.
· Cross cutting issues that affect development i.e. environment, governance, gender, HIV/AIDS.
· Gender theories and concepts including but not limited to gender awareness, gender division of labour/ economy (male bias), gender inequality, economic growth and development
· Gender perspectives to economic policy issues, gendered impacts on sectoral development (e.g. in agriculture) as well as social development - trade liberalization, debt, fiscal policy and decentralization, labour and employment,
Observation
The flow of topics would set the context for economists since its good to start with what they know and then introduce development determinants, drawing a strong case for gender as one of the development determinants. This would also give more legitimacy to the focus on gender and the details on sectoral policies and gender to be covered in module 4.
4.2. Module 2: Engendering Macro-economic Policies: Methodological Issues
Objectives of the Module
· Equip participants with tools to promote formulation of gender responsive economic policies
Content
1. Methodological Issues in engendering macroeconomic policies