Position Paper On Gender Mainstreaming - Strategies And Challenges (Essay).

To support CF in developing its Gender Mainstreaming Strategy, IDO has been commissioned to draft Position Papers that will provide critical inputs on issues that need to be addressed and some tools and techniques to address identified issues. 

Based on your analysis of the data provided, each team will draft a Position Paper on Gender Mainstreaming. 

• News letter sent to all CF staff
• Survey Data 
• Focus Group Data 

The purpose of a position paper is to generate support on an issue. It describe; priority issues that need to be addressed, the approach to addressing identified issues, the rationale behind the approach, and how issues should be addressed, by whom and within what timeframe. A position paper is always based on the data, which provide a solid foundation for your argument. 

Gender Equitly

There are a number of challenges that the comparison fund organization is facing which needs to be dealt with. For the organization to have favorable working environment that is free of gender inequalities, the firm needs to deal with the issue of training. The gender audit identified that lack of training is among the challenges that the stocks of competence face. Most of the staff members have not been trained completely on gender issues thus leading to mishandling of clients based on gender. The staff does not fully appreciate importance of gender equality in the organization. Apparently, the staff as seen from the survey lacks gender sensitive skill due to lack of training. This raises the need of the organization to prioritize building the gender sensitivity skills of all staff through recruiting and training qualified women and men. This should aim at enabling them to take leadership positions (Nielsen 2017, p. 298).

Additionally, it clearly came out that the comparison fund organization faces many challenges when it comes to office culture/environment, prioritization of gender by the organization. The data obtained from the focus groups and the survey audit further shows that no financial resources have been allocated for gender activities. This makes it nearly a tall order for the firm to progress in advocating for gender equality (Maume et al. 2018, pp. 1058).

According to the Gender Audit Survey and the Focus Group data provided, different issues have been identified to be of significant concern to the success of the Compassion Fund programs. The Audit survey has been able to identify successfully institutional strengths and challenges in integration of gender equity in programs and their organizational structures and processes. Therefore, the survey provides that it is essential to integrate gender equity in its programs and organization structure. According to the gender integration framework political will, organizational culture, technical capacity and accountability are critical factors that determine the successful integration of gender equity (Voki?, ?ori? & Obadi? 2017). This is because the framework provides that most of the organizations that exhibit the requisite level of political will as well as positive organizational culture, promote institutional accountability and technical expertise is able to integrate gender equality successfully in their management as well as human resource and the entire program (Ylöstalo 2016, p. 554).

Political will is critical in integration of gender equity in any development program. Despite the increased number of participation of women in the program and appointment in different roles, traditional culture has been a crucial challenge. The society believes that there are certain roles that women should not play and that the integration of women in the programs will be a threat to men. Without political will in society, it is not possible for the Compassion Fund to achieve its optimum success through integration of gender equality. The development of political will contributes to increased support of the gender integration initiatives for the programs. Despite the organization supporting the efforts to integrate women, the society is still not in term with women taking leadership roles to address the community on various issues before men. There is therefore a need to educate the community through awareness creation that women are capable of doing what men can do. The focus group data showed that there is a moderate extend need to conduct an analysis of gender roles and responsibilities in the community targeted.

Situation analysis of the Compassion Fund

The key asset that leads to success of any program is time allocation, incentives, presence of gender technical officers and staffing. As in the cases of comparison firm, not all of these aspects have been prioritized in the side of gender. The management team has failed to consider these issues, which have an upper hand at influencing gender in the organization. When workers are given incentives for their efforts to ensure equity, they will tend to reinforce the behavior in the organization.

Organization culture has also been identified as a barrier to successful gender integration in the programs. The data provides that some staff member do not understand gender issues thus creating a hostile environment that does not embrace gender equity. According to the gender development policy from the survey report 32% of the staff responded that they did not know whether there was a written gender policy that affirms a commitment to gender equality in their organization. Therefore, lack of understanding of gender equity issues acts as a barrier to successful integration of gender equity initiatives. There is therefore a need to create awareness through training of the employees to create awareness on the importance of gender equality and its importance in promoting the success of their programs (Gore 2014, p. 97). There is also a need for the organization to develop a culture of gender equality through provision of equal opportunities for both men and women in the organization. This is because most of the members with a response of 41 percent agreed to a greater extend that gender equity is taken into consideration during strategic planning of the national offices activities. This shows that the organization supports gender integration activities but the implementation is not very effective since most of the respondents expressed that they do not know whether the gender policy has an operational plan that clearly outlines the allocation of responsibilities and time for monitoring and evaluation (Eriksson & Renemark 2016, p. 369).

The development of technical capacity to implement the integration of gender equity is critical (Bendl and Schmidt, 2013). From the data provided in both the survey and focus group analysis showed that most women expressed concerns over lack of training in gender planning and analysis and hence lack of gender sensitization since the organization has laid most focus on promoting women without training them or equipping them with the necessary skills. The effectiveness of gender integration in the Compassion Fund program will require not only the promotion of women into different higher roles but also equipping them with the necessary skills to plan, analyze and implement gender equality policies in the organization. According to the staffing data results, there has been an increase in the number of women in the senior positions compared to men, which shows a positive trend in promoting gender equity in the organization (Eräranta & Kantola 2016, p. 414).

Data Provided

According to Collantes et al. (2018), a number of actions can be undertaken by the organization with the aim facilitating gender equity with the aim of curbing the existing problems in addition to the prospective obstacles that may arise in the due course of action. It is recommended that the organization should reconsider putting into budget a certain amount of capital that can be used to fund activities of the organization (McCarthy 2017, p. 310).

The money allocated must be monitored so that the comparison fund organization can be given account of how it has been used to facilitate gender activities such as training the staff members and allocation of incentives. In line with this, it is important for the staff members to be held responsible for all resources allocated for gender. This can be accounted for through documentation of how the activities of the gender will influence the program.  The management team of the CF organization ought to be held responsible for providing enough materials and allocation of resources such as finance to necessitate gender integration. For this to be successful, senior management, team needs to be friendlier to gender activities (McCarthy 2017, p. 317).

For the firm to enjoy competitive advantage because of competence of the stocks of competence, clear systems of promotion based on merit should be developed. The organization needs to do away with the current existing promotion system that is unclear and quite unfair as interpreted by the staff (Koskinen Sandberg 2017, p. 170). This entails development of clear and transparent promotion and recruitment mechanism in the firm. There is dire need to keep the stock of competence informed of the current HR policies such as adoption of paternity leave policy. With the aim of developing transparency in in the organization, clear structures and hierarchy of the organization should be open and transparent so that it can facilitate trustworthy. This involves prioritizing gender issues. This involves disseminating information to the staff about promotion to the stocks of competence so that they may not feel sidelined (Barnett 2018, p. 213).

Gender policy and implementation is an area that should also be adhered. The CF organization ought to contextualize their gender policy. This involves giving clear communication on the way that should be used to implement the policies of gender. With the aim of ensuring success of the gender policy, the HR department needs to ensure that those policies are supported by all the socks of competence through participating in building the communities. It involves enlightening the staff about the importance of prioritizing gender policies and its impacts on their work so that they can be able to maintain a strong political will for equity of gender activities.  In this case, CF’s mission statement should be used to promote the gender policy activities in the firm. The policies need not only to be said theoretically but should be put into action (Bindl & Schmidt 2013, p. 274).

Recommended actions to be undertaken

One of the factors that always make a firm to be competitive is being in possession of competent stocks of competence. CF organization should consider implementing training programs on gender issues. It should involve all the managers both male and female to improve their knowledge and expertise in management skills. Henceforth, the organization ought to ensure the training is quite involving so those undergoing the training participate to the maximum. This entails the development of gender analysis tools where the staff members are equipped with the skills of using them (Adriaanse & Schofield 2014, P. 487). Furthermore, the training should be administered in a non-threatening way with the aim of eradicating the feeling of being sidelined. Senior positions should also be granted to women to after training by encouraging them to take risks. Additionally, it is further recommended for teamwork to be encouraged and emphasized in the organization by organizing more workshop on gender training and increases the capacity building necessary to help staff incorporate gender at the field (Harnois 2017, p. 154).

We further recommend that CF organization should stipulate mechanism through which I can face the challenges of culture and resistance. Devising techniques that will facilitate the creation of an environment where threat is not an issue to men due to gender sensitization and equality that entails involving both women and men in discussions concerning gender equity. Creating a working environment where the senior women in management feel comfortable being next to male managers. Traditional cultures should not be a challenge. Men need to be taught to accept women speaking in public and addressing groups. CF should consider teaching the stocks of competence the impact of culture on gender relations so that they can learn to accommodate the issue of equality. Despite the fact that the organization supports gender equality, it should also seek to address the society to move along with the organization through dismantling the traditional beliefs. One of the technic that can be used to address the issue of traditional beliefs s through encouraging the stock of competence to pay visits to their relatives in addition to developing appraisal systems that generate feedback at all levels. The firm should also offer development opportunities.

It is also recommended for CF organization to develop programs that will facilitate the collection of gender-disaggregated data through establishment of a monitoring and evaluation system with the aim of achieving the gender goals and objectives of CF organization. Further, it should be the concern of CF to develop program guidelines that help the staff to understand what is done on gender and the reasons for doing them. The best way to take in doing this is through ensuring there is cooperation between the national office and the field officers to enhance coordination, which will facilitate the filling of the gaps and links in program design, implementation and its evaluation.  With the aim of creating an organization and society, that exercises gender equity, it is necessary that the HR should ensure that the stocks of competence are equipped with virtues such as hardworking, teamwork, compassionate, workers who practice integrity, respect, accepting cultural diversity and professionalism in everything they do (Grip 2016, p. 98).

Under technical capacity recommendation, more training should be given equally to both men and women irrespective of their gender. Training and sensitization ought to be deliberate in CF organization. The political will should be supported with training and making the staff to realize that gender equity is not just a matter of empowering more women but offering equal opportunities to both sexes. 

Conclusion

Having taken a keen look at the results that were collect from the data that was obtained from the survey of the CF organization, it clearly came out that despite the fact that the company was fully supporting gender equity in the organization; a number of issues that the company was not taking into consideration. Thus, most of the stock of competence both male and female felt sidelined. The firm has a long way to go to ensure that it eradicates the issues to do with gender such as traditional cultural beliefs, which make the male to feel bad when women are given opportunity to address the masses. CF organization should stipulate mechanism through which I can face the challenges of culture and resistance.

Devising techniques that will facilitate the creation of an environment where threat is not an issue to men due to gender sensitization and equality that entails involving both women and men in discussions concerning gender equity. Creating a working environment where the senior women in management feel comfortable being next to male managers. Traditional cultures should not be a challenge. Men need to be taught to accept women speaking in public and addressing groups. CF should consider teaching the stocks of competence the impact of culture on gender relations so that they can learn to accommodate the issue of equality. Despite the fact that the organization supports gender equality, it should also seek to address the society to move along with the organization through dismantling the traditional beliefs. The report also focused on ensuring trying to develop and find the views from the stock of competence about their feelings of how the organization is handling the issue of gender equity. With the implementation of the recommendation that have been highlighted above, Comparison Fund organization will be able to achieve its aim objective in ensuring gender equity.

The money allocated must be monitored so that the comparison fund organization can be given account of how it has been used to facilitate gender activities such as training the staff members and allocation of incentives. In line with this, it is important for the staff members to be held responsible for all resources allocated for gender.

CF organization should stipulate mechanism through which it can face the challenges of culture and resistance. Devising techniques that will facilitate the creation of an environment where threat is not an issue to men due to gender sensitization and equality that entails involving both women and men in discussions concerning gender equity.

More training should be given equally to both men and women irrespective of their gender. Training and sensitization ought to be deliberate in CF organization. The political will should be supported with training and making the staff to realize that gender equity is not just a matter of empowering more women but offering equal opportunities to both sexes.

Develop programs that will facilitate the collection of gender-disaggregated data through establishment of a monitoring and evaluation system with the aim of achieving the gender goals and objectives of CF organization.

Gender equity is a term used to refer to the fair treatment of women and men in line with their respective needs and terms of rights

Traditional culture, these refers to a set of believes and practices in the social setting to which part of them undermine the empowerment of women

Human resource management refers to departments in the organization, which are set to help ensure there is smooth running of organization through control of the human capital.

List of References

Adriaanse, J. and Schofield, T. (2014) ‘The Impact of Gender Quotas on Gender Equality in Sport Governance’, Journal of Sport Management, 28(5), pp. 485–497.

Barnett, M. (2018) ‘Gender equality, norms and practices: Post-script to special issue on new actors, old donors and gender equality norms in international development cooperation’, Progress in Development Studies, 18(3), pp. 208–213. 

Bendl, R. and Schmidt, A. (2013) ‘Gender Mainstreaming: An Assessment of Its Conceptual Value for Gender Equality’, Gender, Work & Organization, 20(4), pp. 364–381. 

Collantes, V. (2018) ‘Moving towards a twin-agenda: Gender equality and land degradation neutrality’, Environmental Science & Policy, 89, pp. 247–253. 

Eräranta, K. and Kantola, J. (2016) ‘The Europeanization of Nordic Gender Equality: A Foucauldian Analysis of Reconciling Work and Family in Finland’, Gender, Work & Organization, 23(4), pp. 414–430.

Eriksson, Z. U. and Renemark, D. (2016) ‘Can Changes to Gender Equality Be Sustained?’, Gender, Work & Organization, 23(4), pp. 363–378. doi: 10.1111/gwao.12127.

Gore, T. (2014) ‘The Role of Policy Champions and Learning in Implementing Horizontal Environmental Policy Integration: Comparative Insights from European Structural Fund Programmes in the U.K’, Administrative Sciences (2076-3387), 4(3), pp. 304–330. 

Grip, L,. (2016) ‘The woman as problem and solution—analysis of a gender equality initiative within the Swedish Rescue Services’, NORA: Nordic Journal of Women’s Studies, 24(2), pp. 95–109. 

Harnois, C. (2017) ‘Intersectional Masculinities and Gendered Political Consciousness: How Do Race, Ethnicity and Sexuality Shape Men’s Awareness of Gender Inequality and Support for Gender Activism?’, Sex Roles, 77(3–4), pp. 141–154. 

Koskinen Sandberg, P. (2017) ‘Intertwining Gender Inequalities and Gender-neutral Legitimacy in Job Evaluation and Performance-related Pay’, Gender, Work & Organization, 24(2), pp. 156–170

Maume, D. J, Hewitt, B. and Ruppanner, L. (2018) ‘Gender Equality and Restless Sleep Among Partnered Europeans’, Journal of Marriage & Family, 80(4), pp. 1040–1058. 

McCarthy, L. (2017) ‘Empowering Women Through Corporate Social Responsibility: A Feminist Foucauldian Critique’, Business Ethics Quarterly, 27(4), pp. 603–631.

Nielsen, M. W. (2017) ‘Scandinavian Approaches to Gender Equality in Academia: A Comparative Study’, Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 61(3), pp. 295–318.

Voki?, N. P., ?ori?, D. S. And Obadi?, A. (2017) ‘To be or not to be a woman? - Highly educated women’s perceptions of gender equality in the workplace’, Revija za Socijalnu Politiku, 24(3), pp. 253–276.

Ylöstalo, H. (2016) ‘Organizational perspective to gender mainstreaming in the Finnish state administration’, International Feminist Journal of Politics, 18(1), pp. 544–558.