(IFAD, 2004) Gender Issues in IFAD Projects in Western and Central
Africa: A Stock-Taking Exercise IFAD’s projects and programmes seek to expand women’s access and control over fundamental assets, such as capital, land, knowledge and technologies, so as to strengthen their agency and thus their decision-making role in community affairs and their representation in local institutions, as well as improve their well-being and ease their workload by facilitating their access to basic rural services and infrastructures. IFAD’s action is guided by the principle that development initiatives should incorporate the priorities and needs of both men and women and offer them equal opportunities of access to benefits and services. In this way, IFAD seeks to address the structural inequalities that prevent women from realizing their potential as human beings, producers and agents of change in the fight against poverty. In order to determine the extent to which the projects and programmes in the Western and Central Africa region (PA) were fulfilling the overall IFAD goal described above, a stock-taking exercise was undertaken by IFAD’s Office of Evaluation (OE) on the lessons learned during the past ten years with regard to gender issues in PA projects and programmes. The overall objective was to identify lessons learned so that PA could enhance its operations and have more impact in terms of the reduction of rural poverty among both women and men. The report highlights the fact that the projects implemented in the PA region during the past ten years, as revealed in the evaluations carried out by OE, have made a number of advances in terms of gender equity. Their most important contribution has been to improve women’s economic status and, consequently, women’s level of income and well-being. With this has come a growing feeling of self-esteem and empowerment among women vis-à-vis their families and communities. A number of innovative approaches in the endeavour to increase women’s access to knowledge have been developed, as well as efforts to diversify women’s activities in non-traditional spheres and thus influence a movement towards change in the traditional roles of women. The report also offers a series of lessons learned. Regarding design, the review repeatedly highlights that it is essential to undertake a proper gender needs assessment and that a comprehensive gender strategy must form part of the project design. This gender strategy must ensure women’s participation in project-related decision-making roles, set and monitor targets and address staffing issues within the project itself. Other lessons learned include: Rural financial services: the provision of
rural financial services needs to become part of a ‘package’
that includes capacity-building, and it must be based on a prior understanding
of women’s needs and demands. |
 |
 |
 |