THE UNIVERSITY OF DAR ES SALAAM

DS 112 SEMINAR PRESENTATION REPORT

SEMINAR LEADER: DR PETER SEMIONO

SEMINAR VENUE:
SEMINAR TIME: 1200HRS – 1300HRS, MONDAY

GROUP MEMBERS:

S/N NAMES REGISTRATION NUMBER

1 IVAN WULYSTAN MTEGA 2021-04-08197
2 WILLIAM MAKARIUS MDEMU 2021-04-06719
3 ISACK PAULINE MBASSA 2021-04-06415
4 DANIEL WINSOME MAWALLA 2021-04-06315
5 GASTON S MAXMILIAN 2021-04-06327

QUESTION: Explain the necessity of mainstreaming gender in development policies and plans
and discuss necessary pre-requisites for implementing successful gender policies and actions at
national or institutional level.
Background of gender mainstreaming

Gender mainstreaming concept have undergone different stages of development and

conceptualization. In order to understand where the topic of gender mainstreaming came from,
three themes should be discussed.

i. Women in development (WID)

WID took place in 1970s and 1980s, it had ideas of American liberal feminists and
immersed in ending discrimination against women for economic emancipation. This was
because the experience was that women were never considered in development activities
and processes.

ii. Women and development (WAD)

WAD combined Marxist and feminist perspectives, it is one of the neo-Marxist female
approaches. It came to defend that woman are the part and parcel of development since
WID excluded women in development.

iii. Gender and development (GAD)

GAD took place in 1980s, it is one of the roots of socialist feminisms. It is honest in
analyzing gender scenarios. It doesn’t restrict its scope to women’s problems but also ask
critical questions about female roles.
According to Rathgeber (1990) “GAD is not concerned with women per se but with
social construction of gender and the assignment of specific roles, responsibilities and
expectation to women and men”
WID and WAD focused only about women and did not took gender roles into
consideration, GAD opened the door for gender mainstreaming to come into existence.
Meaning of gender mainstreaming

According to Hendrick, 2007, Gender mainstreaming is the process of assessing the implication
for women and men of any planned action including legislation, policies or programs in all areas
and levels. The goal of gender mainstreaming is to achieve equality. It is the way to make gender
equality a concrete reality in the lives of men and women.

The following are the necessities of mainstreaming gender in development policies and plans.

According to Monjane (2015), helps to understand the needs of both men and women in
development. According to Collins English dictionary, needs are necessities or obligation created
by some situation. The needs are different for the two genders as they take part in development
process to attain the desired goals, for example girls who do not have access to pads miss three
or four classes each month which adds to about 40 days in a year, thus they are prevented from
being equal to men because of their unfulfilled need.

It leads to efficiency governance. According to Volker, 2012 governance is the production of

political and social intervention either by deliberate political decision. This is where by when
there are equal chances for both men and women in the government positions leads to the
provision of both men and women needs, other than considering only one gender, which favors
only specific needs to a particular gender. For example, in Tanzania the government has
allocated special seats for women in the parliament. In the statistics of Tanzania shows that in
2010 percentage for women was 30.65% and in 2021 percentage for women was 36.86%. This
shows a gradual increase of women in the Government position.

Enhance participation process, according to Reed (2008) participation is the process were public
or stakeholders or organization are involved in making decision that affects them. Mainstreaming
gender leads to equal participation of both men and women in various political, social and
economic activities, such that through this it leads to the increase of income and living standards
as well as development of the community in general. Example, in an article written by Susanna
2014 she gave an example, one woman Manuela is serving as an advocate for other victims in
her community, she explains, Manuela never leaves or speaks in public, today is able to speak up
in the community and help to improve the situation of families and women impacted by violence,
thus shows that Manuela is a powerful reminder that women have a critical voice and play a
crucial role in post conflict societies.

It makes gender equality issue more visible, according to the article of Human Rights Careers
(2015), gender equality is means that all genders are free to pursue whatever career, lifestyle
choice, and abilities they want without discrimination.  By mainstreaming gender in
development policy, we determine and give out the strategy that led to gender equality. For
example, most of girls at school are not much interested in football compared to boys, hence
during school sports at national level both football and netball are conducted so as both genders t
feels the concerns are consider by the nations hence equality is enhanced.

The following are the prerequisites for implementing successful gender policies and action at
national or institution level.

Practical coordination of all gender mainstreaming initiatives, according to Food and Agriculture
Organization of United Nations, FAO (2019) coordination is the harmonization of a range of
intervention tailored to the need of the most vulnerable groups contributing to the increase the
relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability and impact of these interventions. Gender
initiatives include United Nation and GAM.

A clear gender policy. According to World Health organization, Gender policy is a strategy for
making women’s as well as men’s concerns and experience an integral dimensional in the
design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programs in all political,
economic and social spheres such that inequality between men and women is not perpetuated. In
order to attain a successful gender mainstream, clear gender policy should be formulated such
that the policy emphasize and regulates the organization to consider the concerns of both men
and women in implementation of plans and project. For example, Tanzania we have several
policies statements that have somehow helped and continue helping the achievement of gender
mainstreaming. According to National strategy for gender development, women be empowered
so as to enable them to participate fully and equally with men in decision making at different
levels. Another, policy involve Equal access to education be enhanced and ensure for boys and
girls, women and men. Such policy help in achieving excellence in mainstream gender.

Resource mobilization, this means better use of and maximizing existing resources. Example of
resources are human labor, land and loans and financial institution. When resources are
mobilized in such a way that both men and women are accounted, it leads to mainstreaming
gender. For example, the report provided by Global Fund for women in 2008 entitled “Resource
mobilization for women’s right organization and movement in middle east and north Africa”
whose objective was to analyze funding situation for women’s right and deepen critical analysis
for geopolitical and resource mobilization challenges that women’s group face. All these
objectives aimed to increase resource mobilization for women.

Proper research involving monitoring, evaluation and report. When there is proper research that
discovers the inequalities of both gender in a certain program or field will eventually lead to
gender mainstreaming. Proper research involves, Evaluation of gender programs and policies
which helps to discover the inequalities in them. For example, before implementation of any
policy in government or institution level. Proper evaluation is done to ensure the policy are fair
to both gender and if unfair that calls for mainstreaming to make the policy fair. Also, there
should be monitoring of the effective policies and plans that are already implemented. And
report for the inequalities so that they are mainstreamed. Example Reducing of the university
cut-off points for women was gender mainstreaming policy that was implemented in Tanzania
after researching and just to discover that most women do not reach university because of cut-off
point. Thus, research leaded to gender mainstreaming. Another example is increase in special
seats for women in the parliament.
All in all, Gender mainstream has become a focal point of the development project by
government and non-government agencies. Since it helps to develop a strategy which allow the
increase of women’s and men’s participation in and benefit from development components.
Monjane (2015), In his article he said that the goal of gender mainstreaming is to ensure that
both men and women have equal opportunities and benefits from the energy and extractive sector
in order to participate in the community as well as a country development process. In an article
of United Nations (2002), it proclaims that a clear lesson from experience over the past decade is
that gender mainstreaming cannot be achieved without explicit institutional commitment to the
strategy and systematic effort to implement it, thus it requires the identification of gender
perspectives in all sectors. In order to make gender mainstreaming more efficiency we should
consider undertake gender analysis to identify gender specific gap in the stakeholder community,
monitoring programs implementation with the focus on a participation and empowerment of
women and men and Encourage participation by community by both men and women in
pyritizing, criticizing needs and gap.

REFERENCES

Akin, H. (2017). FATA and the Frontier crimes regulation in Pakistan: The enduring legacy of
British colonialism (Issue Brief). Retrieved May 21, 2019.

Amnesty International. (1999). Honour killings of girls and women in Pakistan. Retrieved May
21, 2019.

Monjane, G. (2015). Gender mainstreaming in the extractive and energy sector in Mozambique.

FAO (2019). Practical coordination Booklet for Resilience Building.

Marrakesh (2008). Resource mobilization for women’s right organization movement in the
Middle East and North Africa.