Let’s Talk about Gender: RinGs attends the Interagency Gender Working Group (IGWG) Plenary Meeting

On Wednesday 29 October 2014 RinGs attended the Interagency Gender Working Group (IGWG) Plenary Meeting in Washington, D.C. The IGWG is a network comprising nongovernmental organizations, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), cooperating agencies, and the Bureau for Global Health of USAID, which promotes gender equity within population, health, and nutrition programs worldwide. The event was attended by approximately 50-60 people engaged and excited to talk about gender!

As is common with most events about gender, the gender-balance was disproportionately skewed towards women, highlighting the challenges in getting men interested in and working on gender-related issues. While this might be the case, it does not, however, take away from the important, interesting, and necessary projects discussed during the meeting. It also did not inhibit the men from speaking up. President and CEO of Population Reference Bureau, Jeffrey Jordan, took himself and PRB to task for not addressing gender mainstreaming in the work place more directly based on analysis presented at the meeting about the aid sector in general. Many informal conversations were sparked and insights shared in the cosy atmosphere of the International Student Association meeting hall.

Jennifer Adams, USAID’s Deputy Assistant Administrator in the Bureau for Global Health, started off the meeting providing an introduction of the IGWG and reflecting on the beginnings of the IGWG in the 1990s, when there was less support for work on gender. This was followed by three keynote addresses from Kate Gilles, Policy Analyst at Population Reference Bureau, who discussed how gender is and can be mainstreamed within international development organizations (a report on this will be published soon titled Pursing Gender Equality Inside and Out: Gender Mainstreaming in International Development Organizations); Mary Ellen Stanton, Senior Maternal Health Advisor at USAID, who presented on the progress made in documenting and preventing disrespect and abuse of women during childbirth;  and Shelah Bloom, Senior Gender Advisor at UNC/Measure Evaluation and Kirsten Wares, Strategic Information Advisor at USAID, who discussed a gender-based violence (GBV) referral system currently being implemented in Botswana, and how the referral system can be used in relation to GBV prevention and response efforts.

Eight additional gender projects were then showcased through five-minute presentations, an innovative way to disseminate information which provided the audience with a short introduction to the diverse range of gender projects currently being implemented. The eight presentations provided only a snapshot, however, as 25 projects were submitted for this activity but only eight were selected!

The eight gender projects presented included:

• Peace Corps‘ Youth Empowerment Camp GLOW (Girls Leading our World), presented by Meghan Donohue and Kathryn Bacon Goldman;
• FHI360’s project mapping safe spaces within schools in the Democratic Republic of Congo, presented Andrea Bertone;
• Greeneworks project looking at the role of men and boys in child marriage, presented by Margaret Greene;
• The US Department for Health and Human Services’ commitment to ending gender-based violence against the elderly, presented by Cailin Crockett;
• ACDI/VOCA’s project looking at livestock, gender, and resilience in Kenya, presented by Lydia Mbevi-Nderitu;
• RAISE Health Initiative’s focus on workplace health policies and women, presented by David Wofford;
• Health Policy Project’s tool for measuring gender sensitivity of health facilities in Afghanistan, presented by Laili Irani; and,
• Jhiepgo’s toolkit for gender analysis data collection currently being developed, presented by Myra Betron.

We were delighted to see the different activities being carried out in relation to gender and health and look forward to hearing more about some of the outputs from these projects.  We were also happy to see that some of these projects, while predominately being implemented by women, were focused on both men and women, or the role of men in gender-related issues.  Moreover, issues across the life span were addressed (from child marriage in India to elderly abuse worldwide); multi-sectoral determinants of gender equality were examined (safe spaces in schools in DRC) and challenged (by transforming gender inequalities in livestock markets and trade networks) and interventions ranged from working at the interpersonal level (through GLOW empowerment youth camps) to the macro-level (improving the inclusion of gender and health criteria into fair trade certification processes).  The breadth of initiatives was impressive and the enthusiasm with which they were shared and discussed highly motivating.

While some of the projects discussed during the meeting focused on a specific intervention, it was also great to see others highlighting innovated tools and approaches which can be used to increase gender analysis within global health more broadly (JHPIEGO). This, itself, is an important goal of RinGs, which seeks to galvanise gender analysis within health systems research by synthesizing the evidence base, stimulating new research, and encourage mutual learning. We hope that our own work over the coming two years adds to the excellent work that the IGWG is doing.

To find out more about RinGs visit our website.