Background
With the aim of promoting “Gender Equality and
Women’s Empowerment” GIZ Nepal moved forward
with a strong belief that change begins at home.
Accordingly, immediately after the establishment
of the Gender Quality Circle (GQC), it focused on
gender equality and women’s empowerment within
the organization. Early experiences have provided
a strong foundation for GQC to mainstream gender
in sector-focused programmes despite the complexities.
Below are glimpses of the achievements
of GQC Nepal in terms of “Gender Equality and
Women’s Empowerment”.
“I used to feel awkward when my husband
tried to help me in the kitchen. I thought this
was a woman’s job only. However, since the
GIZ Training on Gender Sensitization, I take
his help willingly and sometimes even remind
him to give me a hand. I have also realized
that I can be active in the public sphere too. I
started exploring my opportunities outside the
house and realized how much I have missed
in my life.”
– Manamaya Dongol, Spouse of a support staff
After her successful participation in the GIZ gender
sensitization training, Manamaya draws her
personal conclusions about the changes in her
family life. Manamaya and her husband Pradhuman
are among the 52 participants who had the
opportunity to reflect on their own behaviour that is
influenced by gender based discrimination deeply
rooted in the society. A one day sensitization training
was organized in 2011 by GQC Nepal for support
staff and their spouses with the objective of
guiding them on gender based discrimination issues
and coping mechanisms.
With 125 ethnic groups speaking over 123 languages,
population dynamics in Nepal are as diverse as
its geography. Hence, promoting Gender Equality
and Women’s Empowerment has been a formidable
challenge as one needs to understand the issue
from a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic perspectivecoupled
with religious philosophies and a patriarchal
system. In such socio-cultural context, certain
groups, women in particular, have always been
marginalized in mainstream development efforts
and benefits. Taking this situation into consideration,
GIZ Nepal has put tremendous efforts to promote
gender equality and women’s empowerment
in its programmes and projects. The GQC Nepal
was formed according to the GIZ Guidelines to ensure
that such efforts are efficient and effective.
GQC Nepal believes in the principle that: “without
addressing caste and gender based discriminations,
the goals of development cannot
be achieved”. GQC members are from the programmes
implemented by GIZ Nepal and the gender
focal person at the country office plays the role
of the coordinator.
The regular meeting of GQC (mostly once in two
months) have emerged as a powerful platform for
innovative ideas on gender equality and women’s
empowerment in programme activities both internally
– within the organization and its programmes,
and externally. For the success of this endeavour,
the GQC Nepal actively supports individual programmes
to internalize gender equality and women’s
empowerment among team members and to
mainstream gender issues in programme activities.
The major activities of GQC includes organizing
orientation on GIZ Gender Strategy to programmes
and projects, stocking of existing policies and strategies
related to gender in various sectors and
conducting gender analysis and gender baseline
studies. The GQC support is not limited to just developing
plans for mainstreaming gender in the
programme activities. It also extends to implementation,
monitoring and evaluation. Moreover, GQC
members use this platform to share the on-going
activities in their respective programmes not only to
share the achievement but also to receive feedback
and support each other in devising ways forward.
The Major Achievements of GQC
1. Sexual Harassment Policy
GIZ Nepal is one of the pioneer countries to introduce
a policy against sexual harassment at the workplace.
The policy has been in place at GIZ Nepal
since 2005 to ensure a harassment-free work environment.
A session on the policy has been an integral
part of the orientation course organized annually
for newly recruited GIZ national personnel. During
the course, the participants are thoroughly oriented
on the issues of sexual harassment and on reporting
mechanisms, in case of occurrences. The GQC Coordinator
fills the function of ombudsperson.
Further, a survey on sexual harassment at the workplace
in GIZ Nepal was conducted in 2014 with
twin objectives: a) to assess the current situation of
sexual harassment at the workplace in GIZ Nepal, if
any; and b) to identify measures that would improve
the workplace environment at GIZ. The results of the
survey ensured the existence of a harassment free
work environment within GIZ Nepal.
“It was encouraging to know that GIZ Nepal
had already put in place a sexual harassment
policy which was discussed during the Gender
Focal Point Meeting in Eschborn in 2012.”
– Scherazade Siganporia, GIZ India
The survey and its results have been an exemplary
process in ensuring a sexual harassment free workplace.
While GIZ offices around the world have commended
the effort, the survey has also served as
an example for the Government of Nepal and nongovernmental
organizations in the country to ensure
the enforcement of the Sexual Harassment at Workplace
(elimination) Act promulgated earlier this year.
2. Human Resource Policy
While recruiting new personnel, GIZ Nepal encourages
women (and deprived) candidates to apply by
explicitly stating it in the vacancy announcements.
GQC has been closely coordinating with the Human
Resource Unit to ensure that this is observed
in the entire recruitment process. Despite the existence
of such policy, fewer women candidates are
available in the job market. To address such situation,
GIZ Nepal provides internship opportunities
for members of marginalized groups, particularly
women, to learn, grow, and become competitive in
the job market. Candidates from 18 to 30 years with
an intermediate degree from an accredited university
are encouraged to apply for a six month paid
internship at GIZ Nepal. Further, the programmes/
projects with a team of more than five professional
staff are obliged to hire at least two interns per year.
Following the policy, 76% out of 80 interns recruited
in past five years for different GIZ-supported programmes
are female.
“I have been able to handle my duties and
responsibilities efficiently with confidence in a
multicultural environment. I owe my documentation
skills, for which I am often commended,
to the time spent with GIZ Nepal. These skills
have enabled me to get a job in an NGO”
– Sumita Rai, former Intern
The positive discrimination towards recruitment of
female staff within the organization is substantiated
by the size of the female workforce within GIZ Nepal.
Looking at the records of the national personnel
for the past six years, the ratio of female staff to
total national staff has remained approximately one
fourth. Out of the total number of female staff, more
are clustered in Band 2 and Band 3 outnumbering
male staff in the same category. The number of female
staff in Band 4 has remained one third of total
staff in the same band. However, in 2015 there has
been progress as the female staff in Band 5 has
reached 50%. The GQC is closely working with the
HR unit to ensure gender balance in the GIZ Nepal
national personnel.
3. Orientation and Training on Gender Issues
To ensure a common understanding on gender issues
within GIZ Nepal, GQC Nepal has been periodically
organizing orientation programmes on
gender issues. One of the most frequent topics for
the orientation programme has been the GIZ Gender
Strategy (2010) and its six strategic elements.It
is an integral part of the orientation programme for
every newly recruited staff. The other frequent topic
for orientation has been devising gender mainstreaming
on different programme/project activities
particularly in the initial phase of the programmes.
In order to enable a non-Nepali to understand the
cultural dimension of social inclusion in Nepal, an
orientation programme was organized for international
staff of GIZ Nepal. The orientation programme
was aimed at increasing the understanding
and awareness concerning caste hierarchy,
ethnicity, gender and negative stereotypes and
prejudices about marginalized groups in Nepal.
“The event gave shape to the understanding
of the cultural roots and impacts of exclusion.
Moreover, the Human Development Index
data made the exclusion of disadvantaged
groups even more measurable and conclusive.
Interesting to note, that gender inequality
is even more distinct in the context of culturally
disadvantaged groups. The situation calls
for a removal of barriers to improve the access
of the disadvantaged to development opportunities.
However, the long history and complexity
of the mechanisms of exclusion makes it
difficult to formulate a conflict
sensitive inclusion policy‟.
-Dr. Rolf Posorski, former Chief Technical
Adviser
GQC has been supporting its members to get updated
oninternational trends and development on
the issue of gender not only through discussions
in regular meetings but also by coordinating participation
in international workshop and meets. In
addition to its staff members, GQC members have
been active in organizing Gender related training
for its partners.
4. Concept Notes and Gender Focused Documents
For a common understanding on gender related issues,
GQC has also been instrumental in developing
concept notes on various issues. Recently, it
has developed a draft concept note to streamline
the efforts and initiatives of GIZ Nepal to achieve
Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) in
its development efforts. The GESI concept paper
has two specific purposes 1) to create a common
understanding of the two mostly used terminologies
“Gender Equality” and “Social Inclusion”, and
2) to provide the programmes with a common
framework to reflect and report their GESI related
activities.With these common understanding, it is
expected that the programme will conduct more
cohesive activities towards addressing the issues.
Earlier, the concept notes were also developed on
various other issues including GQC: its formation,
roles and responsibilities and Sexual Harassment
Policy. GQC has also provided support to individual
programmes in preparing gender related documents
on the programmes including policy paper,
guidelines and studies.
5. National Conference
Leading ministries personnel and other public and
private institutions, experts and journalists actively
participated in the National Conference. The Conference
focused on sharing the current situation in
the country and deciding on future activities for identifying
the role that men could play in promoting gender
equality in the country. The Conference was one
of the activities conducted with the available special
fund for gender focused activities in 2011.
“The nature of the household governance and
family represents the nature of the national
governance. The government is ready and
committed to engage men for gender equality”.
– Mr.Yubraj Bhushal, Former Secretary, Ministry
of Forest and Soil conservation
Conclusion
The above achievements of the GQC have demonstrated
how an inclusive environment can be created
within an organization and how it can reflect
in its activities. The active participation of GQC
members in promoting Gender Equality and Women’s
Empowerment within the organization has enhanced
both their capacity and their confidence in
mainstreaming gender equality and women’s empowerment
in programme activities. This is clearly
demonstrated through the quality of the work of GIZ
Nepal that ensures sustainability of its endeavours.
The regular exchange of knowledge and experiences
withinthe GQC has been helpful to myself
personally and to my programme.
– Mr. Ujjwal Karmacharya, Senior Programme
Officer/ Gender Focal Point, Health Sector Support
Programme
As many others in Nepal, Manamaya, who participated
in the Gender Sensitization Training is now
sharing with the new generation a mechanism to
develop a deeper self-esteem that she has learnt
from the GQC. “The GIZ training should have
been provided a long time ago, I am almost old
now and I learnt such valuable things only recently.
I think that it’s not only me, but the whole
society who benefits from such changes towards
an inclusive and equal community.”
Even if that sometimes means to change one’s
habits as her husband Pradhumna can tell:
“My wife now asks me to help her with washing
clothes which I personally hate to do. But I help
her anyways.”
Texts:
Ms. Milu Shree Shakya (Maskey),
Senior Programme Officer, GIZ Office
(GQC Coordinator)
Dr. Sanjay Gorkhali,
Senior Programme Officer, Nepal Energy
Efficiency Programme (GQC Member)