Population Reference Bureau (PRB) and Interagency Gender Working Group (IGWG)

"Sychronizing Gender Strategies" is a concept paper about gender integration approaches to sexual and reproductive health programmes and policies developed by the RESPOND project at EngenderHealth and the BRIDGE Project at the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) in consultation with the Interagency Gender Working Group (IGWG of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). A day-long conference was held in September 2009 that brought together development and gender experts to map out where the field of gender equity should go with regards to programmes on sexual and reproductive health. With input from practitioners, the authors’ intent is to move gender transformation towards "gender synchronization"- working with men and women, boys and girls, in an intentional and mutually reinforcing way that challenges gender norms, catalyses the achievement of gender equality, and improves health.

The document raises the following question: “Can gender inequities and norms that harm health be best addressed by working with men and women in a coordinated or synchronized way?” and attempts to answer that question by:
• Assessing the benefits and constraints of health interventions that work with women or men alone;
• Illustrating what synchronised programmes that coordinate work with both women and men look like;
• Describing the value added by addressing men and women jointly in programmes and policies to improve health and challenge gender inequities;
• Highlighting practical guidelines on what synchronised interventions should and should not do.

The concept paper includes case studies of organisations from Peru, Ethiopia, South Africa, Senegal, Brazil, and India to illustrate three types of programmes as well as other organisations currently doing innovative work in this field:
• Programmes that start with addressing the needs and vulnerabilities of women and girls, and then identify constructive ways to engage men in these efforts;
• Programmes that start with men and boys to deconstruct harmful gender norms, and then expand this work to engage both sexes; and
• Programmes designed to engage both sexes from their inception.

The study suggests that gender synchronised programmes view all actors in society in relation to each other and seek to identify or create shared values among women and men, within the range of roles they play (i.e., mothers-in-law, fathers, wives, brothers, caregivers, and so on) - values that promote human rights, mutual support for health, non-violence, equality, and gender justice. The document contains a list of lessons learned and possible next steps for advancing this work. Examples of how gender-synchronisation may improve development and health outcomes include:

• A programme creating single-sex schools with female teachers and awareness among girls about alternatives to marriage and domestic life benefitted from the role of fathers in supporting and facilitating girls´ school enrolment. If men are not involved, they might undermine the efforts to educate girls, and the opportunity to turn these fathers into champions for girls´ education could be missed.

• A programme on HIV testing that reaches out to men for testing services while ignoring their female partners could reach more men successfully by working with through their female partners in prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) programmes that could promote knowledge and dialogue between sexual partners about the need for testing, avoiding blame, management of serodiscordancy, and treatment.

• An intervention for women combining a microfinance programme with participatory training on understanding HIV infection, gender norms, domestic violence, and sexuality and treatment improved its results by electing and training female leaders to engage men to address male norms related to gender and HIV, holding events with village chiefs, police, schools, and soccer clubs.

• A project on safe spaces for girls engaged boys and men who live in the same vicinity and who are most “problematic” to the project’s girl participants. Engagement through meetings to address violence issues, HIV, and reproductive health of older males who act in sexually predatory ways toward younger girls, clusters of men in specific public locations who create risks and often confine girls’ movements, male employers of girls, and the girls' brothers, etc. helped preserve the empowerment girls are experiencing through their workshops.

This product was developed by the RESPOND Project at EngenderHealth and the BRIDGE Project, at the Population Reference Bureau (PRB), in consultation with the Interagency Gender Working Group (IGWG) of USAID.

Email from The RESPOND Project at Engender Health to The Communication Initiative on January 19 2011.