Working with credible partners and local change agents

Sustainable change is ‘led from the inside’. This means working with, and respecting, existing leadership structures and finding common ground programming. It may also involve negotiating with local structures to ensure women’s active participation as change agents. Achieving ‘buy-in’ to change behaviours is essential, whether projects are working with government, business, churches, households or communities. Local commitment is needed to advance change and

to mitigate against any harm for women or girls who participate in program activities.

Projects can work effectively with credible partners and local change agents by:

a. Selecting implementing partners with common interests, local knowledge, experience and credibility. Engagement of community leaders and local government officers is effective due to their existing status within their communities. There are also tangible benefits for these leaders to participate, including gaining new knowledge and skills that they can use in their existing Supporting leaders in personal journeys of change to becoming advocates of gender equality also influences how they act as village magistrates, ward councillors and religious or youth leaders, beyond specific project objectives.

b. Providing opportunities for new change agents to emerge with further training and experience as advocates and volunteers. Local facilitators often gain credibility and more status within their communities as a result of the skills, knowledge, employment and exposure they receive from being involved in projects. Local facilitators are also able to engage at a pace and at times that suit their communities and respond to issues or needs as they arise in communities. The financial and opportunity costs of involvement in projects must be understood and factored in.

c. Using peer and role model These are effective in oral cultures where women and men learn more effectively by seeing, doing and exchanging views, rather than writing or reading.

d. Aligning change agents’ personal values with project This is important in challenging gender norms. Regular training, reflection and monitoring of local change agents’ understanding of gender concepts and issues is essential to mitigate risks of unintended harms or undermining gender transformative objectives.

e. Starting with companies and government departments that are receptive to change. This includes taking time to build relationships with a transparent agenda of gender transformation with those that could have an influential impact. Acknowledging the existing expertise and needs of companies and government departments can support a collaborative approach to developing materials, policies and practices to promote gender equality

Changes led by people or leaders who are invested, from within government departments, organisations or communities, are more likely to result in transformative change.

 

Bougainville’s Women Human Rights Defenders

The International Women’s Development Agency (IWDA) through its partnership with the Nazareth Centre for Rehabilitation takes a multi-track approach to preventing and responding to family and sexual violence in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville.

For five years between 2015 and 2021, the Nazareth Centre nurtured a network of 2,409 Women Human Rights Defenders and 938 male advocates.

Through skills training, regional and Bougainville-wide learning and networking forums, the centre trains Women Human Rights Defenders as educators, advocates and activists on gender equality, peace building, human rights, and zero tolerance to family and sexual violence.

Over the five years, the centre also trained 236 Women Human Rights Defenders and 102 male advocates, other church leaders and retired teachers as counsellors. These community-based counsellors are substantially increasing the availability and quality of counselling assistance to women, girls, men and boys.

The project encourages male advocates to support the work of, and be accountable to, the Women Human Rights Defenders, rather than working separately.

Focusing on shared benefit with the private sector

CARE worked with local coffee exporting companies to address women coffee farmers’ lack of access to training and technical services. CARE and the companies worked together to identify key barriers, along with solutions. These included: increasing the number of women extension officers through an agricultural graduate program; upskilling male extension officers’ understanding of gender equality; and upgrading training and technical services in a way that encouraged and was safe for women to participate.

CARE worked with local companies to address organisational barriers, including through policy reforms, such as field risk assessments,

pay structures to ensure women employees have the same opportunities and benefits as

men, and actions to ensure that all extension officers were safer. CARE also made the process of specialty market accreditation attractive to local coffee industry exporters. This increased companies’ earnings, while embedding support for gender equality into their supply chains.

Extension staff now incorporate gender empowerment and equity in their work with farming families. They speak with confidence to women and men farmers about best practices for coffee farming and about the value of working as family groups.

Collaboration with the government and the coffee industry increased the percentage of women attending extension service training from 5% in 2014 to 30% by 2019. This had important implications for farmers’ social and economic wellbeing, with research finding that women who participated in extension training produced incomes 22% higher than households in which women did not receive training.