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IV. Key Issues and Questions within the Project Cycle
3. PROJECT DESIGN
As
an overall frame the design of any natural resource management project
includes at least the following design phases
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Establishing a multi-stakeholder design team
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Identifying the type of project needed with due respect to issues
specific for a given indigenous group or community
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Defining overall objectives to be met by project
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Defining activities to be carried out
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Defining methodologies and indicators for monitoring and evaluation
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Elaborating a budget
During all five stages, a gender approach should be applied in order to
ensure that both men and women fully participate and benefit from the
project.
However, it is important that the indigenous community/group leadership
and the group/community as a whole do not feel that they are being
subject to external pressure or that their customs and values are not
being respected, thus creating resistance and opposition to the project
intervention.
In some cases it may be necessary to take into consideration that the
indigenous community needs to get accustomed to letting women voice
their meaning freely and openly, have a direct say in decision making
and participate in project activities on equal terms with men. The
project design will in those cases be done without the direct
participation of women. However, specific project activities for women
should be identified and the longer- term objective for any intervention
should always be to achieve a situation where women and men participate
equally at all levels and benefit equally in a material and non-material
sense.
Therefore, important tasks at the beginning of the project cycle will be
to identify gender constraints and set up gender entry strategies.
During the project cycle itself there should be a constant monitoring of
progress made towards gender sensitive targets, of the new constraints
met, of the need for new entry strategies and for new interventions in
order to further the mainstreaming of gender concerns within the
project.
At the end of the project cycle, a gender specific participatory
assessment or audit should be made in order to evaluate what the
benefits have been for both women and men and how equally balanced these
benefits are.
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BOX 8. Women
and hunting
When women’s knowledge about natural resources is not
considered, much valuable information is lost. Only after
consulting with women, was a technical team at Jaú National
Park, in Brazil, able to determine which species and quantities
of animals were being hunted by men in the region. The women,
who were in charge of the preparation and distribution of food,
possessed valuable information regarding: consumption patterns,
varieties of meat, and the frequency and seasonality of hunting
activities. Management of protected areas will only be effective
if local women and men are involved with them. Gender equity
should be viewed as a cornerstone to achieving conservation and
sustainable development.
Source: Lorena Aguilar, IUCN: Gender Makes the Difference.
Gender and Environment Publications, 2005,
www.genderandenvironment.org |
A. The composition of design team
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The
design of projects should be done in close collaboration with the
community (bottom-up) and with the active involvement of both men and
women from the very beginning of the project intervention. It is
essential that the design team respect the following ground rules all
the way through the design process:
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Always build activities on the existing indigenous culture,
traditional knowledge, cultural practices and ways of living.
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Be sensitive and closely guided by the reality met, i.e. “ask
them – listen to them – involve them” (meaning both women and
men).
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Respect the right of indigenous peoples (men and women) to free,
prior and informed consent.
The
design team must therefore always include male and female team members
as well as male and female indigenous representatives if at all
possible. Furthermore, it is essential during the design process to
provide constant feed- back to and conduct ongoing consultations with
both men and women from the indigenous groups or community.
Specific considerations
The
process of changing cultural patterns may take time and ongoing
consultations; different entry strategies and approaches might be
needed. But it is important not to rush things as this will create
frustrations and may backlash on the external agent or the women
themselves.
Involving women in project design may not always be easy due to
customary practices and cultural constraints. It is important to keep in
mind that patriarchal social patterns exist in many indigenous and
non-indigenous cultures. Respecting an indigenous culture is not the
same as respecting patriarchal customary practices and thus gender and
age discrimination. However, in order to avoid gender and generation
conflicts as much as possible and to achieve positive results in gender
and age discriminatory cultural patterns, entry strategies are needed,
and they will vary according to the different situations and the
specific reality met. A few examples can be found below:
Legal and/or donor requirements about equal participation of both men
and women provide a good starting point as it gives women a platform for
gaining visibility if they are taken seriously by all parties involved.
Natural resource management projects will in some cases target a mixed
group or community where the indigenous population is being marginalised
and dominated by non-indigenous community members. In such cases, some
of the above mentioned entry strategies might be used in order to ensure
the participation of the indigenous women and men on equal terms with
the non-indigenous population.
B. Type of project
Working with indigenous women and men entails knowing and understanding
their culture, their present situation and their background experiences.
Indigenous communities may also be more or less used to dealing with
NGOs, with governmental structures, with Western perceptions of reality
and with donor requirements. Furthermore, indigenous customary norms and
practices may not necessarily be sustainable and thus be subject to
changes. To overcome the difficulties of these different situations,
projects can be designed in order to achieve the best result:
As a seed project
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Seed projects may be a good way to initiate a long
term project collaboration with an indigenous group or community as
it gives an opportunity to examine and if necessary adapt indigenous
community dynamics as well as the dynamics between the community and
the external agent prior to ‘the real’ project. Seed projects are
normally simple in terms of activities, short in terms of time and
cheap in an economic sense. Several seed projects can be initiated
at the same time with different target groups within the indigenous
groups or community.
For instance firewood
saving stoves for food preparation in connection with a forest
management initiative, or water filters for clean drinking water in
relation to a fresh water management activity.
Combining long-term
objectives with short term needs
- Natural resource
management projects are normally long-term processes, and results as
well as benefits will often show after several years of
implementation. This goes for legal and empowering aspects e.g. land
titling, gender training, equal relationship to resources, etc. as
well as for the more technical ones e.g. aforestation, deforestation
and reforestation, agro-forestry, etc.
- However,
indigenous communities also have urgent needs in terms of food
security, clean water, health care, school education for their
children, etc., which – if not met - often will make it difficult
for them to be actively involved and motivated for working with long
term processes.
- Therefore it is
important that these needs be addressed either directly by the
NGO/Donor in combination with natural resource management
activities, or indirectly by facilitating contacts to specialised
agencies that can provide these services.
Including a
psycho-social approach in specific cases
- Many indigenous
communities have been deeply traumatized by racial discrimination
and social disruption as the result of relocation, armed or
political conflicts, severe natural disasters, etc. These events
have impacted differently on men and women, but in order to
collaborate and participate actively in a project, the traumas must
be dealt with through training in conflict resolution, group
counselling, teamwork dynamics, etc
- In the cases of
mixed indigenous – non-indigenous communities such an approach will
also be necessary in order to help solve the many intra-group
conflicts.
C. Defining objectives
In
the process of defining objectives for a natural resource management
project involving indigenous peoples and based on a gender approach, it
is crucial to maintain an overview of and consider the interrelation
between the three thematic issues. Furthermore to assess on an ongoing
basis if the defined project objectives are adequate for solving the
identified problems or constraints for the natural resources as well as
for indigenous men and women. Thus, the defined objectives should take
the following considerations into account:
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Address local natural resource management needs and interests as
identified by indigenous men and women during the consultations
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Needs may be e.g. drinking water, irrigation,
plague eradication, increased fish stock, more firewood etc.
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Interests may be e.g. land rights, access to
resources, access to markets, territorial control mechanisms
etc.
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Integrate
traditional knowledge and practices of indigenous men and women in
so far as they are environmentally sustainable
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Provide possibility for
testing/assessing/understanding traditional natural resource
management practices before introducing new modern techniques.
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Adapt rather than doing away with traditional
knowledge that is no longer sustainable, and find alternatives
to supplement the decrease in traditional outputs
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Provide space/time/funds to promote
indigenous men’s and women’s natural resource management
practices and make the national public and government aware of
the sustainability of indigenous resource management
- Ensure that indigenous men an derive equal material and
non-material benefits from the project
- By ensuring space/time/funds for
promoting equal gender relations
- By providing time and
resources to use tools such as gender budgeting/auditing and
thereby making it possible to ensure and monitor that benefits
accrue equitably to men and women (for
more information refer to Annex 1).
- Flexibility related to gender strategies should be allowed
in indigenous communities. Listen, modify, accommodate (use PRA
techniques and tools).
- Qualitative considerations should be identified as
indicators. E.g. how have the activities and their outcome
changed women's/men’s daily lives in terms of time, resources,
health, daily household chores, status within household, status
in community. Qualitative monitoring is necessary to analyse
possible negative gender impacts of activities.
- Promote the strategic interests and empowerment of indigenous
men and women
- The strategic interests of indigenous men will be related to
land rights, access and control of natural resources, power of
decision in mixed communities, acknowledgement of their skills
and knowledge, etc.
- Women’s strategic interests will be to achieve an equitable
relationship with men, including recognition of their knowledge
and skills, equal access to land, ownership, and control over
resources.
D. Project activities
Project activities can take any form or shape
according to the specific needs, interests and objectives identified
during the previous project cycle phases. They can range from
establishing project structures to carrying out training and natural
resource management related activities that will ensure the project
objectives to be reached. Thus, activities should be designed taking
into account the following considerations:
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Define activities in accordance with the
problems/constraints/needs/interests identified during
consultations, taking into consideration the three core areas –
natural resource management, indigenous peoples, and gender.
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Define activities in accordance with and based
on the equal participation of men and women to the extent possible
in each specific case without imposing Western gender perceptions
nor accepting customary gender discriminations or malpractices.
However, considerations should be given to the fact that:
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Certain natural resource management
activities may not be culturally appropriate at certain times of
the year according to the customary indigenous annual activity
cycle. Therefore, traditional rules in that sense should be
followed as closely as possible.
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Certain natural resource management
activities may be taboo for women or for men and alternative
consensus solutions will have to be negotiated.
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Define activities with a view of creating
motivation and commitment and of developing a joint responsibility
between men and women for the conservation and sustainable
management of natural resources, as this will achieve long-term
environmental impact.
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Activities with emphasis on leisure
(sports, singing, food competitions etc.) that can be shared by
both men and women are good to ensure continued motivation and
bringing them together in a joint effort to improve their
livelihood.
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Define activities with a view of building
confidence among men and women as well as among indigenous and
non-indigenous populations
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Invite the women to participate and
motivate them to talk when they participate
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Promote discussions and dialogue on gender
issues among the men as well as among women and men together
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Invite and motivate indigenous women and
men to participate in the case of mixed communities and
activities targeting an ethnically mixed group
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Ïn order to mainstream the gender aspect,
activities should be designed so that both women’s and men’s
knowledge, skills, needs and expectations are taken equally into
account.
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Within activities at the decision level
e.g. participating in project structures, women and men should
participate equally and take decisions together.
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Within practical natural resource
management activities women and men may or may not work within
the same activities. The main concern should be that both
parties engage in activities that are relevant for their skills
and knowledge and their specific needs and interests. In the
case of women, who have domestic chores to perform, it should be
considered how to avoid increased work load e.g. by providing
labour-saving devices such as a rice/maize mill and time-saving
services such as water posts near home or firewood saving
cooking facilities.
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Training activities should be designed
taking into account women’s lesser mobility, possible cultural
constraints and daily domestic responsibilities.
E. Defining indicators for monitoring and
evaluation
Monitoring and evaluation should be based on gender
and indigenous sensitive indicators. These indicators can be elaborated
on the basis of “gender auditing” tools which include a number of
quantitative and qualitative questions that should be asked to the male
and female indigenous target group with a view to identify the
quantitative and qualitative goals to be achieved. For more information
on gender auditing tools, please refer to Annex III.
Quantitative and Qualitative Indicators
It is important that both types of indicators have
been identified at the beginning of a project in a joint effort with
both women and men of the indigenous target group. Indicators may
however have to be modified/adapted/supplemented in the course of a
project.
Quantitative indicators are measures in
numbers and percentages. They are needed for assessing results and the
degree to which a goal or objective has been obtained. Quantitative
indicators with respect to for example production, sales, training
sessions (attendance, rates of training completion), title deeds,
protected sanctuaries etc. should be developed with the active
participation of both male and female members of the affected
communities and with due respect to other stakeholders’ and donors’
interests and requirements.
Qualitative indicators are related to the
impact or the effect that the project activities have on peoples’ lives
and on the natural resources in a short and longer term. They can be
understood as men’s and women’s judgements and perceptions about a given
subject e.g. what is needed to enhance wellbeing in the family or to
secure sustainable management of the natural resources according to
indigenous women and men. Qualitative indicators are intended to measure
and assess (i) social or human processes, such as improved self-esteem,
empowerment (i.e. the capacity of understanding you own situation and
taking action to solve problems), increased respect and status within
your family and community as well as (ii) environmental consequences of
natural resource management initiatives, such as increased biodiversity
in sanctuaries or in community territories as a result of for instance
forest or fishing management plans (e.g. protection of specific trees
creates improved habitat conditions for birds and other animals or
restricted fishing methods increase amounts and sizes of fish as well as
more food for humans and wild species).
F. Project budget
The project budget should respond to and reflect
the objectives and activities of the project. However, it is commonly
seen that specific gender and indigenous concerns within natural
resource management projects are absent from the budget items. Securing
gender equality and equity as well as indigenous specific knowledge and
rights is not
free of charge in an economic sense. However, experiences show that
without due considerations to the costs of achieving improvement in
terms of gender relations and indigenous knowledge and rights, no
positive results or impact can be obtained. By visualising and
specifying the economic costs of these aspects, the project implementing
organisations signal the importance they attribute to the gender
approach and to indigenous natural resource management knowledge and
indigenous rights. Gender and indigenous specific qualitative and
quantitative indicators should be closely linked to the project budget
item. (For more information see section 5.4 on monitoring and
evaluation.)
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The budget should secure funds for documenting
indigenous traditional natural resource management knowledge and for
training of project staff, partner organisation, indigenous
organisation and indigenous communities in human, gender and
indigenous rights issues as well as other relevant issues
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A gender budget analysis will ensure that
equal proportions of the budget are used to benefit women and men
respectively.
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Separated expenses related to
beneficiaries and priorities will give an idea of whether the
funds are allocated in a gender sensitive way and whether the
activities are planned with a gender perspective.
A simple example: to
develop and promote environmental education in community/village
schools, it would be necessary to know the number of boys and
girls in each school/class, their respective responsibilities at
home regarding environmental activities in order to plan and
elaborate gender sensitive educational material, to secure both
male and female teaching resources and capacities as well as
both male and female community expert advisers on specific
traditional practices. The expenses related to all the aspects
mentioned above, should be detailed and included in the project
budget.
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The budget should secure funds for activities that address issues
related to efforts towards gender mainstreaming such as:
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The collection of gender disaggregated data
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Gender training of project staff, partner organisation,
indigenous organisations, indigenous communities, local
authorities etc.
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Gender planning, monitoring and evaluation based on gender
indicators
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Gender auditing at mid-term
and at completion of project (for
more information, please refer to Annex III).
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