The dual-track approach to gender mainstreaming within development includes both the introduction of a ‘gender perspective’ into mainstream policies and programmes and specific measures ‘to empower women’. The framework document The European Consensus on Development states that mainstreaming is to be followed for specific ‘cross-cutting’ issues, among which there is ‘gender equality’:
In all activities, the Community will apply a strengthened approach to mainstreaming the following cross-cutting issues: the promotion of human rights, gender equality, democracy, good governance, children’s rights and indigenous peoples, environmental sustainability and combating HIV/AIDS.
These cross-cutting issues are at once objectives in themselves and vital factors in strengthening the impact and sustainability of cooperation. (European Union 2005: 38)
Specific guidelines such as the Programming Guides for Strategy Papers follow the Council of Europe (CoE) definition of gender mainstreaming. Thus, the 2008 Programming Guide for Strategy Papers defines gender mainstreaming as
the (re)organisation, improvement, development and evaluation of policy processes, so that a gender equality perspective is incorporated in all policies at all levels and at all stages, by the actors normally involved in policy-making. Gender mainstreaming cannot replace specific policies which aim to redress situations resulting from gender inequality. Specific gender equality policies and gender mainstreaming are dual and complementary strategies and must go hand in hand to reach the goal of gender equality. (European Commission 2008c: 1)
In more concrete terms, the guideline specifies:
In order to examine gender equality in a national context, there needs to be an analysis of the situation of women and men in a given country across all EC priority areas for development cooperation. The gender analysis is an important part of the overall situation analysis and provides the basis for gender mainstreaming in the preparation of the Country Strategy Paper (CSPs) and Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs). A complete gender analysis would include: the gendered division of labour; access to and control over material and non-material resources; the legal basis for gender equality/inequality; political commitments with respect to gender equality; and the cultural and traditional attitudes and stereotypes which affect the gender relations between women and men. These gender analyses often already exist; they are carried out by other donors, international organisations or CSOs and can easily be used by Delegations. (European Commission 2008c: 5; see also European Commission 2006b: 3, 5)
As discussed in chapter 4, one of the main criticisms of the practice of mainstreaming has been that it works as an excuse to cut down on women’s specific actions, projects, programmes and structures.179 One of the
interviewees working within development cooperation argues:
There is a big danger with mainstreaming. This is mainly that mainstreaming means that gender is everywhere, but there is a risk that finally gender will be nowhere because it disappears. [...] So, mainstreaming is good, we have to continue, but it’s not enough, we have to identify specific budget for gender actions.180
And he describes the practice of mainstreaming in these terms:
179 This question is also presented in the discussion on the academic debate around mainstreaming in chapter 1. 180 Interview with administrator working with gender issues at DG Development, May 2008.
In practice, in our work it means that normally before such a programme is adopted, it should count [on] the agreement of each Directorate in DG Development and then for our Unit, and either myself or one of my colleagues should be able to look at it and we try to include a gender perspective. So, for example, into health and education is relatively easy to mainstream gender because in health, for example, under sexual and reproductive health rights [it] is very obvious, or under education of girls it is part of the education programme. This is the easier part. The more... it is much more difficult to include gender in infrastructure or building roads, but still possible, there are good examples... For example, in building roads in... I don’t remember in which country, but in one of the countries, the project had a specific budget for bringing the spouses of road workers with them because these men were working in a different area than where they live and it was possible for them to bring their wives and they could stay with them, this is an example. Or, for example, gender based violence is a very bad issue, and one of the reasons is [that] very often in dark, in rural areas, women have to go and bring water and women can get raped. So, for example, when you build roads, the parts of roads, the side roads, if they get lamps or they are lightened we can make security much better. These are just examples of how you can mainstream gender into even infrastructure or road-building projects.181
There has been concern around the incapacity of gender mainstreaming to fulfil policy outcomes. The 2007 Communication on Women Empowerment points in the direction of incorporating specific measures within the strategy of gender mainstreaming. In this context, the interviewee tries to find the way to incorporate certain gender-related concerns once the policy is formulated (there is then the question of whether there will be the budget for it). Thus, in practice gender mainstreaming functions as a declaration of principles, and the real policy is defined by specific measures targeted to women.