JICA’s gender mainstreaming in a DRRM programme in Tacloban City

A bilateral cooperation setting invariably presents two sets of policies from two countries which can be combined, aligned, or superseded by the other to achieve desirable development outcomes. The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness requires all providers of Official Development Assistance to apply its principles for effective aid delivery. These include, among others, country ownership and alignment. Country ownership and alignment, according to the UN norms, refer to giving the partner country autonomy to exercise effective leadership over development strategies, and aligning the development assistance plan of donor countries with the partner countries’ own development plan, policies, and procedures (OECD, 2005).

Interviews with officers from JICA Headquarters and Philippines office show that the organisation greatly takes this into consideration. They underscored that JICA’s operations plan in the Philippines is largely based on the Philippine Development Plan and discussions with high-level stakeholders. Interviewees from JICA also emphasised that when policies of Japan and Philippines lack congruence, JICA is expected to adapt and the Philippines’ policy should prevail. This also applicable in the administration of JICA Philippines office, where internal procedures of the Headquarters are adopted and revised based on the cultural context and requirements of the country.

As such, in terms of mainstreaming gender, JICA Philippines is given the autonomy to implement its own policy: integrating the principles ascribed in JICA’s overall guideline on gender and the Philippine government’s requisites on gender mainstreaming. The presence of: 1) a gender network among donor agencies in the Philippines; and 2) required submission of an annual gender responsiveness report, may connote that gender is being promoted by the national government. JICA Philippines Office, on the other hand, is compliant with the

without the knowledge of the Headquarters. Even though this can be considered as the minimum effort in gender, this shows that JICA complies with the Paris Declaration principles, particularly on alignment. However, JICA Philippines still does not have its own gender mainstreaming framework. Without a working gender framework in the overseas office, mainstreaming gender in JICA’s projects in the Philippines remains implausible.

JICA’s organisational views on gender also influenced the non-mainstreaming of gender into the DRRM project in Tacloban City. The notions that: 1) gender interventions are only applicable to rural and community-based development and traditional sectors; and 2) that assistance in infrastructure and projects that are technical in nature do not need to have a gender viewpoint, are both apparent in the DRRM programme. JICA’s assistance on DRRM in the Philippines is generally a combination of both technical projects (i.e. provision of early warning systems, hazard mapping, or reconstruction of damaged infrastructure) and community-based development interventions (i.e. livelihood recovery projects, evacuation planning and drills, etc.). This is particularly evident in JICA’s comprehensive assistance to Typhoon Haiyan-affected areas, the programme focused on by this research, which have the following components: 1) hazard mapping, evacuation planning, and revision of DRRM and land use plans; 2) reconstruction of public infrastructure such as hospitals, evacuation centres, schools, local government halls, etc.; and 3) livelihood programmes to rebuild communities.

The research found that the nature of the DRRM programme, specifically the need to urgently rebuild infrastructure and livelihood, caused fast-tracking of internal procedures and processes, and skipping of other analyses entirely. Since the gender mainstreaming policy of JICA is not required to be followed by its officers, they argued that there was not enough time to consult the gender office during the formulation of the assistance for the typhoon-affected areas. Hence, there were no gender planning and gender analyses done at the onset of planning the technical and livelihood projects. This, according to Taylor (1999), may pose a significant drawback in development planning as it should be informed by a gender analysis to ensure that the needs of both men and women are equally addressed.

The justification that the disaster intervention is urgent is commonly referred to as “tyranny of the urgent,” (Bradshaw, 2013; Fordham, 2003) which legitimises the skipping and fast-tracking of crucial preparatory intensive analyses. This concept connotes that preparatory social analyses are believed to slow down the process of the intervention, especially when affected

people need emergency assistance. Bradshaw (2013) sees this as a ‘myth of speed’, whereby the need for urgent action overrules all else, and results in a checklist response where the same items are distributed, and same efforts are made regardless of the need, where it is needed, what has been provided, and most importantly, the culture of those in need. The belief that speed is a necessity above all else means that the intervention does not allow culture and gender to influence existing processes and may result in inappropriate and unsustainable responses (Bradshaw, 2013; Fordham, 2003; Hyndman & Alwis, 2003). As such, while speed and urgency can arguably be valid, proper planning that includes impact assessments on various areas can significantly contribute to the sustainability of the intervention, rather than delivering short-term, fast ‘Band-Aid’ solutions (Ride & Bretherton, 2011, p. 138; Wisner et al., 2014, p. 11). Studies have shown that such interventions can provide relief in the short-term, but serious and complex problems will eventually arise in the long run (De Silva & Jayathilaka, 2014; Islam, 2010).

Hence, the absence of a gender mainstreaming toolkit for DRRM projects, the urgency of the project, and the non-consultation of the responsible officers in JICA’s gender office were the main factors for gender not being mainstreamed in the formulation, and eventually, in the execution of the project. The interviews show that JICA’s officers justified that it was not necessary to mainstream gender anymore because they believed that technical assistance does not need a gender lens, and that gender is already integrated when working with a Filipino community. These perceptions on gender, coupled with the belief in the “tyranny of the urgent,” are apparent in the attempt to legitimise gender mainstreaming as irrelevant and as a result, it was left out of the DRRM programme.

Interviewees from JICA also perceived that Philippines is progressive in gender and that because of this, they are not too concerned that there was no gender mainstreaming done in the DRRM intervention. From JICA’s side, there was no deliberate effort to integrate gender. However, the research showed that gender mainstreaming was not totally excluded from the project. A significant part of integrating gender and securing the equal participation of men and women on the project were influenced by the local government’s own policy on gender and development. The local government’s gender mainstreaming framework enabled both men and women to have unbiased opportunities in planning roles and other positions of power. Despite not having explicit gender mainstreaming strategies implemented within the project,

the project counterparts applied the local gender mainstreaming framework as part of the mandate of the city government.

Thus, despite the national government requiring donor agencies to make their operations gender responsive, incognisance of the regulations and inadequate enforcement can lead to inaction at the operations and implementation level of a bilateral cooperation programme. Principles of ownership and alignment with regards to mainstreaming gender may dissipate if there is insufficient pressure from the partner country, especially if gender is not included as one of the development priorities of the donor agency.

However, even if this is the case, the research showed that gender mainstreaming can also be initiated from the community. While JICA fell short in mainstreaming gender within the project, the research found that the local stakeholders applied their own gender mainstreaming framework in the DRRM project. It showed that the bottom-up approach to gender mainstreaming ameliorated any drawbacks from the project formulation level. The principles of ownership and alignment, although not purposefully done for gender at the donor and national level, manifested at the local level where the city government was able to apply their own processes. To be able to exercise their own gender framework without resistance from the donor connotes that the local government possesses agency to influence the project’s processes.