Benefits and costs of integrating gender 857
(3) Lack of specific materials and technical support Nearly two-thirds (9/15) of respondents pointed to the need for more interactive materials such as guidelines and toolkits for both staff and community trainings, and the importance of adapting themto the country and/or community context. In addition, project managers from 12 country offices high- lighted the need for gender mainstreaming guidelines to be adapted to the country and/or community in which they were to be implemented, to enable staff who may have had limited training to participate in gender-related in- itiatives. Lack of funding for technical support in project de- sign and implementation, and for initial investments, limits the resources available to effectively integrate gender con- siderations into conservation initiatives.
(4) Societal norms Traditional patriarchal societies con- tribute to women’s limited access to education, lower levels of literacy and lack of self-confidence, and hinders their participation in natural resource management and decision- making. Additionally, the overwhelming amount of work (both within and outside the home) that women are often responsible for can make it difficult for them to engage meaningfully in conservation activities. Finding times when both local women and conservation practitioners (staff of Conservation International or partners) are avail- able for meetings can be challenging. Societal norms also in- fluence the priorities of conservation initiatives themselves, such as the extent to which gender is prioritized in project design and adequately budgeted, and the level of responsi- bility and influence of the person(s) leading gender on the project team. In addition, the added duty that is placed on the (mostly) female staff members appointed as the project’s gender focal points is an example of the gendered work burden echoed in communities.
There was consensus amongst the respondents that the perceived benefits generated from the integration of gender into conservation initiatives outweighed the perceived chal- lenges. This was not unexpected as the project managers we interviewed had self-selected to manage a grant related to gender, so they were already aware of the potential benefits of taking a gender-responsive approach. Nevertheless, we were surprised to see the varied and specific benefits that emerged from the projects supported by these small grants. Some of these benefits even exceeded the grant’s original scope, for example in categories (4), gender normative change within project communities, and (5), strengthened partnerships. As an example of gender normative change, the project in Ecuador supported a woman to become the president of her community, and in Cambodia the project influenced women’s self-confidence in engaging in com- munity fishery management. Examples of strengthened partnerships include those with governmental environment agencies (in Samoa and the Philippines), with gender entities
such as UN Women in Timor-Leste, with donors (such as USAID in Peru) and with local environmental organizations who needed technical support on gender (Samoa).
Discussion
International and national environmental organizations have largely identified gender equality as a fundamental component of their work, but there is a lag in implementa- tion of gender-related policies and practices. This is in part because field-based conservation practitioners often lack the expertise and skills required to fully understand how gender considerations can help or hinder conservation outcomes, and to respond accordingly. There is a need to (1) examine the barriers that manifest in the context of conservation institutions, both through academic literature and from practitioners themselves, and (2) identify practical ways to reduce and overcome them. The costs and challenges noted by respondents highlight
the financial, technical and cultural barriers that conser- vation practitioners face when working to integrate gender into their programmes. Our findings indicate that providing small grants to integrate gender in conservation projects provides hands-on experiences for staff, and helps build the skills necessary to design and deliver gender-responsive conservation projects. Furthermore, it can be effective in ad- dressing some of the primary challenges of gender integra- tion described in the literature (e.g. Dawson, 2010;Moser & Moser, 2010;Wendoh&Wallace, 2010; Bennett et al., 2016). These challenges include (1) the need for ongoing training/ capacity building, especially for conservation practitioners, (2) the need to apply gender equality principles in a cultur- ally relevant way that builds local ownership, including op- portunities for local staff to lead research and develop their own analyses, (3) the need to provide opportunities to apply training concepts in practice, and (4) the lack of dedicated time and focus on gender. Providing small grants to support gender analysis and
integration, however, does not address one of themost com- mon barriers to gender integration (Moser &Moser, 2010): the lack of amechanism to create accountability, with incen- tives and sanctions. Providing funding and technical sup- port through guidelines proved to be an effective incentive for those already aware of gender issues to try something new: for many respondents, the projects evaluated here were the first they had designed and managed with a gender focus. However, if gender-responsive projects are only de- signed when additional funding is available and when prac- titioners are aware of their importance, their impact will be limited. Donors increasingly require gender-responsiveness, which provides accountability for projects funded by those donors, but organizations must also design accountability systems that ensure full application of gender-responsive
Oryx, 2021, 55(6), 853–859 © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605320001295
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