CIVICUS Better Planning and Communication Toolkits
Campaigning Toolkit for Civil Society Organisations engaged in Millennium Development Goals
Gender Toolkits
 Websites with a Gender Focus

Background  

The 2001 Vancouver World Assembly strongly encouraged CIVICUS to develop an explicit policy on how to address gender equality issues and women’s leadership within CIVICUS and in all CIVICUS programs. Consequently, the CIVICUS Board appointed a gender task force to design and implement a policy formulation process consisting of a series of meetings and workshops for both CIVICUS Board and staff. This process also included a formal assessment of the present (implicit) level of gender equality policy within CIVICUS programmes and management. A draft Gender Equality Policy developed as a result of this process was presented for discussion to the CIVICUS Board in Glasgow in October 2005 and approved in principle.

The CIVICUS Gender Policy should be viewed as an integral component of CIVICUS Policy, and not as a separate policy. In other words, this Gender Equality Policy makes explicit the gender imperatives that are implicit within existing statements on CIVICUS Mission and Values. The CIVICUS Gender Policy is concerned with ensuring that, gender equality issues are properly recognised and addressed within existing CIVICUS Policies.

Need for a Gender Equality Policy

An important role of CIVICUS is to encourage and amplify the collective voice of civil society. CIVICUS has a special interest in encouraging the voices of marginalized groups. These are the voices that speak of discrimination and oppression, and which demand justice.

This policy therefore looks at the special need to take account of the marginalised position of women and gender minorities such as gays, lesbians and the transgendered. There is a need for policy to be explicit on the particular principles and goals governing programme provisions for such groups, rather than assuming that the needs of these groups will be sufficiently taken into account in programmes aimed at undifferentiated groups of ‘people’ or ‘citizens’.

Many of CIVICUS’ member organisations have their own gender equality policies and some may be organizations focused specifically on women’s rights and gender equality. In this situation, CIVICUS needs to recognise its special coordination and liaison role in encouraging and magnifying the collective voice of women and gender minorities rising from these individual member organisations.

Principles

CIVICUS believes that:

• Women as well as gender minorities such as gay/lesbian and transgendered identified persons have the right to enjoy all economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights, as guaranteed by the International Covenant on Human Rights, the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

• Barriers of discrimination need to be overcome if women and gender minorities are to be equally incorporated within civil society organisations, so that their voices can be equally heard, and their needs and interests taken into account and addressed.

• The mobilisation of women and gender minorities within civil society provides a means towards eliminating discrimination against the access of women and gender minorities to all publicly available resources and services, and their access to public decision making processes and positions.

Goals

Here it is necessary to distinguish between external and internal aspects of the Gender Policy. External aspects of the Gender Equality Policy refer to the attention to gender equality issues in all CIVICUS programmes and activities, whereas the internal aspects of the Policy refer to gender equality issues in all matters that are internal to CIVICUS organisation and management, such as staff recruitment and conditions of service.

CIVICUS External Gender Equality Policy Goals are to promote collective civil society actions which:

1. Strengthen women’s and gender minorities’ citizen action throughout the world.

2. Promote the rights of women and gender minorities to organize and act collectively for the realization of their rights and toward defined goals for the public good.

3. Increase the effectiveness of civil society organizations in addressing women’s and gender minorities’ rights and improve the governance of civil society organizations in ways that promote women and gender minorities' participation, voice, and influence.

4. Increase the voice of women and gender minorities in public life by fostering interaction between mainstream civil society organizations and those that work on gender equality and women and gender minorities' rights.

5. Promote women and gender minorities’ increased participation in the leadership of civil society organisations and movements.

6. Focus global civic concern and action on critical areas where women and gender minorities' rights are not recognised.

CIVICUS Internal Gender Policy Goals are to:

1. Integrate within management a system for recognising and addressing the relevant gender equality issues within all programmes and activities, including provision of in-house staff training on how to identify, analyze and address gender equality issues in all CIVICUS programmes

2. Ensure gender parity within CIVICUS at all levels – Board, management and staff and develop an organizational culture that supports women’s and gender minorities’ full participation in the organisation

3. Ensure that all CIVICUS internal communications reflect gender sensitivity and include information on Civicus’ and its members’ programs and activities on women’s rights, and gender equality.

4. Ensure adequate resources (including staff capacity, funds etc) to accomplish CIVICUS’ external and internal gender equality goals.

Strategies

As with Goals, Strategies are here divided between the external programme strategy and the internal management strategy.

Programme Strategy

The overall programme strategy will primarily entail gender mainstreaming. This strategy will ensure that gender analysis forms part of programme planning, so that gender equality issues are recognised and addressed in all CIVICUS programmes. Therefore, instead of directing programme benefits at a gender neutral ‘citizen’, programmes will instead always identify the differential location and problems of different gender groups. Moreover, issues of structural and institutionalised gender discrimination will be taken into account in formulating the goals and activities for a particular programme.

Additionally, CIVICUS recognizes the need for potential new programmes which have their primary focus on the rights of women and gender minorities', in addition to current programmes that need to be more gender equitable in their focus.

Management Strategy

Gender mainstreaming will inform the internal organisational system for managing all CIVICUS programmes. Therefore all members of staff will be expected to be able to identify and analyze gender issues related to their areas of work, and understand how to incorporate attention to gender equality in programme planning and implementation. To promote gender mainstreaming within CIVICUS it may also be necessary to appoint one or more staff members with specific responsibilities for overseeing the gender mainstreaming processes.

Objectives

The objectives listed below are not intended to be prescriptive or exhaustive, but merely illustrative of the type of objectives that arise from the programmatic implications of the preceding gender equality policy principles, goals and strategies.

Objectivew within existing CIVICUS Programmes

For each of CIVICUS’ existing programmes, the list below identifies gender equality objectives that should be mainstreamed within these programmes:

1. Civil Society Watch: To protect women’s and gender minorities’ space for participation in public life, access to public services, and right to freedom of civic association; to monitor and promote best civil society practices in overcoming institutionalised forms of gender discrimination; to mobilise quick public and global response in areas where the rights of women and gendered minorities are threatened. For more information, click here. 

2. Civil Society Index: To strengthen women’s and gender minorities’ participation in civil society by assessing the pattern of gender discrimination which limits their participation; to enable network building for the development of strategies of collective civil action to counter practices of gender discrimination. For more information, click here. 

3. Legitimacy and Transparency Programme: To improve the legitimacy of civil society organisations to speak on behalf of women and gender minorities in civil society, by promoting women’s equal participation in governance, and all organisational activities, and attention to gender equality in organisational goals. For more information, click here. 

4. Participatory Governance Programme: To build the capacity of civil society organisations to promote the equal participation of women and gender minorities in governance and to advocate for government legislation and programmes to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women and gender minorities. For more information, click here. 

5. World Assembly: To stimulate discussion on women’s rights, strategies for women and gender minorities’ equal participation in citizen mobilization and civil society organisations and including governance and action and thereby to develop and extend the CIVICUS Gender Policy. For more information, click here. 

For more information, please contact programme@civicus.org.

Top