Gender Equality

What Does Gender-Sensitive Cash and Voucher Assistance Look Like?

CARE is committed to being “cash ready” to achieve breakthroughs for women and girls in its cash and voucher assistance (CVA) and to convene other stakeholders on the gendered aspects of CVA. Building that commitment, CARE commissioned a study on gender-sensitive CVA from its own project participants. The study aimed at understanding the:
- Extent to which women, men, boys, and girls have been involved in the design of CVA and the implications of this involvement.
- Potential for CVA to foster positive and sustainable gender roles and relations that contribute to gender equity.
- Gender-related barriers and risks associated with collecting and receiving CVA including social and cultural
attitudes and protection risks. Read More...

Meeting the demand of women affected by ongoing crisis: Increasing contraceptive prevalence in North and South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Over 20 years of conflict in the DRC, North and South Kivu have experienced cycles of sta- bility and conflict, resulting in a compromised health system and poor sexual and reproduc- tive health outcomes. Modern contraceptive use is low (7.5%) and maternal mortality is high (846 deaths per 100,000 live births). Program partners have supported the Ministry of Health (MOH) in North and South Kivu to provide good quality contraceptive services in pub- lic health facilities since 2011.

This paper used cross-sectional population-based surveys in the program areas using a two- stage cluster sampling design to ensure representation in each of six rural health zones.

It found that modern contraceptive prevalence among women in union ranged from 8.4% to 26.7% in the six health zones; current use of long-acting or permanent method (LAPM) ranged from 2.5% to 19.8%. The majority of women (58.9% to 90.2%) reported receiving their current method for the first time at a health facility supported by the program partners. Over half of women in four health zones reported wanting to continue their method for five years or longer. Read More...

Delivering High-Quality Family Planning Services in Crisis-Affected Settings II: Results

An estimated 43 million women of reproductive age experienced the effects of conflict in 2012. Already vulnerable from the insecurity of the emergency, women must also face the continuing risk of unwanted pregnancy but often are unable to obtain family planning services. The ongoing Supporting Access to Family Planning and Post-Abortion Care (SAFPAC) initiative, led by CARE, has provided contraceptives, including long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs), to refugees, internally displaced persons, and conflict-affected resident populations in Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Djibouti, Mali, and Pakistan. The project works through the Ministry of Health in 4 key areas: (1) competency-based training, (2) supply chain management, (3) systematic supervision, and (4) community mobilization to raise awareness and shift norms related to family planning. This article presents data on program results from July 2011 to December 2013 from the 5 countries. Read More...

Delivering High-Quality Family Planning Services in Crisis-Affected Settings I: Program Implementation

In 2012, about 43 million women of reproductive age experienced the effects of conflict. Provision of basic sexual and reproductive health services, including family planning, is a recognized right and need of refugees and internally displaced people, but funding and services for family planning have been inadequate. This article describes lessons learned during the first 2.5 years of implementing the ongoing Supporting Access to Family Planning and Post-Abortion Care in Emergencies (SAFPAC) initiative, led by CARE, which supports government health systems to deliver family planning services in 5 crisis-affected settings (Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Mali, and Pakistan). Read More...

USAID Agricultural Extension Support Activity: Study on Gender Impact (AESA)

The USAID Agricultural Extension Support Activity (AESA) is a five years’ project funded by USAID that aims to enhance access to and utilization of agricultural extension services by smallholder farmers – both men and women. It is working for building capacities and creating support to a farmer demand-driven agricultural extension system, synergized by the use of information communication technology (ICT).

This research paper identifies the gender impact of this project. The research used both quantitative and qualitative approaches to understand the gender awareness and dynamics within the project. [50 pages] Read More...

Gender Equity and Women’s Empowerment: The Journey So far; The Experience of the ENSURE Program

The ENSURE Food Security Program is a USAID-funded, five-year intervention designed to profoundly and sustainably impact 215,000 vulnerable and food- insecure Zimbabweans in Manicaland and Masvingo Provinces. The program is a shared commitment by four partners and one service provider—World Vision, CARE, SNV, SAFIRE and ICRISAT—who work together to mainstream gender equity and natural resource management in the three key areas of maternal and child nutrition and health, agricultural production and marketing, and community resilience.

The success of ENSURE can be portrayed through the accounts of thousands of women and men whose lives have been changed through its various programme interventions. Tangible gender transformative changes can be noticed on several dimensions: joint household decision making; reduced violence against women; increased women’s leadership in community leadership; men assisting women with household chores and childcare; women’s ownership of high value productive assets; and increased access and control over income.
Read More...

CARE International Advocacy and Influencing: A Review of Pathways to Success

This report constitutes a review of 208 advocacy and influencing initiatives that reported having successfully influenced policies, plans and budgets. A sample of 31 cases were included in for review. These comprised influencing outcomes across 16 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, North America and Europe. We estimate that outcomes these initiatives influenced have so far improved the lives of more than 4.2 million people, with the potential for future impacts for a further 116 million people. 20 cases were from national or local level policy, plan or budget influence in the global South, and 11 case from the global North, influencing donor strategies or international negotiations.

Overall, the top 4 strategies employed across the North and the global South were: (i) lobbying-decision-makers; (ii) coalition building; (iii) public forums and (iv) method replication. Twice as common as any other strategy was lobbying decision-makers. This was also judged to be the most effective strategy in both the South and the North. 23 initiatives employed some form of lobbying decision-makers, and in 19 of these it was ranked as the most influential strategy. This lobbying was commonly a form of “insider” approach where CARE and partners already had a good relationship with government line ministries, having built credibility and trust over a number of years. Particularly in the South, advocacy efforts were part of a strategy over more than five years. Such efforts demonstrate that long-term investment is required for policy change to materialise into impact. The main tactics or strategies which did not feature strongly were activism and campaigning such as marches, petitions and use of social media, and evidence for the use of research was also uneven. We consider why this may be the case in greater detail toward the end of the paper
Read More...

GEWEP II Mali Final Evaluation Report

The Women and Girls Empowerment and Civil Society Governance Projet (GEWEP) known as MAAYA DANBE in local language, is funded by the Norway Government through CARE Norway for four years (2016-2019) and seeks to empower women and girls affected by poverty, inequality, violence and social marginalization to claim and achieve their human rights. The GEWEP project comprises four theme-based cross-cutting components: (i) strengthening civil society, (ii) women’s economic empowerment and entrepreurship, (iii) women’s participation in decision-making processes and (iv) men/boys’ engagement in the transformation of gender norms. The GEWEP projet is part of a global funding provided by CARE Norway, through the Norway Government, to some African countries including Mali, Niger, DRC, Rwanda and Burundi.

The key findings from the final evaluation of GEWEP II are presented in this report which looks at a number of crosscutting themes. Read More...

Social Norms and Barriers Analysis for Agro-pastoralist Women and Girls in South Darfur, Sudan

This report takes a special focus on examining the changing reality of life for agro pastoralist women and girls in South Darfur, Sudan through the lens of social norms and barriers, adding to a set of regional studies (Ritchie 2015 - 2017). Increasingly fragile, agro-pastoralist groups in East Africa now often combine pastoralism with both farming and trading. Women in such societies have been identified as both marginalized and vulnerable.

In the Darfur region of Sudan, rural women remain particularly challenged, with insecurity conflict and displacement. Yet with appropriate development interventions, access to services and government policies, women and girls stand at the forefront of social change, as they adopt new livelihood opportunities and embrace new rights and entitlements.

This research aimed to capture both qualitative as well as quantitative dynamics of current change in agro-pastoralist girls’ and women’s social norms, customs and practices in South Darfur. Read More...

Midterm Review of Every Voice Counts Programme

The major objective of the Mid-Term Review of the Every Voice Counts Program in Sudan was to assess the extent to which increasing participation of women and youth in community structures such as Village Development Committees and community and locality level decision making processes and access to finance had been attained. This is in addition to the aim of enhancing their representation and giving them better access to decision making bodies. Read More...

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