MANUAL Gender Impact Assessment Of Hydropower projects

MANUAL Gender Impact Assessment Of Hydropower projects

Manual: Gender Impact Assessment of Hydropower project | CSRD

CENTRE FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT (CSRD) Add: 2/33 Nguyen Truong To, Hue City | Email: info@csrd.vn Phone: 0234.3837714 | Fax: 0234.3837714

The Centre for Social Research and Development developed this Manual based mainly on the practical lessons learned from the application of 06 tools which are suggested in "Balancing the scales: Using gender impact assessment in hydropower development" by Oxfam. The Manual includes: (1) Introduction; (2) Process; and (3) Tools .

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Manual: Gender Impact Assessment of Hydropower project | CSRD

CONTENT

INTRODUCTION .................................................................... 3 GENDER PROFILE ANALYSIS TOOLS............................... 7 Tool 1: Activity Profile ......................................................... 7 Tool 2: Access and control profile tool ................................. 9 Tool 3: Institutional analysis ............................................... 11 IMPACT ANALYSIS TOOL ................................................. 12 Tool 4. Impact analysis framework ..................................... 13 WOMEN’S NEEDS ASSESSMENT AND EMPOWERMENT TOOL ...................................................................................... 15 Tool 5. Practical needs and strategic needs assessment ...... 15 Tool 6. Empowering Women .................................... 16 ATTENTIONS WHEN USING THE TOOLS ....................... 22 Problems of practice ............................................................ 22 About the toolkit.................................................................. 23 About knowledge creation................................................... 27 A quick profile ..................................................................... 28 About gender and sustainable development ........................ 29 SOME TOOLS SHOULD BE INCORPORATED INTO THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE GENDER IMPACT ASSESSMENT KIT ............................................................... 31 1. Village History ............................................................. 31 2. Village Diagram Drawing ............................................ 31 3. Household Economy Classification ............................. 31 4. Information Network Analysis..................................... 31

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Manual: Gender Impact Assessment of Hydropower project | CSRD

INTRODUCTION As required in Vietnam's law, the projects that are likely to exert negative effects on the environment including hydropower, forest exploitation and cultivation groups, must perform the Environmental Impact Assessment and cover their socio-economic aspect. Besides, the Social Impact Assessment is encouraged to forecast and find mitigation measures to reduce adverse effects on people and community especially in terms of health, livelihood, cultural and social characteristics.

However, it is not until recently that the gender impact assessment is carried out as a policy tool to ensure that decisions are made in reference to the gender factor.

As defined in the law on gender equality 2016, "The gender equality goals are to eliminate gender discrimination, to create equal opportunities for men and women in socioeconomic development and human resources development in order to reach substantial equality between men and women, and to establish and enhance cooperation and mutual assistance between men and women in all fields of social and family life.

"Article 7 states the policies on gender equality including: 1. To ensure gender equality in all fields of politics, economy, culture, society, and family; to support and provide men and women with conditions for them to bring into play their abilities; to give them equal opportunities to take part in the process of development and to benefit from the achievements of the development.

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Manual: Gender Impact Assessment of Hydropower project | CSRD

2. To protect and support the mother during pregnancy, giving birth and upbringing her child; to facilitate man and woman in sharing housework.

3. To apply appropriate measures to eliminate backward customs and habits hindering the implementation of the gender equality goal.

4. To encourage agencies, organizations, families, and individuals to take part in gender equality promoting activities.

5. To support gender equality activities in the remote and mountainous areas, in areas of ethnic minority groups and areas still in extremely difficult socio-economic conditions; to support to create necessary conditions to increase the GDI in the industries, fields, and localities where the GDI is lower than the average level of the entire country.

Prime Minister on December 24, 2010, signed Decision 2351/QD-TTg, approving the 2011-2020 National Strategy for Gender Equality. Moreover, the Law on Gender Equality demands that ensuring gender mainstreaming in the process of development and implementation of laws becomes one of six basic principles on gender equality. The principle also is realized in various documents, including Decree No. 48/2009/ND-CP dated May 19, 2009, of the Government, providing for measures to assure gender equality; Decree No. 70/2008/ND-CP dated June 04, 2008 of the Government detailing the implementation of a number of articles of the Law on Gender Equality. Law No. 17/2008/QH12 of June 03, 2008, on the promulgation of legal documents, states responsibilities of the Committee for Social Affairs in verifying the integration

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Manual: Gender Impact Assessment of Hydropower project | CSRD

of gender equality into proposed laws, ordinances and draft resolutions (Article 47).

The gender impact assessment in hydropower development is recommended by international organization, including Oxfam not just because of various gender roles of participation in management and water resources use; but because of increasing socio-economic efficiency of hydropower projects offered to the relevant parties, especially investors who consider hydropower development as a development intervention, enhance the socio-economic effectiveness of hydropower projects. Along with the environmental and social impact assessment, the gender impact assessment provides the relevant parties with the interpretations, predictions, and more detailed and specific mitigation plans in order to develop and boost the status of affected communities, of which ethnic minority and women groups who have little awareness of planning for development projects as a whole and hydropower projects in particular.

In recent years, CSRD under the sponsorship by Oxfam implemented the project “Piloting Gender Impact Assessment with A Luoi and SrĂŠpok 3 dam along 3S area in the Central and Central Highland Vietnamâ€? with an overall goal is to support the dam companies and related government agencies to be able to take stronger consideration of gender in hydropower development along the 3S river area in the Central and Central Highland Vietnam. To continue the achievements, the project under the follow-up sponsorship by Oxfam will be implemented to support A Vuong dam in Quang Nam

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Manual: Gender Impact Assessment of Hydropower project | CSRD

province. On one hand, the project promotes Gender Impact Assessment and gives assistance to the affected by hydropower projects, on the other hand, building up a set of the toolkit to assess gender impacts.

Resettlement area of A Vuong hydropower in Dang commune.

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Manual: Gender Impact Assessment of Hydropower project | CSRD

GENDER PROFILE ANALYSIS TOOLS Tool 1: Activity Profile - Purpose: This tool will help you to understand the different works doing by men and women in their dialy life with the consideration about where when. From that, all forms of work and activity - paid and unpaid - are clearly analyzed.

We should pay attention to data gathering and consider the seasonal variation noting that when this assessment is undertaken. This is because in many cases there is a great discrepancy of work for men and women at different seasons and times of the year.

- Key questions: What are men and women doing in their community? What are their responsibilities in households? What are they doing together for the community?

ACTIVITY PROFILE

Date:

Village name: Activities

1. Productive activities - Cultivation - Animal husbandry - Gathering forest products for sale

Female

Male

Where

When and how long

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Manual: Gender Impact Assessment of Hydropower project | CSRD

(rattan, conical leaf, honey‌) - Gathering forest products for household needs (firewood, vegetables,...)

- Trade/exchange products

of

- Reproductive activities (Family care) - Childbearing - Care for young children and the elderly - Cooking for family - Family healthcare - Washing, fetching, cleaning, etc

water house

- Community work - Community management activities - Community

politics

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Manual: Gender Impact Assessment of Hydropower project | CSRD

(village meeting, community labor) - Community seasonal activities - Community religious or spiritual activities - Community labor - Education and other activities - Training, Parentteacher meeting

Tool 2: Access and control profile tool - Purpose: The tool will facilitate the understanding of current situation and role of women and men in resource access and control. It will give an overview of the community, but help us to generate a sex-disaggregated breakdown. It will also look at who has control over those resources, meaning who makes decisions about those resources and their use, who has rights under the law and/or under household, and community practice.

- Key question: Who has the use of resources in the community? Who controls the decision-making process over those natural and man-made resources? Who controls the benefits (such as cash) from use, sale or exploitation of those resources?

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Manual: Gender Impact Assessment of Hydropower project | CSRD

Access and control profile Access Women Men 1. Resources in community and/or household Land for subsistence farming Land for cash crops Labor Fishing boat and gears - Household assets (Equipment, technology, manufacturing tools) - In-house equipment (motorbike, TV, refrigerator,..)

- Human assets- healthcare ⇒ Family labor - Use and access to common resources - Forest: Natural Forest and Plantation Forest - Fallow lands - Public lands (Communal land) - Land areas along the side of rivers or streams

Control Women Men

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Manual: Gender Impact Assessment of Hydropower project | CSRD

+ Riverbanks + Wetlands + Public lands (villageowned land) 2. Benefits derived from the use of resources - Income from the sale of cash crops - Non-wood, wood products - Income from plantation forests - Income from the sale of fish and other aquatic animals - Income from harvested products - Asset ownership (land, forest) - Land, forest ownership

Tool 3: Institutional analysis - Purpose: The tool is used to capture key institutions and processes or mechanisms influencing community and gender relations. The activity profile is used as a prompt checklist to ensure all institutions are identified for men, women, and the community.

- Key question: What services do people use every day?

Who provides those services? Are there people or institutions

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Manual: Gender Impact Assessment of Hydropower project | CSRD

that people engage with to implement their activities? Are people affected by rules and laws and how do they know about them? Do they enforce the rules and laws? Do these institutions perpetuate gender equality?

Services

Organiza tion and its policy

Effects Men

Women

Capital Economy Health Education Agriculture Extension

Group discussion, gathering information in the community.

Group discussion, gathering information in the community

Commu nity

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Manual: Gender Impact Assessment of Hydropower project | CSRD

IMPACT ANALYSIS TOOL Tool 4. Impact analysis framework - Purpose: Help us to see how environment, society and economy, etc. have been impacted by the building process of hydroelectric plants from a gender perspective (positive or negative impacts towards men and women); since then offer the appropriate solutions.

- Key questions: How does the construction and operation of hydropower dams affect environment, society and economy? What impacts do men suffer? What impacts do women have? What impact does the community have to bear?

What solutions/actions are needed to mitigate those impacts?

Impact analysis framework Issue/Impact

Context

Men Wom en 1. Environment: a) Pollution: - Land - Water - Air - Noise ‌. b) Changes in quality, quantity - Arable land (degraded, infertile, total area is narrowed)

Solutio n/Actio n Comm unity

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Manual: Gender Impact Assessment of Hydropower project | CSRD

- Water (exhaustion, drought...,) - Forest - Forest resources: deficient - Ecosystem 2. Society: - Social ills - Migration - Unemployment - Diseases - Children’s education 3. Economy: - Income (how does it change) - Expense -The exchanging/buying market - Fell back into poverty 4. Other: - Changes in daily food - Changes in consumer behavior - Customs and traditions Social/Community network (expanded or narrowed); analyze both positive and negative aspects - Access to information

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Manual: Gender Impact Assessment of Hydropower project | CSRD

WOMEN’S NEEDS ASSESSMENT AND EMPOWERMENT TOOL Tool 5. Practical needs and strategic needs assessment - Purpose: This tool helps hydropower project investors understand the needs of women in the current situation. At the same time, it is necessary to consider the issues that need to be changed or can be changed to benefit and empower women in the family, community, and society.

- Key questions: What do men and women need to maintain their current life? What are the priorities for men and women? What are the common needs of both men and women ? How to empower women and accomplish their long-term benefits? What is he aspiration of women?

The gender needs assessment form can be designed properly. The information in the form should be collected in individual meetings with men and women and in group meetings. The example for this tool is below: Gender needs assessment Village/Commune: Practical needs of Women

Strategic needs of Women

- Taking advantage of the - Ensuring equality for women riverbank land to cultivate in agreements relating to community resources - Havert non-timber forest assessment. At the same time, products (NTFPs) in the forest ensure the right to access - Access to the river and clean production land for them. water resources - Representing the unions,

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Manual: Gender Impact Assessment of Hydropower project | CSRD

- Firewood - Garden

agencies in fisheries/agriculture association

the

- Fishing tools

- Having the right to express - Sources of aquaculture and fish ideas and opinions processing - Representing the unions and agencies involved in making - Plant seeds and crops local decisions Needs related to river - Having the opportunity to management and governance: receive leadership training and - Access to the fish consumption hold leadership positions in market projects or the community.

- Having boats/vehicles to travel

Learning, training opportunities - Participate in specific training programs related to the changes - Women should be granted caused by the project with the land use right - Able to find a paid job

- Able to manage (keep) cash - Having the right to make decisions in the family such as educating children, involving in the marriage of their children, etc.

Women participate in research and Gender Impact assessment activities.

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Manual: Gender Impact Assessment of Hydropower project | CSRD

Tool 6. Empowering Women - Purpose: This tool is used to record the activities and programs conducted by the project and the purpose of those activities/programs. This tool encourages project staff to appreciate the importance of these initiatives and seek the ways to positively contribute to women empowerment.

- Key question: Are women consulted for giving feedback to project implementer? Are they fully involved in the decision making process? Are they involved in the planning process for activities? Have project staff been concerned about how to empower the affected women as project designed?

Analysis tool for women’s empowerment Area

Project response or activity

The level of concern about welfare for women Welfa re

1. Employment/ economic activity Gardenin g

Companies provide seeds for resettled households

Acce ss

Consc ientiza tion

Partic ipatio n or mobili zation

Cont rol

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Manual: Gender Impact Assessment of Hydropower project | CSRD

Househol d aquacultu re

Fingerlings provided by a company

Women farmers cooperati ve formed

Financial support/fundi ng

Women represente d on village committe es

Women get paid for each of their working days

Work with the government to ensure equal representatio n of men and women 2. Education Building school

Identified in resettlemen t plan; budget

Building bridge

Identified in

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Manual: Gender Impact Assessment of Hydropower project | CSRD

resettlemen t plan; budget Bus

Provided by company

Local teachers that live at the local community

Build a house within the school for the teachers; work with the local authority to ensure support of the teachers

3. Resources Land rights

Water rights

Work with the local authority to ensure titling includes names of women and men

use Provide resources

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Manual: Gender Impact Assessment of Hydropower project | CSRD

for the establishme nt of women’s water resources; identify women’s priorities Forest Create access and favorable use rights conditions for communiti es to access and use watershed forests; establish forest protection committees including both men and women 4. Household services Access to electricity

Supply electric energy to all houses in the

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Manual: Gender Impact Assessment of Hydropower project | CSRD

resettlement area Install water tap

Develop a prioritybased plan for women

Build house

Women must be involved in the design and decisionmaking process

Note: Some terminology - Welfare: At this level, women will receive material compensation or project benefits.

- Access: Women have equal legal status and rights with men to access productive resources and factors affecting production such as labor, capital, and resources.

- Conscientization: Understanding the difference between sex roles and gender roles so that men and women are equal in the division of labor, no gender is dominated by the other.

- Participation or mobilization: Women are equally involved in project processes including design, decision making, evaluation, mechanism development, and project management.

- Control: Women have equal rights to participate in the decision-making process and this affects the balance in controlling gender roles and responsibilities.

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Manual: Gender Impact Assessment of Hydropower project | CSRD

ATTENTIONS WHEN USING THE TOOLS Problems of practice Gender awareness In general, the awareness on gender isues of hydropower companies and local authorities is still limited. They pay more attention to the formal gender structure and its forms within their own organizations only.

Gender mainstreaming into hydropower development may lead to temporary attention from the stakeholders but it will not exist for long time due to the lack of knowledge and awareness on the importance of gender and social impacts.

Instead, they concerned more about economic values and technological issues in hydropower projects. This leads to disregard or conditional or passive interest of the parties.

Gender awareness can recognize the different gender roles in production and life and therefore be affected differently by the hydropower. However, gender, hydropower and sustainable development, or constructivist ecofeminism (see Cabo 2010) remain the new values that need further improvements.

Complex stakeholders

participation

and

responsibilities

of

From the impact perspective, people often only think of a "single" hydropower plant. However, hydroelectricity usually involves many parties from policymakers, investors, operators, authorities at all levels, etc. with different functions and responsibilities, sometimes they are not coordinating and/ or terminating the mission halfway through which makes it more difficult to require accountability and minimize the impact.

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Manual: Gender Impact Assessment of Hydropower project | CSRD

About the toolkit Advantages: - Target the right people, including: Hydroelectric companies, government representatives at all levels, consultants.

- The order of steps in the manual is very logical: (1) identify the problem, (2) understand the problem, (3) forecast and offer solutions.

- The manual explains: the terms, the meaning of each tool, and gives some specific examples.

- The manual specifies: when the steps of the Gender Impact Assessment will be implemented during the lifespan of a hydropower project.

- The toolkit helps: obtain basic information about the gender impacts of hydropower projects from the perspective of community voice.

Disadvantages: - Oxfam's toolkit is considered as a necessary element but not a sufficient element of a gender impact assessment in hydropower projects.

- Using 06 tools requires participants to actively brainstorm and contribute to be able to complete them all in a working day. For people accustomed to unskilled labor, this is difficult to implement. Therefore, motivators should select information when asking; avoid repetitive boring information, shorten the time and encourage positive thinking and get the result from collaborative groups. People may be more anxious to present negative impacts on their lives than to share gender details that they do not frequently encounter.

- The toolkit has high academic content with some difficult terms to explain to people, especially for ethnic

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Manual: Gender Impact Assessment of Hydropower project | CSRD

minorities with lower education levels. The 6th tool is a specific example. This tool uses many academic, confusing terms but lacks specific conceptual indicators.

- Local officials and staff of hydropower companies have not yet been able to fully participate in CSRD assessments, many people are still not familiar with information collection skills and the awareness-raising on gender equality has not yet been focused.

- Oxfam's toolkit is designed to achieve optimal effectiveness for the Gender Impact Assessment before the project occurs, while CSRD research is conducted at three completed hydropower projects. CSRD did not apply step 5 and step 6, so it was not possible to experience the advantages/ disadvantages of the toolkit when following the right process and time as suggested in the Handbook.

- The toolkit training program needs to be further improved to enhance efficiency (may require additional time), to help trained people really understand the guidelines in the manual and how to implement the toolkit.

- Some tools have long questions and too many detailed conceptual indicators, so it is not possible to conduct the entire toolkit on the same target group in a short time (e.g tool 3: Institutional Analysis tool ).

- Many tools require quantification of division or participation rates for men and women. This requires the moderator to take advantage of the details of each concerned (done by men or women, make decisions by men or women), and at the same time quantify (for example, Picture 1). There are no specific guidelines for the application of framworks/

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Manual: Gender Impact Assessment of Hydropower project | CSRD

The research tools have both male and female participants

scales in these tools. Due to this lack of guidance for each tool, it is difficult to evaluate the answers and to synchronize information or to process data. Meanwhile, the assessor is forced to give a certain percentage which is unwilling for the participants. And the information given by the participants is more personal. For example, if the discussion results of male or female and male groups are discussed, the participation rate of men is higher than that of women. However, as a result of the women's group, the information will be misleading, even contradictory. The main reason is that women are often afraid to express their opinions or because they depend on the imposition of men.

According to the practical experience of the GIA team, the language of the toolkit should be conveyed in a familiar way to the people in the community. The team faced many challenges as they tried to quantify the level of workers

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Manual: Gender Impact Assessment of Hydropower project | CSRD

between male and female members of the family. They feel that this number is unfounded. The research team discovered that for people, they needed time to create mutual understanding to grasp the context before implementing the toolkit. In addition, because people often tell their stories in the order of their emotional priority when they recall the impact of the hydropower project on their lives, it requires the team members to receive enough training with instructed skills in using the toolkit flexibly to be able to effectively exploit and gather information.

Picture 1: Using the scale in labor division analysis in Tan Phu village, Ea Noul

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Manual: Gender Impact Assessment of Hydropower project | CSRD

Some tools are more effective at analyzing information instead of collecting information, for example, Tool 3: institutional analysis. Meanwhile, the most important tool is Tool 4: Impact analysis has little space to record the history of the problem, the mood of the community and spiritual and cultural issues.

About knowledge creation Expert knowledge and Community knowledge The tools are designed to exploit information and knowledge of local communities, of men and women in the community on issues of community development and hydropower development. While community knowledge is important, the toolkit needs to be well-selected for additional expert input in the relevant field. Because after all, gender impact assessments are the more systematic and more integrated forecasts of future impacts, even the local people who are experts in their community-related issues have difficulty knowing all the other potential impacts, especially when the water resources on the Srepรณk river have an international basin. ; or challenges of water resources management in the context of industrialization and modernization of the country and national energy development and planning.

Besides, the toolkit has not introduced some of the more in-depth steps to analyze data, such as the interaction analysis matrix, building perspectives, and action plans.

This set of tools makes an important assumption that "gender approaches at all levels of business structure,

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Manual: Gender Impact Assessment of Hydropower project | CSRD

development and project management are good for business".

Gender analysis and gender impact assessment are used to inform decision making to help hydropower projects avoid further discrimination, and instead, a project can play an active role in helping realize women's rights.

A quick profile This toolkit is effective in providing us with profiles of development, gender, hydropower impacts, and community needs and is quantified. However, it may be historical, but the regional and ethnic characteristics that influence gender concepts and stories, the sentiments of the community and its members may be less visible.

For example, when listening to resettled people talk about their joys when they first migrated from the North to the fertile land of Buon Don, which they called "drop the seeds, the trees will grow", or "cut the cassava to raise the loofah" to see the rich life they are expecting and try to get to it; then came the feeling of "half glad, half worried" when they heard that the survey team is about to relocate because of hydroelectricity, with the questions "what will happen next to my life?"; and to the present, the new compensation procedures, the new negative impacts of hydropower lead to the "complex", "diffusion", and "bored" mood (see also Picture 11). Positive interventions from hydropower planners, development workers, and local authorities need to hear and respond to these needs and moods.

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Manual: Gender Impact Assessment of Hydropower project | CSRD

Picture 11: Community mood through key development milestones

About gender and sustainable development Gender equality and women's development Oxfam's approach is the first attempt to bring gender into water management and sustainable development in the region.

On the one hand, gender assessment helps the parties to have intervention plans and activities based on the different needs of men and women. On the other hand, initiatives to promote the development of women need to be further promoted.

The subject of sustainable development Gender impact assessment needs to pay attention to promoting the rights of people and nature as a separate subject.

It needs to pay attention to strategic environmental issues and sustainable development. Taking the opinions of the people

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Manual: Gender Impact Assessment of Hydropower project | CSRD

below as an example, when being asked about the most current needs for the impacts of hydropower, it is necessary to consider the attention of the stakeholders: “Nothing compares to water. The primary problems are all about water.

It is back to how it used to be?

The research team has been successful with the participation of local authorities, commune women's unions, men and women from the GIA project communities.

However, it cannot attract employees of hydropower plans in the assessment. Evidence from 03 rounds of gender impact assessments conducted in provinces in the Central and Central Highlands of Vietnam shows that the project did not pass the authorities at different levels in the provinces of the project area. CSRD has established contacts with hydropower companies, but only the representatives of the hydropower companies involved in the gender impact assessment process and used the collected insights into the decision-making process. In this case, it is clear that the staff of the hydropower plants are not in the expected capacity building ability provided by the project.

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Manual: Gender Impact Assessment of Hydropower project | CSRD

SOME TOOLS SHOULD BE INCORPORATED INTO THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE GENDER IMPACT ASSESSMENT KIT 1. Village History Purpose: Village history and diagrams create understanding and empathy between the implementation staff and the community. People recalled the courteous imprints of the right development and encouraged the spirit of solidarity and mutual support.

2. Village Diagram Drawing Purpose: assess and analyze the overall situation of the village. Provide difficulties and solutions in each area of the village. Acting as a basis for discussing and developing development plans.

3. Household Economy Classification Purpose: To help the locals identify and discuss solutions to improve the living conditions of poor households in the village. It helps to monitor and evaluate the impact of the program or project in the following years.

4. Information Network Analysis Purpose: assess the current status of information received by the households. Thereby, people self-assess the quality of information from sources they find reliable, suitable for life and especially the information is applied to actual production.

Identify remaining problems and difficulties with information and through which people raise their wishes, through discussion, making suggestions to improve the dissemination and quality of information.

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