Fy15 progress highlights on gicg q1

FY15 Q1 Progress on the Gender Internal Change Goal

September 2014

FY15 Q1 Progress on the

Highlights from FY15 Q1

Gender Internal Change Goal Key Themes of the GICG

Theme 1

Theme 2

Theme 3

Appropriate planning and MEL to facilitate learning and strategic decision making including increased rigor in research

Higher bar for partners on women’s leadership including strengthened capacity that ultimately protect women’s rights

Investment in staff capacity for gender analysis and gender integration

2 stated commitment in the OASP to “Integrating and highlighting gender in all our work” isTheme the clearly advance the gender justice agenda. This summary provides key organizational, programmatic, and policy and campaigning highlights on FY15 Q1 progress against the OA Gender Internal Change Goal (GICG). The previous update of FY14 Q4 can be found here.

Interactive map for “Working Poor in America”

In FY15 Q1, OA has invested in MEL and research with a focus on gender to promote strategic decision-making. The increased collaboration with external partners indicates our continuous efforts in advancing gender justice through our programming and policy and campaigns work.

WISE finalized a feasibility study to understand the context of gender and economics of women-run SMEs in Guatemala and created the first baseline study to understand relative levels of economic empowerment.

In our Behind the Brands and GROW work, MARS, Mondelez & Nestle have released their gender/cocoa assessments and action plans to address gender in their cocoa supply chains. These are rd

currently under 3 party review, which means all three companies have met our asks from the BTB gender roadmap.

USRO’s “Working Poor in America” study and online interactive maps have provided an analysis of low-wage workers, amongst whom female workers are the majority. This fact is striking in the interactive maps when comparing the map of female low-wage workers to male low-wage workers.

As part of the Sexual Harassment (SH) planning process in USRO’s Decent Work program, 13 focus groups have been held with women farmworkers across the country. The findings will be prepared for an in person meeting for the SH planning committee in Q2.

Extractives Industry research is underway on impacts on women of the Tahoe Mine in Guatemala. Gender indicators are to be included in new version of Community Consent Index (CCI).

Numerous partners including local and international NGOs, foundations, and governments contributed to emphasizing women’s leadership and promoting women’s rights around the globe.

As a policy win for GROW, Mondelēz International, the world’s largest chocolate company, unveiled new plans for its “Cocoa Life” program to help advance the rights of female cocoa farmers in two of the world’s largest cocoa-growing countries, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. A consultant for MARS mentioned that Oxfam had really raised profile of the gender issue for Mondelez, who is now heavily investing time and money into the issue, and sees a real impact with this effort.

In Humanitarian Advocacy and Campaigning, the Senate FY15 appropriations bill includes a mandate that US funding support programming that would expand the role of women in peace negotiations and in any political transition in Syria. OA had lobbied on these issues with SFOPS appropriators in collaboration with the Syrian women leaders and Oxfam Ambassador and Nobel Laureate Leymah Gbowee.

In CAMEXCA’s SfC project, there was a signed agreement between OA and Defensoria of Indigenous Women to facilitate training in Citizenship Rights of Indigenous women. This was for the team of promoters working with SFC in Guatemala to be replicated with savings groups.

The Female Food Heroes (FFH) and Oxfam staff in Nigeria, Tanzania, and Ethiopia actively participated in meetings around the AU Joint Ministerial Meeting, April 30May 2, which focused on agriculture and food security. Discussions with Minsters included speaking about water issues which ended up with a Minister in Nigeria agreeing to build a dam in an area where the FFH is from. In Tanzania, 20 finalists have entered the Maisha Plus reality TV village to stay there for 21 days and the TV show is airing daily.

In WISE, local market-linkage and microfinance organizations in Guatemala distributed 500 flyers to women entrepreneurs already participating in their programs. 250 applications were received from women interested in participating in the WISE program. 20 were selected for participation in preinvestment training in Sololá, Guatemala.

WISE also achieved funding commitments of $650,000 for the WISE Fund, exceeding our first close funding goal.

Women Hero Irrigators honored in Ethiopia

In the HARO Ethiopia Water Program, May 20, 2014 was a day of celebration for women who live in central rift valley of Ethiopia. Around 120 women from five districts in the Oromia Region gathered to pay tribute to women hero irrigators with music, dancing, and special awards and to encourage women irrigators and share their experience with fellow farmers to learn from their achievements.

Representatives from Oxfam and its partner organizations, Sustainable Environment and Development Association (SEDA), Center for Development initiatives (CDI), Rift Valley Children and Women Development (RCWDO), and government officials gathered to share their excitement and celebration.

Oxfam had a speaking role on gender at the Cocoa Vision global meeting, in addition to an OI staffer speaking at World Cocoa Foundation meeting. These speaking engagements are the result of Oxfam’s leadership on gender issues and engagement with the biggest chocolate companies via BtB. In Organizing & Alliances, Sisters on the Planet (SOP) Ambassador and Eat for Equity Executive Director Emily Torgrimson attended the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, TN where she and her team with the support of Oxfam America organized two GROW Method meals for festival go-ers. Each meal was attended by 100 people.

Sisters on the Planet Ambassador Emily Torgrimson In the EI program in Bolivia, partner CEDLA organized a Workshop on Gender and Tax Justice in coordination with UN Women, with participation of more than 50 representatives including local governments, Universities and NGOs. The output was a stronger network on Tax justice and Development with a consolidated working group of 20 organizations focused on gender oriented budgets.

EARO’s FLAIR program is seeing continued success with the Gender Road Maps. They seem to provide quick results in term of changing gender roles, gender relations and behavior change in a short period of time. FLAIR will include this component into the partner impact assessment in November as input for the program’s AIR.

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In Q1, Oxfam released the Transformative Leadership for Women's Rights Guide.

In addition to strengthening partner capacity to protect women’s rights, Q1 saw Oxfam-wide collaboration to advance the gender agenda.

The guide is developed to explore the meaning of transformative leadership and how it links to gender justice and women's rights. This guide is developed for Oxfam staff and partners to demonstrate practically how we can apply this approach in our programs and organizations.

Text for photo Opening ceremony for SfC Capitalization Workshop

On April 14 and 15, 2014, WARO and Community Finance organized a capitalization workshop on the Saving for Change (SfC) Program in Mali. The event was fully supported by all the Affiliates in the Country, the Consortium Partners and the Mali Government through the Ministry of the Promotion of the Women, the Family and the Children. The Government representative expressed the proudness to have SfC because “Women are the main actors of family welfare in almost every household and reaching as many women means having actually touched a number of people much higher than we can imagine.

Despite their greater numbers, women are still largely under-represented in decision-making positions at all levels.

Their representation in public institutions also remains low. Huge challenges remain to ensure political advancement of women. We must dare to tackle it.”

Oxfam America marched in the Boston Pride parade and shared learnings/best practices with Oxfam Canada, who organized a presence at World Pride and the International Human Rights Conference at World Pride in Toronto in late June. Events at World Pride included marching in the World Pride parade, networking parties, volunteering at the International Human Rights Conference, and light fundraising/brand work.

Delegates from GLBTQI rights organizations from Cuba, Mozambique,

Conclusion FY15 Q1 has contributed to build on the significant foundation of the Gender Internal Change Goal since the launch of the new strategic plan. Our MEL work promoted learning and strategic decision-making with Q1 showing a strong push in our initiatives towards women’s leadership and rights. FY15 proves exciting with the launch of the Confederation’s official Gender Roadmap entitled “Beyond Gender Mainstreaming: Roadmap on Putting Women’s Rights at the Heart of All We Do.” Additionally, Q3 will see the launch of the Gender Justice Online Learning Series, an elearning module accessible to all Oxfam staff worldwide. Stay tuned!

and Vietnam were in attendance.

Oxfam at the World Pride Parade

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