SDC IN MONGOLIA KICKS OFF 2014 HIGHLIGHTS GENDER MAINSTREAMING

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) in Mongolia Wednesday reported that it kicked off 2014 with its annual planning workshop, held on 23 January, placing renewed emphasis on gender-mainstreaming. The second important topic of the day was enhancing coordination between projects and across the domains of intervention: Agriculture and Food Security, Governance, Vocational Education and Training and various. In his opening remarks, SDC’s Director of Cooperation Markus Waldvogel recalled Switzerland’s commitment to direct democracy, participation from and respect of minorities, gender equality, and sustainable environmental, social and economic development in its partner countries. “These values are the ones specifically enlaced in our daily work, and for 2014 mainstreaming gender equality shall gain momentum, impacting on SDC’s work,” he said. SDC has explicitly recognized gender equality as one of its key organizational values and is committed to the promotion of gender-mainstreaming in both its programmes and within the agency itself. SDC has asked its projects to develop and present a gender action plan for 2014 to be reviewed by gender experts in Mongolia, including National Gender Committee Secretary Ms M. Bolormaa. One of the panelists, Ms. G. Urantsooj, Chairperson of the Centre for Human Rights Development NGO, has repeatedly called for the integration of gender-related public attitudinal and behavioral changes in project and activity outcomes. In order to do this, SDC projects will need to develop gender action plans that anticipate such impacts at the project outcome level, looking beyond simple sex-disaggregated figures of project participants. Placing a stronger focus on gender led SDC to analyze its photographic archive to determine if projects were exercising gender-sensitivity. An analysis of more than 90 photos featuring more than three people revealed that almost half of the images were male-dominated (more than 80 percent were male participants); a quarter of the photos equally represented both women and men. Photos speak louder than words, and this exercise served to encourage projects to be more gender-sensitive in their future activities. As a result of the workshop, SDC project managers and staff were able to outline several possible inter-domain joint activities, and participants’ knowledge of the work of other projects was enhanced. “We are often too busy looking at our own projects,” said Ms P. Lkham from the UNDP Capacity Strengthening for the Local Self-Governing Bodies project. “However, today I saw the bigger picture of how we are contributing to greater development work by SDC in Mongolia. Our project planned a joint environmental monitoring with the SDC’s Engaging Stakeholders in the Environmental Conservation Project and the Sustainable Artisanal Mining Project. There will also be a joint training with the SDC’s Fostering Civic Engagement Project on citizens’ participation for the Local Citizens’ Representative Khural members with an aim to improve their oversight functions. We all know the strengthened local khurals can serve for better local people lives.”