Women in Vanuatu contributing to research. Photo by Naomi Carrard, ISF UTS
A new report by researchers at The Australian National University has revealed that non-government organisations (NGOs) are being hampered in their efforts to close the gender gap in the countries in which they are working. Launched today in Canberra, Closing the Gender Gap: Gender and Australian NGOs found that pressures from partner organisations in developing countries, what NGOs saw as competing policy issues set by donors, and internal capacity issues meant gender integration was generally weak. Authors Patrick Kilby and Jo Crawford from the ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences said that despite virtually universal commitment to goals and strategies, implementation of gender equality policies had proved challenging for Australian NGOs. "Including a strong gender perspective in development has been an issue for development agencies since the mid 1970s when the Mexico Women's Conference agreed to women and development approaches in aid and development programs," Kilby said. "Since then, bilateral, multilateral, and NGOs, have all agreed to develop gender policies and practices which address inequalities in power relations and access to development resources between men and women. "AusAID research has found that while NGOs are generally effective and some progress has been made in the fields of women's access to education and health, overall, the history of gender integration in development has been weak, and NGOs themselves perceive this as a problem." The authors surveyed 15 NGOs including large, small, religious, and secular representatives and found that the level of awareness of gender issues was strong among all agencies.
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