Projects

Short Description:

Overall goal

The project aims to provide new data and analysis to help policy makers and gender equality experts to identify discriminatory laws and norms that hamper inclusive growth and social transformation, and to support the design of transformative and holistic policies. It also aims to fill the existing knowledge gaps on how gendered norms, in particular restrictive masculinities, lower women’s decision making power and enable violence against women.

The specific objectives include:

1. To monitor global progress and setbacks towards gender equality since 2019, especially related to social institutions, with a focus on developing countries;

2. To measure masculine norms to promote gender-equitable masculinities, starting with two pilot countries in Africa;

3. To develop capacity among stakeholders for transformative policy making, through policy dialogues.

Expected results

1. Contribution to the global Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) 2023 database

2. New revamped edition of the Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) Global Report

3. New database on masculine norms through two pilot studies

4. Synthesis report on masculinities

5. Enhanced capacity-development for transformative and holistic policy making

6. Policy dialogue on the new SIGI Global Report

Target group / Beneficiaries

The immediate target group of the project will be:

• About 200 policy makers related to gender machineries in 181 countries that will be covered by the 2023 edition of the SIGI

• 5-10 international/regional institutions in Africa such as UN Women, the World Bank, the African Development Bank, the African Union and UNECA, ASEAN, ECLAC as well as Promundo and Care International

• About 150 policy makers and representatives from Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) who will be engaged in the workshops organised in the two countries for masculinities pilar

• Researchers, development cooperation and development practitioners (including foundations and MNEs).

The ultimate and long-term beneficiaries of this project will be women and girls, men and boys who will benefit from improved and informed policy-making on gender equality. The impact of the project, including the overall number of beneficiaries, can be measured by tracking follow up actions by the two countries when it comes to implementing the policy recommendations put forward by the OECD Development Centre and/or integrating them into their policy interventions and national development strategies. For example, the government of Burkina Faso used the findings of the SIGI Country study in Burkina Faso (2018) to reform its law on Violence against Women, which criminalised marital rape. This will impact the lives of thousands of women and girls.

Activities

The main activities will be achieved through three main pillars:

Pillar 1: Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) 2023

• Up-to-date SIGI 2023 database

• New SIGI 2023 Global Report

Pillar 2: Measuring masculinities

• New database on masculinities in two pilot countries based on data collection in Uganda and Mozambique

• Synthesis report on masculinities

Pillar 3: Capacity development for better policy making

• A workshop in each of the two pilot countries

• A global policy dialogue

The intervention builds on its previous achievements, notably the SIGI 2019 Global Database, the OECD framework on Masculinities established through the “Man Enough? Measuring Masculine Norms to Promote Women’s Empowerment” publication and the series of African sub-regional policy dialogues carried throughout 2021 in East, Southern and West Africa, which led to the launch of the SIGI 2021 Regional Report for Africa.

Context

Gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls are integral parts of achieving sustainable and inclusive development. The OECD Development Centre’s Gender Programme focuses on discriminatory social institutions that shape and determine equality between women and men in all spheres of public and private life, such as education, health and employment. The OECD’s Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) is a cross-country measure of discrimination against women in social institutions – formal and informal laws, norms and practices. SIGI data and analysis aim to support countries in better understanding the barriers to gender equality and women’s empowerment. SIGI data are widely used by the international community, policy makers, researchers and advocacy groups. SIGI is also an official data source for tracking the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) indicator 5.1.1.

The Austrian Development Agency has supported the SIGI for almost a decade and more recently supported the project “From data to policy action: addressing social institutions governing women’s and men’s behaviours to enhance gender equality in Africa”. This 2-year project aimed to fill existing knowledge gaps on the factors hindering the achievement of African countries’ commitments towards gender equality and the actions that work to address these factors. The project specifically focused on discriminatory laws, social norms and practices that restrict women’s rights and reinforce “restrictive masculinities” or the rigid and inflexible notions and expectations of what it means to be a “real” man in a given society. These norms of restrictive masculinities notably threaten women’s physical integrity, promoting Violence against Women (VAW), Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and restrictions on women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR). The Project aimed to build a robust evidence base on gender equality, to improve knowledge sharing, strengthen regional capacity, foster policy dialogue and integrate new evidence into future policies targeting gender equality, by applying a social norms lens to women’s and men’s beliefs and behaviours.