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OAS SEEKS TO BRING GENDER EQUALITY INTO MAINSTREAM

The Organization of American States (OAS) wrapped up phase one of a gender mainstreaming workshop at its Headquarters on Thursday, with participants welcoming the opportunity to learn more about issues surrounding gender equality in the Organization’s programming.

The training program forms part of initiatives to bring gender considerations into the mainstream of the OAS activities, in keeping with a mandate to achieve gender equity and equality throughout the Hemisphere by implementing, among other things, the Inter-American Program on the Promotion of Women's Human Rights, spearheaded by the Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM). The project was funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) grant to the tune of Can$500,000.

Kartini International, the Canadian consulting firm that conducted the training, will move to the next phase in late January in Montevideo, Uruguay, where they will train the OAS’ Spanish-speaking staff working at the offices in member countries. The training returns to Headquarters in February, with six more training sessions, and then to Miami in early March to train English-speaking staff of the OAS national offices.

Declaring this pilot phase a success, Carmen Lomellin, the CIM Executive Secretary, said she was excited by the training as it will tremendously benefit the OAS and the people the Organization serves in the Hemisphere. “It bodes well for the OAS when both men and women benefit from their democracies.”

According to Dana Peebles, one of the Kartini trainers, the participants offered many creative ideas and enthusiasm as to how they themselves are going to integrate gender within their own work and within the institution. “We came to provide tools and concepts,” she said, noting the institution will have to determine how to follow up.


Peebles said one focus is to dispel misconceptions about gender, looking instead at developing policies and programs “that fit right in with the OAS policies about public participation and basic human rights.” She went on to state that, “even more importantly, it really is an approach that has been demonstrated to work much more effectively. It’s not a slur on anybody’s personal level of competence, but it’s an approach which many international institutions have adopted because they find that the projects work better and policies work more effectively when they are inclusive of the main people who are going to be affected, or the main actors.”

When the OAS launched the project at a conference last May, Secretary General César Gaviria declared gender mainstreaming to be "imperative for building stronger, more prosperous democracies in the Americas." He added: "If the women of the Americas don't have the same access to opportunities as men, then we are failing in the responsibilities of democracy."

He cited research linking inequity and persistent poverty, and spoke about the progress by the hemispheric Organization to redress the situation. He stressed that the project will help train the Organization's personnel in the best practices to incorporate gender perspective.

Reference: E-231/02