The document posted in this blog brings together the ideas of some 40 experts involved in gender and participatory research that took part in the Workshop on Repositioning Gender-Responsive Participatory Research (GRPR) in Times of Change in Cali, Colombia (June 16–18, 2010). The participants came from the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), national agricultural research systems (NARS), NGOs, academia, regional agricultural research organizations and the UN. They therefore comprised a broad range of stakeholders from around the world.While posting the Global Strategy for GRPR and Action Plan we are launching this blog. We welcome your comments and suggestions! Remember this document belongs to all of us!
Click here to download the document
16 comments:
Now here goes the comment I wanted to send. I've been watching the blog and haven't seen any comments from those who were at the workshop. I'm a bit disappointed, because I'm the one who put the 2nd draft of the Strategy and Work Plan together at Patricia's request. I used the notes from Guy who had compiled his, Sophie's and Simone's. It's tricky trying to put a document together that truly reflects everyone's views. Maybe I didn't get it right. If you all add your comments and thoughts, it can truly be your document. The only comments so far are from Amber -- maybe she could post them here??
add including the young and old in the mission so that it reads: To foster the empowerment of women and men including the young and old poor resource farmers
Rethinking on Maria’s instruction on how to post a comment…..It is actually, NOT necessary to have a Google account for posting a comment. You should go all the way down in the comments section, click on Post a Comment and then on the left side you have to Choose an Identity, even as Name/URL (and this is as simple as just writing Claudia) or Anonymous…then write your comment and finally just click on Publish your Comment, that’s all.
The GRPR Strategy reads well.
I recommend that you do not include color annotations, such as mentioned on page 2 (red) and on page 8 ("blue text" and "black text"). When printed they can not be seen.
The "finite life" of the GRPR initiative is mentioned in a foot note on page 8. Why not talking about an explicit exit strategy?
I think the document fairly represents what we discussed at the workshop. Having said that, the difficulty is in actually implementing all the steps we outlined within our respective Centers within the CG change process. I, for one, am finding it a challenge to manage both the GRPR and Megaprogram process at the same time and would suspect that other CG colleagues are under similar pressure.
I agree with most of the strategy but I consider we need to clear roles of institutions without left being participatory. I think we need to think more in the role of universities (academia)on gender responsive and participatory research. Univ not only are research centers but they are also centers of education/formation. If we are thinking in a change, I think we need to start working or making partnerships with centers where the future generations/minds that will be leading GRPR initiatives from different organizations (CG, NGO, GOs, etc) are. If we have org. leaders gender sensitives from formation, things would be easier. Just a thought.
I don't like the wording that the vision was "cobbled" - that has negative connotations in British English.
I'd really like to know what people think of the new Vision statement compared to the one in the post-Workshop Press Release.
sorry to be late with this, no reflection on any lack of enthusiasm for the GRPR.
Page 1: “CG Centers have mildly achieved a critical mass”, is not clear
On page 4, under Multiple Options:
1. Could be stronger by inserting something about larger impacts of climate change on women due to their roles as primary farmers, natural resource managers
Under Scientists..: “they need to be open to advocacy type situations that in the past have been seen as outside of the realm of science” . Could be replaced by ‘ advocacy roles or activities’
Mission Statement: the language here is awkward and needs some editing; the correct language is not ‘women and men poor resource farmers, but resource-poor farmers
Footnote 5 states that ‘one is tempted to question the assertion that evidence based advocacy is an effective route” but the strategy remains one of producing more evidence..?? This is not a statement that goes in a footnote, but is one that should be addressed right up front, as it is a very significant ‘fact’ that should be reflected in a strategy.
Page 6: the crucial point that is missing in the description of what needs to change in organizations is that of behaviors and attitudes.
Page 8: Building Accountability: “Analysis of gender-disaggregated data should inform sound policy-making and future research.” I think it is a grave error to refer here to gender-disaggregated data instead of the use of gender analysis, as has always been used and promoted by the PRGA. For me, one of the most striking lessons learned in the Cali meeting was that the participants attending were for the most part not using gender analysis in their work; many did not seem to have even an awareness of the tools, or know where they could gain the skills to learn these. I found it surprising that participants considered that the use of only ‘gender disaggregated data’ as sufficient for incorporating gender into the activities of the Mega programs. Clearly this is a huge area for the GRPR to consider…capacity building is needed in this area, and is not presently supplied by the G and D or anyone else , as far as I know, in the CG system.
The Action Plan:
The work of the Interim Committee listed below is more extensive than originally discussed; it seems that these tasks go beyond what can be expected of this committee, unless additional resources and a mandate are provided.
This is a good list of roles and functions (though I am not sure they were all discussed in the workshop) but clearly, the Initiative requires staff resources to carry out such work.
To address Guy's request for comments on the new Vision: my opinion is that we should stick with the one that was hammered out during the workshop, with everyone's inputs and buy-in, staying true to that agreement. This was the statement reported in the post-Workshop Press Release.
I agree with both Guy and Jeanette on the Mission statement -- my fault, I forgot it was already in the press release.
Meant to say VISION in the above
Thank you CIAT team for your work on this document--I agree with Mark that the challenge will be in the implementation of the plan--especially if folks do not have dedicated time set aside for these activities. Although I do not have specific comments on this version, I am positing some more general comments which are a subset of those I gave for the first version reflecting thoughts from Julia as well as other IFPRI gender researchers.
Strategy Document:
• It would be helpful in the beginning to define what GRPR is, how this differs from PGRA and why there has been a change from the prior to the latter. This may be confusing for readers who do not know the background of the programming.
• In relation to the point above, page 4 reads “Participatory research and gender analysis embody rigorous methods. . .” It is still unclear to me what exactly these methods are: participatory research is one thing, gender analysis is another (yes they can be done together) but, for a social scientist, simply saying “Participatory research and gender analysis” is a big question mark as to what we are actually talking about here. I understand this is a short document and therefore cannot go in-depth and in this case, a reference where the method are explained would suffice.
• The strategy document is titled and brought forth as a “Global Strategy,” yet the program is hosted at CIAT and it was our understanding that the program going forward would be focused on CIAT and regional programs/impacts/policy. This is not to say there will not be global reach and collaboration, but that this would be secondary to CIAT specific programs. Perhaps this would be good to clarify or explain in the document.
Action Plan:
• Again, same point as above on the “Global Action Plan” vs. CIAT specific focus. For example, the following action points seem very similar to that of the proposed Gender Platform. Is this the objective? Is there support for these activities? Much of this will encompass gender research of all kinds, not just GRPR. Or, will these be more CIAT focused—in which case this should be specified.
1) Position GRPR champions as providers of sound gender resources (research results, information, guidelines, frameworks, budgeting, etc.), 2)
Link GRPR champions into COP networks, 3) Raise awareness of GRPR within organization
Build organizational capacity in GRPR—managers, researchers in general and GRPR specialists
4) Determine gender implications of all (existing & new) projects, 5)Build gender-sensitivity (if not gender-responsiveness) into the ‘fabric’ of all R&D programs and projects (including milestones and M&E)
• All the IFPRI folks involved in MP writing will of course hope to include gender as much as possible and keep us updated on the network building activities for inclusion (listserv etc.)
The Strategy and Work Plan, for what has been named the Gender Responsive Participatory Research Initiative, resulting from the Workshop “Repositioning PRGA in Times of Change”, will be finalized by the end of September. The documents will be presented to the Interim Committee of the GRPR Initiative and to the funders of the workshop and posted on the workshop website. At that time we will consider our task complete.
As you all know, the workshop was the final activity of the System-wide Participatory Research and Gender Analysis Program that has formally closed down after 12 years of work. CIAT has retained the former systemwide program team and created a new program (CIAT-PRGA) which is in the process of developing a new pathway to enhance gender and participatory research across the Center's programs in Africa, Asia and LAC, as well as in the Megaprograms that CIAT participates in. Since June the CIAT-PRGA has been facilitating the communication process to insure that the Strategy and Work Plan for the GRPR Initiative reflects the discussions that were held during the workshop.
All comments sent by Monday 6th are going to be included in the final document. The final version of the GRPR Strategy and Workplan will incorporate the comments and suggestions received by Monday September 6. Comments posted on the blog have been reviewed by all of you. However since those received in the documents using “track changes” have not been seen by all, they will be incorporated as far as they reinforce and/or complement the opinions expressed during the Workshop and/or in the blog.
Future actions in relation to the Global Initiative need to be agreed among those who feel that they have a role in bringing it to bloom. For the moment the leadership is in the hands of the Interim GRPR Committee, which you designated on the last day of the workshop. The committee members are: John Dixon (Chair), Stefania Grando and Jeannette Gurung.
CIAT-PRGA is willing to keep the blog active so that the workshop participants can continue to communicate and share information.
I want to warmly thank all of you for your support throughout this time of change and look forward to remaining in touch.
Patricia
First, greetings to all June Cali workshop participants; your energy and experience created the unique 'GRPR' and now we have to find a mechanism to implement the vision. And let me apologize for being unavoidably off-line for so long.
Second, we all owe a note of appreciation to those, including Maria, who have done a great job of synthesising the ideas of the workshop into a coherent Strategy, dramatically improved since the first draft of early July. As noted in the comments above, it would benefit from some further editing, not least a paragraph explaining the potential positioning of GRPR in the international 'grpr' landscape.
Third, in my view the Action Plan needs a bit of reorganization and adjustment. The dependence on the interim group is misplaced; as it stands the group has neither the capacity nor resources to take on many major tasks.
Fourth, in that connection I would like to repeat my call during the closing session of the workshop for volunteers to help move GRPR ahead. MP champions have been contributing intensively during the past months, and would bring key experience to the effort. Clearly, there could be strategic contributions from all those in the workshop. I am personally happy to continue to contribute substantial effort to the facilitation of this important cause. So the present interim group looks forward to volunteers to help with the nurturing and facilitating GRPR!!
best, John
I'm really enjoying the theme/design of your site. Do you ever run into any internet browser compatibility problems? A couple of my blog visitors have complained about my site not operating correctly in Explorer but looks great in Safari. Do you have any recommendations to help fix this problem?
my blog info
Thanks on your marvelous posting! I certainly enjoyed reading it, you can
be a great author. I will be sure to bookmark your blog and definitely
will come back later on. I want to encourage
yourself to continue your great job, have a nice afternoon!
Also visit my blog ... weight lost
Post a Comment