By Helen Bradbury: Team Leader, Alliances Lesser Caucasus Programme
We are in an interesting conundrum. Gender in most places has been written-in to law. Bar a few notable exceptions, every country in the world, has varying degrees of success in applying universal suffrage. Fifty countries are signed up to the CEDAW convention (the UN’s Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women). On the CEDAW world map of Discrepant Government Behaviour Concerning Women, the countries shaded dark green which denotes ‘virtually no enforcement of laws consonant with CEDAW or such laws do not even exist’, are where you expect them to be and in fact they are relatively few. It is the next two categories which disturb, covering the vast majority of the globe, the mid and lighter green, where laws are partly or fully consonant with CEDAW but there is little effective enforcement or spotty enforcement of them and the issue is low priority or hit and miss. After the gains, the laws and ratifications of the last centuries it seems that we must tread very carefully indeed for we must counteract indifference, in which inertia and inactivity stop us moving forward.
In Britain in 1913 Emily Davison threw herself under the kings horse at the Epson Derby, women were in and out of prison under the cat and mouse act where they were let out to gain in strength after their relentless hunger striking and brutal force-feeding and then put back in again. They engaged in arson, attacked works of art. This was the fight for the vote for women in Britain, visible, violent and vehement. In 1928 they got franchaise equal to men. Whether you were fighting for or against, agreed or not, you cared, passionately.
Those of us who interest ourselves in activities concerning the development of equitable solutions to development problems, who are concerned with ensuring that both women and men benefit from strategies designed to impact the poor, have probably at some time in our dealings experienced a certain phenomenon. I was vastly reassured recently, if not slightly depressed, to see that even Hillary Clinton, one of the most powerful women in the world, had experienced it:
“I have been championing the rights of women and girls around the world and here at home for many years,” “and I got tired of seeing...foreign leaders, business executives, even senior officials in our own government...smile and nod when I raised these issues… ‘Oh right, I knew she was going to raise women and girls, I will just sit here and smile, it will pass, and then we’ll talk about really important things."
Hillary Clinton, Data2X Press Event, New York, January 12, 2015
Being Hillary Clinton probably guaranteed the smiles, in my dealings, in the course of programming and most notably with all levels of government, I have experienced some less sanguine reactions, but most often a shrug, an intake of breath, a glazing over, a good time to check the cell phone and a knowledge as she rightly points out that it will pass fairly soon, being as it is, as everyone has figured out, an add on. It is insidious in its passivity, there is no heat in the exchange as we are all of course in agreement, and the issue slips away, dissolves in inactivity.
How then do we keep it alive? How do we stop it being an add-on and counteract indifference? How do we make it real in a constructive way? How do we make sure it gets done?
Equitable solutions and women’s economic empowerment (WEE) which is what we work for on the ALCP, require hard work and they are difficult to do, but not because the means to achieve the solutions are complicated, they are in fact extremely simple, but they do require coordination, commitment, cooperation, and most of all persistence. Tools, procedures, operating mechanisms and strategy for ensuring women’s economic empowerment must be built in to the programme structure, adhered to and carried out every day as normal. They must be operationalized. The issue of indifference here noted in government could equally be applied to development. Not in ethos and intent, but in practice. In a recent literature review of measuring women’s economic empowerment, of the thirty projects reviewed only eleven had an indicator to measure the most basic of all WEE measurements; access to services. The primary recommendation in the review for projects to improve their WEE performance was to collect gender disaggregated data. This is just the bottom line.
We talk of complex issues, change pathways, negotiating ancient customs of how to measure agency over household income. Just doing the basics would be a great start and essential first step. Hillary Clinton is of course once more on the button with Data2X—a joint project, with the Clinton & Gates foundations, UN and others, to gather and start a gender data revolution, which will allow policymakers to recognize problems more clearly and create more informed policy. The first step is clear, we all know what to do, we just need to do it and keep doing it.
For more on operationalizing WEE in Alliances see: DCED Webinar Measuring Women's Economic Empowerment
Measuring Women's Economic Empowerment in Private Sector
Helen Bradbury is a development professional with a career spanning market system approaches to solving problems ranging from the welfare of working horses in Ethiopia to early economic recovery in post-tsunami Indonesia. She now manages Mercy Corps' flagship market systems development SDC funded Alliances programme in Georgia, and advises on M4P and women's economic empowerment. See www.aclp.ge for more details.
The ALCP facilitated the Georgian Beekeepers Union (GBU) in development of the honey promotion video, depicting the story of Georgia as a land of the oldest honey discovered and unique biodiversity to support awareness raising and promote export potential of Georgian honey and Jara. The video was shared with different stakeholders and social networks.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs shared it with their internal networks of embassies in Georgia and foreign countries and it was uploaded in a Georgian production section. The video is on Facebook of the Embassy of Switzerland in Georgia. The Georgian National Tourism Agency; The Department of Tourism and Resorts of Ajara; the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture; and The Agency of Protected Areas are sharing it with their network.
It has reached the highest views on the popular Facebook platforms Marketer.ge and Georgian Wine. To date the video has 185,000 views and 6,000 shares. The majority of the viewers are emphasizing on interesting story mentioned in the video they did not know before and are sharing it for further promotion.
The products with 'Georgian Milk Mark' are now available in the supermarkets of Georgia.
The 'Georgian Milk Mark' is officially registered and serves to distinguish dairy products made from natural milk.
The documentary Jara is now available for sale on amazon.
Jara is a fairy tale journey through one year in the mountains of Ajara. A story of the shifting boundary between human habitat and wild nature, portrays everyday lives in the changing seasons. The wooden jara in the forest and the bees living within it are the fixed point in the story.
The film was named as the best feature film at the Wolves Independent International Film Festival2018 in Lithuania, and won the Golden Green Award 2018 at the Deauville Green Awards International Film Festival in France for the best production in the category of Sustainable Agriculture; the cameramen of the movie received an award from International Festival of TV and Movie Cameramen the Golden Eye 2018 for Best TV Camera Work.
The main backer of Jara is the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) through the Mercy Corps Georgia implemented Alliances Lesser Caucasus Programme.
Jara honey, collected from the local beekeepers in Ajara, has been officially branded and packaged for the first time. It is now ready to enter the international markets.
On 8th of November, 2018, the Government of Georgia adopted regulation #525, which forbids registration of the vet drugs containing prohibited antibiotics, like, chloramphenicol, metronidazole, dimetridazole, ronidazole, nitrofuran (including furazolidone) which are widely used in beekeeping. The regulation entered into force on 1st of January, 2019 and was nationally covered by the media outlets. The regulation was proposed by the Veterinary Department of the NFA, after this constraint was raised at the first Honey Sector Advisory Committee on 22nd of June, 2018, which brought together honey stakeholders to discuss tackling the high levels of antibiotic residues in honey which are limiting the development of the honey sector.
An article about Veterinary Surveillance Points (VSP) has been published in a quarterly bulletin of OIE – the World Organization for Animal Health. The article covers topics on the tradition of livestock seasonal movement in Georgia, the necessity of establishing VSPs and the importance of the points in animal health control throughout the country. The author of the publication is the Head of the Veterinary Department of the National Food Agency and the OIE Delegate of Georgia - Lasha Avaliani.
Please follow the link: Oiebulletin/veterinary-surveillance-points
