cles: practical experiences of the central and eastern european region prague, czech republic, june...
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CLES: practical experiences of the Central and Eastern European region
Prague, Czech Republic, June 19-20, 2006
Association for Progressive CommunicationsWomen’s Networking Support Programme.
GEM was designed to assess if ICTs really improve women’s lives and gender relations as well as promote positive change at the individual, institutional, community and broader society levels.
GEM is a is a tool for conducting gender evaluations of initiatives that use Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for social change.
The GEM Project Contextwww.apcwomen.org/gem
GEM was developed by the Association for Progressive Communications Women’s Networking Support Programme (APC WNSP). APC WNSP is a global network that facilitates the strategic use of ICTs in supports of women’s actions and agendas.
WE work in research, training, information, and support activities in the field of ICT policy, skills-sharing in the access and use of ICT, and women's network-building.
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The GEM Project Contextwww.apcwomen.org/gem
It is common for gender issues to be either entirely missing from the evaluation, or otherwise to fade away through the evaluation planning and implementation.
Gender issues may be obvious, invisible or they might not have been clearly defined.
Gender evaluation methodologies, therefore, can be used to investigate whether the intervention are being used in ways that change gender biases and roles and do not simply reproduce and replicate existing ones.
Why was GEM developed?
GEM: Capacity Buildingwww.apcwomen.org/gem
Learning for Change
Linked to actionGender
Analysis
Critical reflection
Learning by doing
Participatory
Change
EMPOWERMENT and SOCIAL CHANGE
The GEM Tool
GEM build evaluation capacity of 32 ICT projects spread over 25 countries in Africa, Asia, Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America:
• Community education and training initiatives for women • Universal access projects such as telecenters• Employment and e-commerce projects• Networking and community building project• Advancement of women's rights through women's information
activities and advocacy campaigns on a range of women's issues
In CEE GEM has been applied by 5 initiatives in Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. In most cases, the evaluations conducted through the GEM project was the first experience of the organisations of a formal evaluation process.
Presenting some applications of GEM
GEM: Capacity Buildingwww.apcwomen.org/gem
Croatia: ZaMirNET Job Search Training Course
The objective of the project was to improve employability of a target group of unemployed, first-time job seekers and people in career transition in two post-war, severely economically deprived communities in Croatia. The training also offers a strategic approach tolabour market analysis and career planning, and deconstructs stereotyping and discriminatory practices in the labour market (gender, ethnicity and age-based).
ZaMirNET had used GEM to monitor the impact of the course on the increase of skills, knowledge and self-confidence of the participants. Beyond that they looked at the gender difference in use of ICTs, and specific needs of and gender related barriers faced by women over 40 during and after the training.
Applications of GEM in Central and Eastern Europe
Romania: E-governance Women Mayors’ Link
This Romanian project aimed to collect information about Women Mayors in the Stability Pact Region and developed UNECE countries (women mayors profiles and localities profiles) by using the e-mail list serve and the interactive web page of the project and create a framework for cooperation between women mayors at both national and regional levels.
GEM was used to evaluate how and to what extent ICT tools influenced the networking process at national, regional and international level, and partnerships-building to foster gender mainstreaming in local governance.
Applications of GEM in Central and Eastern Europe
Workshops proved to be a very effective way to introduce GEM to a wider audience of people working in diverse context. They aimed to introduce the GEM framework and learn about its principles, values
and concepts.
GEM guide contain step-by-step instructions to conducting
evaluations, and is available on-line. Besides that the examples of evaluation plans, and reports are provided, which offers an idea of what can be achieved from using GEM and also providing sample indicators and methodologies.
What steps have been taken to build the capacity?
GEM: Capacity Buildingwww.apcwomen.org/gem
GEM practitioners network compose of the individuals who either participated in the testing of GEM or who attended on of the GEM workshops that we conducted.
The process of forming a GEM practitioners network has been started to 'grow an active practitioners and learning community' through:
• learning from each other’s experiences in evaluation• collaboratively developing more resources• organizing face-to-face training and exchanges• providing spaces for debate and analysis of gender and ICT issues• keeping up to date with the latest development of the GEM tool• finding ways to put GEM results into action.
What steps have been taken to build the capacity?
GEM: Capacity Buildingwww.apcwomen.org/gem
We have learned that gender perspective to be entirely missing from the evaluation of IC4D initiatives.
Thereby it is important to strengthen gender analytical capacity as part of CLES building, in particular to:
• ensure the involvement of country gender experts (universities, gender national machineries, or women's organisations)
• conduct the gender sensitivity session for all stakeholders to establish common ground in understanding of gender issues
• develop measures, benchmarks and indicators for gender equality.
Missing gender perspective
GEM: Lessons Learnedwww.apcwomen.org/gem
Availability of easy to use evaluation guide is critical (step-by-step instructions, practical 'how-to' approaches ).
However the greatest of value of the GEM Tool is that it is an evolving guide derived from actual practice of using it. The lessons and experiences constrained from diverse ICT projects and initiatives that used GEM assist new users to adjust GEM to their contexts and realities.
Simplicity and practice
GEM: Lessons Learnedwww.apcwomen.org/gem
Often the concept of evaluation in the organization was linked to a donor requirement, an externally imposed system of checking that project objectives have been met and that resources have been wisely utilized.
Encouragement of integration of five pillars of GEM into the evaluation plans assisted to bring the change in the evaluation practice of GEM users:
• strengthen the ownership of evaluations by initiative• supported the negotiation of potential use of evaluations between
different stakeholders, and built their mutual commitment to and ownership of the process and findings.
Learning for change approach
GEM: Lessons Learnedwww.apcwomen.org/gem
