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Evaluation of ODIHR gender programme work in Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia FEBRUARY 2009 EVALUATION OF ODIHR GENDER PROGRAMME WORK IN KYRGYZSTAN, AZERBAIJAN, ARMENIA, AND GEORGIA Research Team: Robert Orttung Aaron Presnall Mira Karybaeva Zulfiya Kochorbaeva Vladimir Korotenko February 2009 Commissioned by the OSCE-ODIHR © 2009 Jefferson Institute all rights reserved No parts of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the Jefferson Institute. For electronic copies of this report, visit www.jeffersoninst.org. Limited print copies are also available. To request a copy send an e-mail to [email protected] ISBN 978-86-86975-06-5 table of contents I. EVALUATION OF ODIHR GENDER PROGRAMME WORK IN KYRGYZSTAN, AZERBAIJAN, ARMENIA, AND GEORGIA …………………………………………………………………………………………………………..1 II. KYRGYZSTAN COUNTRY STUDY…………………………………………………………………………………....................22 III. AZERBAIJAN COUNTRY STUDY………..………………………………………………………………………………….…….54 IV. ARMENIA COUNTRY STUDY……………………………………………………………………………………………………..79 V. GEORGIA COUNTRY STUDY…………………………………………………………………………………………………….103 VI. METHODOLOGY……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...128 EVALUATION OF ODIHR GENDER PROGRAMME WORK IN KYRGYZSTAN, AZERBAIJAN, ARMENIA, AND GEORGIA Short description of the Gender Programmes, Objectives and Tasks set by ODIHR The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) Gender Programme has operated since 2000 in the South Caucasus and Central Asia with the goal of promoting gender equality, women’s leadership and participation in the decision-making process, the use of gender expertise to inform decisions, and efforts to combat domestic violence. In difficult conditions, the programme has had a powerful impact in increasing the role of women in public life, helping to stimulate coalition building among women’s groups, contributing to awareness raising on gender equality through gender education and improving the response to violence against women. This summary overview provides a synopsis of these achievements, along with cross-cutting recommendations on next steps, while the full text of the evaluation spells out our observations and recommendations in greater detail, country by country. The ODIHR Gender Programme became operational in the countries of Central Asia and the South Caucasus (Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia) in 2000, following the decision by the ODIHR management to engage actively in promoting democratization initiatives in these countries. Given the political situation in Central Asia in 2000, Kyrgyzstan was the logical choice for the ODIHR Gender Programme’s activities because it was the most democratic country in the region. Additionally, Kyrgyzstan provided a base from which it was possible to reach out to other Central Asian countries, if an opportunity for such an activity would arise. All three of the Caucasus countries provided substantial opportunities for the ODIHR’s engagement. At that time, the only OSCE country mission was in Georgia, with no programme activities related to gender equality or women’s participation. With regard to the countries of the Balkan region, it was deemed that the ODIHR’s added value would not be considerable given the role and resources that the OSCE’s large field missions had in each of these countries. The ODIHR Gender Programme pursued four key goals in its work in the four countries: • Increasing awareness and capacity of the government structures and civil society to promote equality of rights and opportunities; • Promoting women’s leadership and political participation and supporting exchange of best practices across the OSCE region; • Fostering national expertise development and integration of gender-equality aspects into national policy-making; • Strengthening awareness, capacity and transfer of lessons-learnt among law enforcement and civil society in combating domestic violence. Evaluation of ODIHR Gender Programme Work in Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia 1 Analysis of general principles of the methodology applied by ODIHR The Gender Programme has developed an innovative and original methodology for achieving its goals. Before launching this programme, the ODIHR and the OSCE had never engaged in the implementation of gender-equality programmes. This gave the ODIHR the freedom and possibility to start activities that were based on the needs identified locally, at the same time taking the advantage of gaps and lessons learnt through the experiences of other agencies working on the ground in these countries. The approach adopted has been a key ingredient in achieving the results that the programme has produced. A key point is that the strategy is based on a process, not a pre-determined recipe of what works and what does not. The process described below generated different forms of work in each of the four countries, which reflected the bottom-up, localized calibration integral to the process. The overall process, however, remained constant, making it possible to plan for long-term initiatives. This strategy involves conducting pre-programme assessment trips, working with local partners and helping them to build networks, developing local expertise, expanding the level of knowledge on gender equality of local partners, bringing in international experts to increase local capacity, exchanging experience among countries through the creation of an expert panel, and developing a media campaign to lobby for further changes. The following discussion will analyze each component of the methodology in greater detail. PRE-PROGRAMME ASSESSMENT TRIPS TO THE COUNTRY AND ITS REGIONS The ODIHR Gender Programme defines strategies for working in each country based on the local conditions. Before starting to work in a particular country, ODIHR Gender Programme staff traveled there to talk to public officials and civil society representatives to identify what issues were of greatest concern to local women and to map out the existing state agencies and civil society groups that were interested in trying to address these issues. The purpose was to determine where best to focus ODIHR’s limited resources and ascertain which strategy would be most effective in achieving the goals that corresponded with the OSCE commitments and the local needs. The trips also provided the Gender Programme staff with a sense of the overall political and cultural context in which they would be working and a good understanding of what other international agencies were doing or not doing. The concerns identified together with local partners were the key component in the process of prioritizing activities within the programme. For example, in each of the countries where the ODIHR undertook the initial assessment, the people who were interviewed and consulted identified the issue of women’s underrepresentation in governance, lack of cooperation among women’s NGOs and domestic violence as the issues that needed the most attention. The urgency of addressing the latter came up Evaluation of ODIHR Gender Programme Work in Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia 2 during informal conversations where the interlocutors felt most free to talk about what their real concerns were rather than in more formal interviews. Deciding to work on domestic violence was a timely choice for the ODIHR Gender Programme, which also succeeded in putting this issue on the agenda of the organization in general (through participation in the Informal Working Group on Gender Issues in the Secretariat, organization of the HD Seminar on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women in May 2002 and the adoption of the Ministerial Council Decision in 2005 on the Prevention and Combating of Domestic Violence). At the outset of the programme, the ODIHR identified priority areas where its involvement was necessary, as well as identified potential partners to work with. This process involved a series of seminars and training workshops whereby all existing NGOs working on women’s issues were invited to participate and those who demonstrated the necessary potential, real commitment and engagement were selected as long-term partners to implement further programme activities. In Kyrgyzstan, this initial session brought together a wide range of women from grassroots organizations, including from rural areas. In Azerbaijan, this meeting involved women from the capital who identified a strong need to reach out more to the regions. Overall, these meetings were important because they helped ODIHR establish a working relationship with a partner, or set of partners, in each county with the initial goal of immediately expanding outreach to as many new participants as possible who might be involved in the project. Typically, these were women who had not been engaged in any activities that were organized or funded by international agencies. The rational behind this decision was based on the observation made by the ODIHR during the initial assessments – that an overwhelming majority of NGOs who declared to be working on women’s rights and gender equality issues across these countries in reality were the successors of the Soviet Union’s women’s committees, bringing along the same culture of government-affiliation, corruption and isolation from the real necessities of the state and its people. For these reasons, the ODIHR encouraged the engagement and development of new grassroots teams and civil society organizations,

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