1 WOMEN, PEACE AND SECURITY TRAINING IN MYANMAR AN ASSESSMENT ON BEHALF OF THE ALLIANCE FOR GENDER INCLUSION IN THE PEACE PROCESS Summary version, October 2016 INTRODUCTION This assessment was commissioned by Alliance for Gender Inclusion in the Peace Process (AGIPP), an alliance formed in 2014 of eight national organisations and networks dedicated to advancing peace and women’s empowerment. To advance women’s participation in Myanmar’s peace processes, AGIPP sought, via this assessment, to better understand current training approaches to capacity building for women’s participation and for the inclusion of gender equality concerns. AGIPP also intends this assessment to inform decisions within the Alliance regarding training and capacity- building initiatives it will undertake for its members, and to ensure that such efforts produce the most strategic impact possible. This requires assessment not only of the quality of existing training initiatives, but also of the adequacy of current coordination efforts, the return on investments (in terms of the political or social impact of training initiatives), the extent to which gaps are identifed and flled in terms of skills or categories of people who need this training, and the degree to which training is integrated with other efforts to support women’s participation in public decision-making and to ensure that gender equality issues are addressed. The assessment was informed by desk research and interviews conducted over March to June 2016. Annex 1 provides an account of methods. Acronyms/Abbreviations AGIPP : Alliance for Gender Inclusion in the Peace Process BWU : Burmese Women’s Union BPfA : Beijing Platform for Action CEDAW : Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women EAO : Ethnic Armed Organisation FPD : Framework of Political Dialogue GDI : Gender and Development Institute GEN : Gender Equality Network GoM : Government of Myanmar KWPN : Kachin Women’s Peace Network KSWN : Kachin State’s Women Network KWO : Karen Women’s Organisation MWN : Mon Women’s Network NSPAW : National Strategic Plan for the Advancement of Women UPC : Union Peace Conference WLB : Women’s League of Burma WON : Women’s Organisations Network WPS : Women Peace and Security 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY A signifcant political transition in Myanmar has created unprecedented political openings for women at all levels of decision-making on confict resolution and democratisation. These opportunities have created high demand for knowledge and skills related to Women, Peace and Security (WPS) frameworks and analytical methods. This demand is being met with an array of training programmes offered by international NGOs (INGOs), the United Nations (UN), donors and local providers. There is evidence that coordination is inadequate between training funders and providers, resulting in duplication of effort, quite a lot of training concentrated on a relatively small group of activists, and an unmet need for advanced training and coaching to enhance the impact of women leaders. A wider distribution of basic WPS training for a broader group of policy makers and shapers (next generation leaders), as well as community leaders, would be valuable. Finally, connections between technical skills-building and advocacy efforts to exploit and widen political openings for women could be improved with stronger coordination and strategic leadership. The assessment identifed a range of WPS training initiatives from low-cost community-based initiatives to address Gender-based Violence (GBV) or to build women’s leadership to relatively high-level training and overseas study tours, mainly to women peace activists, but also to government offcials, journalists and other professionals. For many years there has also been long-standing training of grassroots women leaders offered by organisations working with women on the borders or in exile. There are three broad types: 1. Community-baseD wide-focus gender awareness and women’s leadership training (these are sometimes long-duration, usually involve large numbers, often part of organisation-building of women’s ethnic/regional networks); 2. Narrow-focus specifc peacebuilding skills training for deployment in specifc confict-resolution roles (for instance ceasefre monitoring). This category also includes skills-building in community and women’s protection (E.g. efforts to prevent GBV); 3. Advocacy training for activists and policymakers to build capacities to infuence state and national-level confict resolution processes, and to network and strategise for impact. Key observations from the assessment include: Preparation: Needs assessments are conducted in advance of training offered by some community training providers and some international donors. However, pre-surveys to identify the knowledge level of participants are typically not conducted, therefore the degree of learning is not assessed. Participants with advanced knowledge are sometimes grouped with newcomers to WPS, which slows down the learning rate. A tense and counter- productive environment sometimes emerges when activists are clustered with government offcials in trainings. Content: There is a content ‘rut’ in which many training initiatives re-use the same basic material with insuffcient investment in either updating content, tailoring to the context, offering advanced skills, or assisting participants to conduct analysis and draft agreement language relevant to current processes. Many training recipients raised concerns about diffculties in applying their learning about WPS frameworks to the Myanmar context and a majority articulated a need for training in gender analysis of negotiation texts, constitutions, power- sharing proposals, and planning documents such as the National Strategic Plan for the Advancement of Women (NSPAW). 2 Delivery (teaching methods, translation, logistics): Training participants prefer experiential teaching methods (simulation games, site visits, painstaking gender analysis of agreements) over classroom lectures. However, experiential methods are less common than methods offering critiques of the current situation. These critiques are not considered by participants to be helpful in identifying constructive solutions. Poor translation and confused or sub-standard interpretation are serious obstacles to learning. Women with childcare and other caring responsibilities need support if travel is involved. Impact: None of the training programmes assessed had yet produced an evaluation of impact. Community- based programmes do have some consistent indicators of impact (evidence of women taking leadership roles in communities, evidence of attitudinal change, emergence of new women’s’ groups). Advocacy-oriented trainings however often lack indicators of impact. Application/follow-up: Follow-up activities for advocacy-related training include network formation, implementation of local peacebuilding activities, and strategic planning within women’s groups. Follow-up is not systematic and is often missing or else is managed ‘remotely’ i.e. via externally-located INGO staff to individual women through email. Costs: Community-based training is considerably cheaper than higher-level advocacy-related training. In-country costs per person for community-based training are as low as approximately USD650 per person (for extended training that can last a year) versus almost USD2000 per person for week-long training in Yangon. At the upper end of costs, a prominent 42-day training programme that involves overseas travel costs over USD20,000 per person. The fees for trainers/expertise take up around 50% of most training budgets. Training budgets often either do not include the cost of follow-up or monitoring and evaluation, or fold these costs into the cost of external staff. This indicates the relatively low priority given to follow-up or application of training. Donor coordination is also needed to avoid double-investment in similar trainings (with similar participants) and to harmonise messaging with the Government on WPS priorities. Coordination: There is insuffcient coordination and strategic planning to distribute training resources to underserved populations, or to participants who are not ‘the usual suspects’. Connections between training initiatives and either the exploitation or creation of political opportunities are highly uneven if not generally absent. AGIPP can support more effective coordination of training opportunities, to encourage development of more tailored content for particular recipients, and to expand and build communication in the network of trainees. It hosts quarterly coordination meetings with INGOs and UN agencies in part to secure coordination on training activities. Broader capacity-building: Training is only one feature of capacity-building. Opportunities to develop capacity (including by applying training) must be created via establishing more opportunities for women’s participation – by broadening Track II initiatives, building gender sub-committees attached to upcoming negotiations, and expanding opportunities for civil society to consult with negotiators, and national and regional decision-makers. This should also include supporting women to apply learning in their organisations through coaching to develop strategic plans and refne activities and projects. 3 BEYOND TRAINING The ability of women, individually and collectively, to infuence peace and political processes, comes in part from training but also from individual connections to policy-makers and power-holders,