GENDER EVALUATION REPORT For the Bhutan UNDAF/cCPAP Mid-Term Review Process 2010 THE EVALUATION TEAM JOSEFINA YOLANDA F. ORAA International Consultant/Team Leader LILY WANGCHUK National Consultant 16 August – 14 September 2010 Thimphu, Bhutan EXECUTIVE SUMMARY I. Background The Mid-Term Review(MTR) Process 2010 for the Bhutan UNDAF/cCPAP is meant to gauge “the relevance of the UNDAF/cCPAP Outcomes in the context of the Tenth Five Year Plan” and the role of the “United Nations Agencies to contribute more effectively and efficiently to national development efforts, including the GNH goals and capacity-building as part of “Delivering as One”1. Based on the RGOB-UN Country Programme Board (CPB) decision of January 2010, the MTR will combine an in-depth review of three Outcomes and a self- assessment of all five Outcomes”, the Gender Evaluation being one of the three full Outcome Evaluations identified 2. The Gender Evaluation for the Bhutan UNDAF/cCPAP MTR 2010 is meant to look into gender mainstreaming efforts strategically across the five thematic areas identified in UNDAF 2008-2012, namely: health, education, poverty, governance and Environment & Disaster Management and review the progress made towards gender equality and women‟s empowerment, generally across the five(5) themes and specifically in each of the areas. Description of the Gender Evaluation Process Timeline The Gender Evaluation Mission has been undertaken for the period of August 17 to Sept 2, 2010. Methodology The Gender Evaluation employed the following approaches for data collection and analysis: 1. desk review of relevant documents; 2. external consultations through - . field visits . discussions, FGDs and interviews with implementing partners both from the government and non-government sectors . discussions with relevant projects‟ staff . discussion with relevant local authorities . discussion/interaction with community members (e.g. NFE Learners) . meetings and discussions with UNTGs, Gender Task Force . meetings with donor agencies based in Bhutan 3. internal discussions with UNCT Bhutan. 1 Inception Note for the Bhutan UNDAF/cCPAP Mid-Term Review Process 21010, 23 June 2010. 2 Inception Note for the Bhutan UNDAF/cCPAP Mid-Term Review Process 21010, 23 June 2010. Limitations of the Gender Evaluation i. Given the tight timeline, there were a number of relevant partners and stakeholder who could have been consulted but common time between them and the Evaluation Team could not be arranged; ii. While the Evaluation Team waded through volumes of materials, the team may not have covered all relevant ones that needed to be reviewed; iii. As the members of the Evaluation Team were working “together and separately” to cover as much within a limited time, there was little chance for exhaustive discussion on common findings at the end of the mission. II. Understanding Gender Equality and Women Empowerment Gender Mainstreaming The UN defines gender mainstreaming3 as a process by which men, women, girls, boys and other gender are equally represented in the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of any development input, to ensure that interventions genuinely respond to different needs and interests of each girl, woman, other gender, boy and man in a given situation. Gender mainstreaming as defined is clear that it is not an end in itself but a means towards the achievement of gender equality. This view has been explicitly adopted in the National Plan of Action for Gender(NPAG) 2008-2013 and the Tenth Five Year Plan 2008-2013 of Bhutan. Women’s Rights Women‟s rights are human rights, they are inherent in every person by birth and are inalienable. The Constitutional guarantees like “equality between the sexes” or “equality before the law” are drawn from human rights principles of non- discrimination, universality or applicability of human rights principles to all regardless of sex, religion, profession, etc and indivisibility of rights. While formal equality is guaranteed in many contexts across the globe through laws, policies and frameworks, women have to be empowered to reclaim their entitlements and necessarily achieve gender equality. III. The Context of Bhutan Bhutan is a peaceful country cascading beautifully in the eastern part of the Himalayas. It is the only country in the world that uses the Gross National Happiness (GNH) as an index to development, looking into the four (4) pillars of 3 Gender mainstreaming is „…the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies or programmes, in all areas and at all levels. It is a strategy for making women‟s as well as men‟s concerns and experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres so that women and men benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated.‟ sustainable and equitable socio-economic development, environmental conservation, preservation and promotion of culture and good governance. It is a young democracy that transited from an absolute Monarchy to a Constitutional Monarchy in 2008. The transition was well-managed, allowing the social and economic processes to continue while replacing the political decision- making structure. Bhutan is signatory to both the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Alongside many other countries, Bhutan adopted the UN Millennium Declaration in 2000 and is well-placed to achieve most of the targets set up in the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) framework by 2015. Midway through the period, it has already achieved its targets in a number of areas and proceeding on track in many of the other targets. Most social indicators have improved. Life expectancy has improved to 69 years in 2008 from 65 years in 19904. IMR and MMR have also shown a steady decline and school enrolment rates in primary and secondary levels have gone up, although, gender parity at the tertiary level of education remains an area concern. Challenges in Bhutan includes the urban-rural disparities, increasing trend of rural-urban migration, increasing challenge of youth skill building and provision of adequate employment, increased representation of women in governance, among others. At this juncture, a beginning has been made towards women‟s empowerment and gender equality and the momentum needs to be sustained. IV. Analysis of the Situation with regard to UNDAF and UNCT Outcomes: Gaps, Challenges and Lessons Learnt Gender is a stated cross-cutting component of UNDAF/cCPAP, and gender equality is an outcome area in relation to education5. There is no doubting the intention of the UNDAF/cCPAP as far as women‟s empowerment and gender equality is concerned. A cursory look at the UNDAF/cCPAP document per se, however, could provide an indication of the absence of gender analysis during its formulation. A sporadic mention of women across thematic areas could not deny that gender is not central to the UNDAF/cCPAP document as it stands. Personal accounts on the operating environment at the time of the preparation of UNDAF have provided useful insights. The time was 2006/2007 when Bhutan, in spite its international commitments, was itself still debating the relevance of “gender” to the local context. UNDAF, borne out of extensive consultations 4 Source…… 5 UNDAF Outcome #3: By 2012, access to quality education for all with gender equality and special focus on hard-to-reach population improved between the UN System and the RGOB, was not above the situation. There was no sex-disaggregated data at the time and gender as a concept was relatively new. Nonetheless, UNDAF/cCPAP ensured that gender mainstreaming is adopted in pursuit of women‟s empowerment and gender equality, keeping in mind the MDGs, in particular MDG3 along with CEDAW, BPFA, CRC, etc. Today, the context has changed and discussions on gender is commonplace, in spite traces of denial and resistance from some quarters even among implementing partners. Indeed, the manner by which many use “gender neutral” to describe their gender mainstreaming approach is disturbing. The reference may be unconsciously made but a misnomer nonetheless and it tells of the need to clarify understanding on gender. Across thematic areas, very little, if any, is done to question power relations, structures at home, the workplace and society, except by partners working on policy and legal reform such as the Domestic Violence Bill. The thrust remains at the level of gender parity as opposed to gender equality. Sex-disaggregated data, or lack of it, tends to be the default concern when gender mainstreaming is brought into focus. The importance of sex- disaggregated data cannot be discounted but this cannot be seen as the end-all and be-all. The technical nuances of gender mainstreaming need to be learned and for which, the training and other capacity-building endeavours under UNDAF/cCPAP are deemed relevant. But, while building capacity at the level of implementing partners, UNDAF/cCPAP has been supporting efforts at training women acquire skills to become productively engaged. It has been supporting efforts across thematic areas to facilitate enabling environment through policy formulation and the creation of mechanisms for more participation of women. Overall, UNDAF/cCPAP would have provided the momentum in gender mainstreaming in Bhutan not only in terms of supporting the preparations for the NPAG 2008-2013 and its reflection in the Tenth Five Year Plan 2008-2013. UNDAF/cCPAP has helped Bhutan through NCWC to meet its commitment on CEDAW and CRC through periodic reporting on the status of women and children in the country, respectively. In the same vein, UNDAF/cCPAP has been instrumental in Bhutan taking action on women‟s issues and gender issues on the basis of the CEDAW Concluding Comments, e.g. making available sex- disaggreagted data, strengthening the NCWC by giving it more autonomy and resources, by facilitating law against domestic violence, increasing women‟s political participation.