IFAD promotes the use of Household Methodologies (HHM) in its interventions in order to create gender transformative changes and improve intra-household gender relations. HHMs enable individuals to build agency, negotiate their relationships individually and collectively, and influence negative social norms. Using HHMs, promoting gender equality can be integrated as part of other technical project interventions such as value chain development.
Since 2009, IFAD has been piloting the integration of HHMs in its operations across regions and in total; over 50 IFAD projects have included some HHM-related activities. However, the inclusion and implementation of HHMs has greatly varied across countries in the terms of quality and scope.
Background
In order to link the isolated HHM initiatives in projects and to scale up, IFAD is supporting the Empower@Scale grant projectimplemented by Oxfam Novib together with Hivos. The objective of the grant project is to create a network of local/national Empowerment Learning Centres (ELC) for quality assured capacity development services on HHM as well as two Regional Hubs for networking, knowledge sharing and monitoring the use of HHMs. The grant is especially focused on the Gender Action Learning System (GALS), which is a type of household methodology that uses participatory processes, visual materials and diagram tools to encourage people to start thinking about their current life situations and to start planning and visualising their future.
The grant project has the goal of reaching 20,500 rural households in marginalised communities. These include women, men and youth living in poverty, who are involved in micro or small-scale economic activities. Moreover, it is expected that around 400 staff and project stakeholders of approximately 20 IFAD-supported projects from at least 15 countries will be provided access to HHM information/guidelines through Regional Hubs and access to HHM services by the ELCs.
The Empower@Scale grant project is an important component in the efforts of meeting IFAD 11 commitments related to fostering gender transformative results and so far it has engaged with 14 IFAD projects in 11 countries. Concrete activities have started for example in Kenya with the UTaNRMP project and in Uganda with PRELNOR and PROFIRA projects.
Facilitating Change at Scale
On the last week of January, Oxfam and Hivos organized a workshop titled Facilitating Change at Scale for GALS facilitators and IFAD project staff. The main purpose of the workshop was to i) identify best practices and common principles for facilitating the scaling up of the GALS methodology in communities and more specifically in IFAD-supported projects and other actors and ii) to agree on ways of working with facilitators in the Empower@scale project while the scaling up mechanisms (ELCs, regional hubs, platform, new approaches) are work in progress.
IFAD was represented by four project gender focal points from Malawi, Sierra Leone and Uganda as well as by the ESA regional social inclusion officer from Nairobi and technical gender and social inclusion analyst from Rome. During the workshop, the IFAD projects were able to focus on identification of lessons learned from the use of GALS facilitation principles and note down some of the best practices and challenges on the use of GALS in different contexts, themes and target groups.
The project representatives mentioned especially the positive ways that GALS tools help them with targeting everyone in the households even when the overall project is working on a cooperative level. Another practice appreciated by IFAD projects was the use of peer-to-peer learning trough cross-project visits. In addition to exploring the positive cases of project integration, five GALS principles were identified and agreed to by the participants as non-negotiable elements of a GALS roll-out. This means that, while GALS can be adapted to different institutional and local contexts and demands, there are certain core principles related to gender, human rights, leadership and participation which need to be safeguarded.
Some of the bad practices that the IFAD projects identified were related to the insufficient use of the GALS tools. For instance not fully employing gender-related tools and simply utilizing the GALS planning tools resulting the methodology losing its gender justice dimension. Moreover, lack of a proper monitoring and evaluation framework for GALS and insufficient budgeting were mentioned as some of the key constrains for effective implementation. The workshop participants agreed that in order for GALS to be successfully scaled up in sustainable matter, it has to go beyond a top-down dissemination process. For monitoring impacts, decisions on indicators, outreach, planning and required technical content should be defined together with communities and GALS champions themselves that have benefited from the methodology, rather than paid extension workers, should become GALS trainers.
The workshop participants also visited a potential ELC located in Muranga county. The proposed ELC is formed around an existing self-help group called Junction. After an enthusiastic welcoming, the self-help group members took the participants through their Vision Journey and their Gender Action Tree. After the presentation, GALS champions from Uganda presented their Achievement Road Journey. This was an important peer-to-peer learning opportunity for both groups and provided great insights to the other workshop participants.
The workshop was a valuable opportunity for enhancing the common understanding of GALS facilitation principles among Empower@Scale grant project partners and IFAD. Furthermore, the workshop served as an important venue for strengthening the support that is available for IFAD projects wishing to implement or are already in the process of implementing HHMs. The selection of technical assistance for IFAD operations include for example the training through ELCs, advice on GALS specific budgeting and TOR development as well as the development of new HHM approaches.
Through Empower@Scale, IFAD will be able to empower millions of marginalised women and men, by connecting communities, practitioners, experts and supporters worldwide for capacity development, knowledge management, monitoring, evidence building, and methodological innovation with HHM.