Reports - United Nations Development Programme

More documents

Recommendations

Info

4. HUMAN DEVELOPMENT RESULTS AND UNDP’S CONTRIBUTION standards. Judging from the experience of other EU accession countries, this will require very significant action in policy, legal and regulatory and institutional reforms, as well as major investments. Given the UNDP’s involvement in the environmental area, especially through the NPED and the GEF/SGP, it is in principle well placed to support the Turkish authorities in meeting the EU accession requirements in the environmental field. However, this requires a clear recognition by the Turkish authorities, and especially by the Ministry of Forestry and Environment, that urgent and concerted action is needed in reviving the NPED. It will require adequate funding, which can perhaps best be sought in close collaboration with the Government, from EU financing and from the GEF. It will also require effective partnership with other international agencies, especially the WB. Finally, the UNDP Turkey Country Office will have to allocate senior staff capacity to support this area if it is to remain, or become again, one of the key planks of UNDP support for Turkey. 62 D. GENDER Gender equality has always been a controversial issue in Turkey, full of contradictory indicators and sentiments. Until the 1980s, neither Turkish Governments nor other stakeholders, including women’s groups, were seriously aware of gender inequalities, nor was this issue discussed in the political arena. While Turkey has a high participation of women in professions, granted the suffrage right to women in the 1930s and is apparently the only Muslim country with equal rights of inheritance and divorce for men and women, it still faces significant gender inequalities in property ownership, literacy ratio, labour force participation, political representation and visibility. According to the most recent NHDRs for Turkey, very significant gender disparities exist, especially in the less developed parts of the country (the Southeast and Eastern Anatolia). Moreover, there are significant violations of women’s human rights, such as honour killings, in these regions. Academic circles, mainly feminists with western education, first drew attention to this problem in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. The ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1986 helped popularise gender sensitivity. The establishment of a national machinery for promotion of gender equity ———————————————————————————————————— 62. It is also recommended that all aspects of GEF funded programmes that are administered by the UNDP are to be fully mainstreamed by the Turkey Country Office management, i.e., managed as if they were part of the UNDP’s regular programme and strategically and operationally integrated with other UNDP programmes as appropriate. was mandatory in CEDAW. However, the formal establishment of the General Directorate on the Status and Problems of Women took until 1990. The legal status of the Directorate is still controversial and there were significant difficulties in finding qualified personnel. From the beginning, the UNDP undertook a significant role in capacity building and establishing the relevant conceptual framework for policy formulation and advocacy. This valuable contribution of the UNDP is recognised by NGO’s, the Government, universities and all the other beneficiaries and was mentioned in the Review of the UNDP Country Programme in 2000 (see Box 3.1, Chapter 3). This contribution fell into two distinct phases – a phase with targeted support for gender-specific activities followed by a phase of mainstreaming. These two phases are discussed in turn. (i) National Programme for the Enhancement of Women Integration in Development (TUR/92/006) In 1992, the UNDP launched a project called the National Programme for the Enhancement of Women Integration in Development, which was an ‘umbrella’ technical assistance programme. It lasted until 2003 and it is still open financially. This project helped the Government develop human, technical and financial resources to enable Turkey to improve and enact its gender strategies. The programme had various activities that can be classified under four headings: ACTIVITIES TO BUILD THE CAPACITY OF THE GENERAL DIRECTORATE AND OTHER RELEVANT GOVERNMENT OFFICES The UNDP started to support institution building at the national level in the gender area in 1992 and has continued with programmes of capacity building support ever since. The staff of the General Directorate was introduced to the conceptual framework of international conventions thanks to the efforts of UNDP experts and documents. The UNDP facilitated the participation of bureaucrats and consultants in international conferences and conventions and it helped the national machinery in formulating its own policies and defending them in international platforms such as the Beijing Conference. There was a significant deficiency of gender disaggregated data, which made it difficult to assess the existing inequalities in Turkey. With the help of the UNDP, a special division was established in the State Statistical Institute, and its staff was trained to gather such data. Many other state offices, including the SPO, 51
COUNTRY EVALUATION: ASSESSMENT OF DEVELOPMENT RESULTS – TURKEY 52 were encouraged with the help of this UNDP programme to incorporate gender as a dimension of their work. Some, such as the Ministry of Health, later incorporated gender into their targets. ACTIVITIES TO BUILD INDEPENDENT EXPERT CAPACITY AND RESEARCH IN GENDER STUDIES Under the UNDP Programme, agreements were reached with four universities. These enabled three of them to establish education programmes geared towards an MA degree in Gender and Women Studies, while the fourth university conducted courses towards certificates in gender awareness and income generating activities for women. Since 1996, the graduates of these programmes have constituted an important capacity in Turkey within universities, the bureaucracy, the private sector and NGOs. Within this agreement, numerous research studies were conducted on different aspects of gender. This resulted in a better understanding of women’s problems, especially in the periphery (villages, small towns, amongst urban poor) and contributed to gender awareness. Some of the capacity built up was later spun off to WB research that was oriented towards developing employment capacity for women (Women’s Employment Promotion Project 1994) under a loan given to the Turkish Government for ‘Education and Employment’. ACTIVITIES ORIENTED TOWARDS AWARENESS RAISING, ADVOCACY AND SUPPORT FOR NGOS Women’s associations have existed for many decades in Turkey. However, many of them were either charity organisations or were not equipped with the contemporary concepts of gender awareness. With UNDP contributions, gender sensitivity training programmes were conducted for NGOs, labour unions, municipalities, associations, professionals, political parties, police, Ministries and legal institutions. Moreover, a number of training programmes were conducted for women to empower them in politics and income generating activities, including skills training. Funds were also directed to small projects carried out by NGOs to establish Women’s Centres that would have an inbuilt continuing education system, as well as provide a nursery, library, and health centre for the urban poor and for advocacy activities. ACTIVITIES FOR ESTABLISHING INTERNATIONAL LINKAGES With this project, many Turkish academics, experts and consultants had the opportunity to go abroad and learn about the experiences of other countries. International experts were also brought in to develop research, establish training programmes, and help in policy formulation. The most important contribution of the UNDP in international activities, however, was to develop Turkey’s own priorities toward the Beijing Conference in 1995 and facilitate the participation of the State Delegation and NGO’s. OUTCOMES OF THE PROGRAMME The overall impact of the targeted gender programme was highly favourable with lasting benefits: There was a paradigm change in the outlook on gender issues Significant capacity was built in the bureaucracy, universities, local Governments, unions, professional associations and NGOs Advocacy groups were organised and became effective Policies were formulated around certain legal changes, including the civil code, which was achieved in 2001 (ii) Gender Mainstreaming After the Beijing Conference, the UNDP gradually began to adopt gender mainstreaming as its global policy to combat gender inequalities. This meant that gender issues were to be addressed not through free-standing targeted initiatives, but rather in the context of other programmes on a broad basis. By 2001, this approach was reflected in documents of the UN in Turkey, e.g., in UNDAF (2001-2005) and CCA 2000. While the UNDP was ‘mainstreaming’ gender (which also meant direct projects on gender were very limited, as was the budget for those projects), the Turkish Government was elevating EU accession as its principal national goal. EU requirements and the Acquis are particularly weak in regard to gender issues as they are mainly limited to employment. There is a very small chapter on Women and Family in the 8th Five-Year Plan 63 which states that there will be precautions taken so that women can benefit from equal opportunities, improve their education and participation in the development process, working life and decision making mechanisms. In the present Government’s statements on national development programmes and priorities, gender issues are almost nonexistent except for a phrase in which their motherhood role is emphasised. ———————————————————————————————————— 63. Long Term Strategy and 8th National Development Plan (2001-2005), Item 814, http://ekutup.dpt.gov.tr/plan/viii/plan8i.pdf, 2003.
Page 1 and 2:
United Nations Development Programm
Page 3 and 4: Copyright © 2004 United Nations De
Page 5 and 6: COUNTRY EVALUATION: ASSESSMENT OF D
Page 19 and 20: 2. TURKEY — COUNTRY AT A CROSSROA
Page 21 and 22: 2. TURKEY — COUNTRY AT A CROSSROA
Page 25 and 26: 3. UNDP’S STRATEGIC POSITIONING A
Page 53: COUNTRY EVALUATION: ASSESSMENT OF D
Page 63 and 64: INTRODUCTION CHART 5.3: PROGRAMME F
Page 65 and 66: INTRODUCTION and recently a systema
Page 69 and 70: 6. CONCLUSION: OVERALL RESULTS, LES
Page 77 and 78: ANNEXE 1: TERMS OF REFERENCE str
Page 79 and 80: ANNEXE 1: TERMS OF REFERENCE of the
Page 81 and 82: ANNEXE 2: TURKEY: SRF OUTCOMES - OU
Page 83 and 84: ANNEXE 2: TURKEY: SRF OUTCOMES - OU
Page 85 and 86: ANNEXE 3: MAP OF INTENDED DEVELOPME
Page 87 and 88: ANNEXE 4: ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYM
Page 89 and 90: ANNEXE 5: LIST OF KEY PERSONS MET A
Page 91 and 92: ANNEXE 6: DOCUMENTATION AND REFEREN
Page 93 and 94: ANNEXE 7: TURKEY - COMPARATIVE HUMA
Page 95 and 96: ANNEXE 8: UNDP TURKEY VISION The Co
Page 97 and 98: ANNEXE 8: UNDP TURKEY VISION deba
Page 99 and 100: ANNEXE 9: REPORTS PRODUCED, CONFERE
Page 101 and 102: ANNEXE 10: MEDIA AND PUBLIC APPEARA
Page 103 and 104: ANNEXE 10: MEDIA AND PUBLIC APPEARA
Page 105 and 106:
ANNEXE 10: MEDIA AND PUBLIC APPEARA
Page 107 and 108:
● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
show all

Reports - United Nations Development Programme

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?