Mid-Term Review of the Norwegian Action Plan for Women's ... - Norad

initiatives in Norway, the launch of the GEAP itself, and one year later of the White Paper On EqualTerms which were important events in themselves.It has been difficult for the Review Team to assess WRGE’s place in policy dialogue with partnercountries and at the country level. Norway no longer has annual country meetings with writtenmandates and minutes. In several countries Norway engages in Joint Assessment Strategies, where themain policy dialogue with the partner country seems to be related to General Budget Support, andwhere WRGE is not a prominent topic, although it is included in the policy markers. In general itshould be said that there is less visibility of WRGE’s work in Norway and in bilateral aid, than inmultilateral meetings and arenas. It seems to the Review Team that it is easier for the gender advisers topush for WRGE work in multilateral meetings and donors than inside their own system.Has Norway increased its relative funding to projects and programmes supporting women’s rights and gender equality?In 2007 and 2008 statistics show an increase in relative funding to programmes and projects, part ofwhich is due to changes in the statistical registration system. The marker on gender as a main objectiveshowed a stagnation from 2007 to 2008, but the overall relative use of the gender marker increasedfrom 20% in 2005 to 30% in 2008. However, this is still a relatively low score. One should consider thatthe score on the gender marker depends considerably on the composition of aid. Governance andhuman development generally score high on the gender marker, while other sectors, such asinfrastructure, energy, etc., score low. This should encourage even stronger work on gendermainstreaming in these important sectors of development cooperation.Has Norway increased gender mainstreaming in its development cooperation?The Evaluation of 2005 pointed to the fact that gender mainstreaming was the main challenge for theMFA and Norad. This challenge remains, and evidence of gender mainstreaming is weak. This is clearlythe weakest part of the WRGE work, and both the MFA and Norad admit that this is a subject/topicthat they have not worked on consistently. Few efforts and resources have been invested into analyticand catalytic efforts for gender mainstreaming. The Gender budget line was designed to support theimplementation of the GEAP, but the guidelines mainly focus on women targeting projects andprogrammes, and not on promoting gender mainstreaming in an innovative and catalytic way.Guidelines and management systems for the gender budget line will be revised spring 2009, and shouldtake this into consideration. The Team also believes there is still substantial under-reporting of goodgender mainstreaming. The MFA and Norad therefore need to look at reporting formats to better coverthe substantial good work that has been done.Has Norway improved the organisation of its development cooperation, to ensure the necessary capacity, competence andgovernance in its work on women’s rights and gender equality?The GEAP was never operationalised in the annual plans and reports, even if this was stated explicitlyin the GEAP itself. A three-year internal project on WRGE was established in the summer of 2006 inthe MFA, but evaporated shortly after the GEAP was launched. The Internal Gender Resource Groupfor the project became more or less non-functional after the GEAP was launched and has had no rolein the follow-up of the GEAP, except in review applications for the Gender budget line; this is in spiteof having a proper mandate for such work.The evaluation of 2005 documented a weak administrative capacity, lack of staff, and weak trainingefforts, as well as weak planning and reporting systems for WRGE. The staffing has been strengthened;there are more gender advisers, and small teams of gender advisers in FLID and in GIL. However, weagree with the findings of the latest OECD/DAC peer review (OECD/DAC 2003) that staffing is stillweak and thinly spread in the organisation. Training has not found a relevant form to attract staff, andgovernance systems are still weak when it comes to holding the system accountable for reporting onimplementation of the GEAP and results of WRGE’s work. The Review Team has not had theopportunity to compare the MFA’s and Norad’s capacity for implementation of other action plans orpriority areas, but there is a clear impression from discussing the issue with staff that other priorityareas, such as environment and climate change, and cleaner energy technology, are given moreresources, such as the redefinition of a number of councillor positions at the embassies as energy andclimate councillors.44