people and planet

3
Brazil, Indonesia, Rwanda and South Africa aims to
conduct group education sessions and focus on men’s
roles in active fatherhood and caregiving, since fathers’
involvement supports children’s development, fosters
positive gender role models for the next generation,
and benefits men and women’s health and economic
outcomes (Levtov et al., 2015).
Many community-based projects with integrated
interventions target men and women working together
for more equitable gender relations. In South Africa,
Stepping Stones involved young men and women in
a combined sexual health and gender and economic
empowerment intervention, and demonstrated positive
results in increasing women’s and men’s earnings,
reducing intimate partner violence and creating more
equitable gender attitudes (Jewkes et al., 2014). Senegal’s
Tostan project encourages women and men to discuss
human rights together and to develop new social norms
around equality for men and women (Gillespie and
Melching, 2010). An adult literacy programme in rural
Nepal employed a participatory and social empowerment
approach to increase family and community recognition
of women’s unpaid work by engaging marginalized
women and some men in collecting data on their
time use. The programme achieved a more equitable
distribution of women’s unpaid care work in rural Nepal,
and helped make women more active agents in public
spaces (Marphatia and Moussié, 2013).
Education can facilitate efforts to innovate in
service delivery
Various studies suggest that education and information
can be combined with other strategies for improved
service delivery. For instance, low income citizens who
applied for food ration cards were often ignored in
India, but those who filed official information requests
about the status of their application and districtlevel
processing times, bolstered by the 2010 Right to
Information Act, were successful in obtaining the cards
(Peisakhin and Pinto, 2010). Awareness-raising (of official
information requests) was combined with capacitybuilding
(to make the requests) and an enabling legal
environment to improve access to services.
ICT can be used for innovative interventions and
initiatives that equip citizens to improve the delivery of
public services and enhance democratic participation.
For example, relying more on technology such as mobile
phones and e-governance platforms can help address a
lack of administrative capacity (United Nations, 2014).
Success depends on how well public and private sector
providers develop the systems, and how and which
citizens access the tools.
Social accountability initiatives can improve service
provision, increasing transparency and accountability,
as well as the voice of citizens in decision-making (Fox,
2015). For example, participatory budgeting is now used
in over 1,500 cities worldwide, where citizens participate
in decisions on how a portion of the municipal or local
budget is spent (Dias et al., 2014).
Low education levels, however, will impede effective
use of innovative technology or interventions. In low
income countries, low adult literacy rates and levels
of educational attainment limit access to ICT-based
government initiatives and services (United Nations,
2014). The digital divide is linked to availability of
infrastructure and tools, but also disparity in the
education and skills to use the technology (OECD, 2001).
Citizens need to be trained and educated to use ICT
services, and computer literacy is pivotal in ensuring
citizens’ acceptance and usage. In sub-Saharan Africa,
the most common challenges to implementation of
e-government initiatives include issues of language,
literacy and human capacity, alongside infrastructure,
legal frameworks and internet access (Nkohkwo and
Islam, 2013).
Similarly, participatory budgeting was found in Peru
to be less effective and susceptible to takeover by
elites when populations were less literate and lacked
access to information in local languages (Dias et al.,
2014). Participants with higher levels of education are
shown to have
higher influence
Training and development
on participatory
meetings (Ganuza
of facilitators, called
and Francés, 2012).
‘natural leaders’, is the key Participatory
way education has helped
budgeting in La
Serena, Chile,
influence community
was considered
members and facilitate successful because
sanitation improvements
the mayor
emphasized
education for civil
society (Cabannes, 2014).
Community ownership and training achieved sustained
changes in rural sanitation
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CHAPTER 3 | PEOPLE: INCLUSIVE SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT