Gender Equality Results in ADB Projects. Juliet Hunt
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of care for sick family members. By further building the capacity of staff, and with more input from the project gender adviser and sustained attention to the barriers to women’s access to health care, the HICH project has the potential to build on these results over the final year of the project.
USEDP increased girls’ enrollments, and achieved practical benefits by upgrading facilities and equipment, providing vocational advice, and training female teachers. However because the GEMAP was not well targeted and was difficult to understand, it was not well monitored or understood by project stakeholders. As a result, project implementers missed many opportunities to enhance the gender results that were achieved.
Factors that helped to achieve gender equality results in Viet Nam included the following:
| (i) | Comprehensive gender analysis during project preparation and implementation. Loan designs for CRUEIP and the HICH project included an assessment of key gender issues and this helped to shape the project components. Further gender analysis during project implementation ensured that the HICH project’s GEMAP strategies were relevant and effective. While some gender analysis was undertaken for USEDP, this could have been extended to more fully consider the barriers to both boys’ and girls’ access to school. |
| (ii) | A high-quality GAP. The differences in the quality of the GAPs for CRUEIP and the HICH project, compared to the GEMAP for USEDP, underscore the importance of having a quality GAP that is well targeted, clearly linked to project components, easily understood, and able to be implemented. |
| (iii) | Targets for the participation of women. All three projects included targets for women’s participation in training. CRUEIP and the HICH project also included targets for women’s participation in decision making, which in CRUEIP’s case helped to achieve strategic changes in gender relations. |
| (iv) | Ownership of the GAP. Ownership and understanding of the GAP by project implementers was due to an investment by the executing and implementing agencies and ADB in gender capacity building and was highest in the HICH project, and in CRUEIP in some provinces. |
| (v) | GAP included in the loan covenants. Loan covenants committed the government to implement the GAP in all three projects. While this was an important factor in CRUEIP and the HICH project, the experience with USEDP shows that ADB needs to assertively follow up on compliance. |
| (vi) | Capacity building of implementers. Both CRUEIP and the HICH project invested in gender training for project implementers to build ownership and understanding of GAP activities. USEDP provided some gender training for teachers and curriculum developers but not for implementing staff. Consequently, few of them were aware of the project’s GEMAP. |
| (vii) | Gender advisers supported implementation. CRUEIP and the HICH project had project gender advisers who provided gender capacity building to project implementers and critical support to implement the GAP and who fostered discussion and ownership of GAP elements. USEDP did not have a gender adviser for implementation and needs one to help revise and implement the GEMAP for the remainder of the project. |
| (viii) | Leadership from project implementers. In CRUEIP, more comprehensive results were achieved in those provinces where provincial project management units demonstrated leadership and openness to implementing the GAP. In the HICH project, provincial government officials valued the GEMAP because they recognized that it assisted to implement Government of Viet Nam policy. |
Institutionalization of Gender Action Plans
More effort is needed to ensure that GAPs are institutionalized by both executing agencies and ADB through the inclusion of GAP elements and gender-sensitive indicators in the design and monitoring frameworks (DMFs) in reports and recommendations to the President (RRPs) and in project performance reports. Overall, ADB and executing agencies need to strengthen the collection and analysis of sex-disaggregated data including baseline and monitoring data. ADB also needs to pay more attention to the implementation and monitoring of loan covenants. ADB loan review missions need to engage in dialogue with executing agencies on results achieved for women, and executing agencies need to provide regular reports on overall GAP implementation, results, and challenges. Another important challenge, for executing agencies and ADB, is to move beyond monitoring of women’s participation, to monitoring and assessing results and outcomes such as practical benefits to women and men and positive changes in gender relations, particularly in midterm reviews, impact assessments, and project completion reports.
Participation by the ADB resident mission gender specialist in CRUEIP and the HICH project loan review missions, and in supporting project gender advisers, improved the quality of project implementation. The ADB resident mission gender specialist has an important role to play to ensure that GAPs are institutionalized. This requires explicit and active support from resident mission country directors and ADB headquarters and a clear mandate that is understood and supported by ADB team leaders. ADB could have further strengthened institutionalization by sharing knowledge on effective GAP strategies across projects and in priority sectors.
Recommendations
ADB’s country strategy and program for Viet Nam in 2006 commits ADB to including gender considerations in ADB projects and to improving gender-related capacity building, monitoring, and evaluation. Strategy 2020 highlights gender equity as one of five drivers of change and commits ADB to design gender-inclusive projects and pay careful attention to gender issues across the full range of its operations. To achieve these aims, it is recommended that:
| (i) | GAPs should be prepared in sufficient detail to provide a guide for implementation and should include: strategies and targets for each loan component, project gender advisers throughout implementation, and gender capacity building with executing agencies and other stakeholders. |
| (ii) | Terms of reference for project gender advisers should ensure that their inputs are used strategically to (a) build ownership of the GAP and ensure its implementation, (b) analyze the progress and effectiveness of overall GAP implementation, (c) address implementation challenges where women’s participation is limited, and (d) share lessons on effective strategies and how gender equality results contribute to overall loan outcomes. |
| (iii) | Sex-disaggregated baseline data should be collected wherever possible on gender-related targets included in GAPs and on other DMF indicators. |
| (iv) | Executing agencies should collect and report on sex-disaggregated data for DMF indicators. Reporting on the GAP and on gender equality results should be integrated into core project documents such as annual reports, midterm review, impact assessment, and project completion reports. They should assess gender differences in participation, access to project resources, and benefits. |
| (v) | More attention should be paid to GAP implementation and monitoring, including the monitoring of gender equality results throughout project implementation. Enhanced dialogue with executing agencies by ADB on GAP implementation and gender-related loan covenants during review missions should be pursued. |
| (vi) | The ADB resident mission gender specialist could be more involved in loan design, implementation and monitoring, and should be included in loan review missions for projects in high-priority sectors where it is possible to demonstrate the impact of a gender-responsive approach and where there are opportunities for lesson learning, replication to other projects, and building the gender capacity of partners. |
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