Yemen: New degree to put gender back into development

Date: Sunday, August 02, 2009
Source: Yemen Times

SANA'A - In a country repeatedly rated last in the Global Gender Gap report, a new master's degree at the University of Sana'a promises Yemeni women a brighter future, by combining gender and development studies.

The Gender-Development Research and Study Center is encouraging university graduates with high levels of English proficiency to apply for its program in Gender and International Development, to start in February 2010.

"Our Masters students will have the capacity for critical thinking, to see the problem of development deeply," said Dr. Husnia Al-Kadiri, head of the center.

"If women participate in the master's, they will not represent all Yemeni women, but they will work on how to push education for girls," said Al-Kadiri, "which is the most important tool to make women's participation visible in development."

"Women are playing a role in development, but it is silent- not visible," she said.

Only 55 percent of Yemeni girls are enrolled in basic education compared to 75 percent of boys, according to the government's latest statistics.

Although United Nations statistics increase both these percentages by around 10 percent, they report that girls' attendance in basic education reaches no more than 41 percent.

The disempowerment of women and children was one of the four underlying reasons for the poor outcomes of development interventions in Yemen, according to the UN's 2005 Common Country Assessment.

The three others were lack of transparency and participation, inequitable and unsustainable use of water resources, and the growth of unemployment in a rapidly expanding population.

The two-year master's program is the first of its kind in the region, said Al-Kadiri, although the American universities of Cairo and Beirut also offer gender-based courses.

The International Development Center at Roskilde University in Denmark is supporting the program, and international specialists will teach for the first few years while they train a permanent staff.

"Gender in development is making sure men and women both participate in development," said Dr. Saed Al-Saba, head of documentation and information at the center. "It is ensuring both women and men are given equal opportunities."

The course is definitely not only for women, she said, because the presence of men is vital for women to be able to seize their right to participate in development.

"Men must understand that gender in development is not dangerous to men, it is just about equal opportunity between the sexes," she said.

Women and men think differently, explained Al-Kadiri, but the potentials of both are complementary. Both sexes must be included in development so that half a country's potential is not lost along the way.

"If we give the chance to women to participate, the potential of both sexes will accelerate the wheel of development," she said.

"When you integrate gender, you can solve a lot of problems," added Aisha Saeed, head of the Protection Program at Save the Children, who worked with the center in 2008 on research on gender-based violence.

BETTER GENDER BUDGETING

"[The news master's] is very important because people don't know how to integrate gender in development," said Khadija Radman, deputy minister for women affairs at the Ministry of Social Affairs.

The program will help integrate gender-related considerations into government and non-governmental organization plans, according to Radman, notably through gender budgeting.

"They don't know how to do it!" she said of gender budgeting, or equal and fair distribution of resources between men and women-centered projects in Yemen.

Only 33 percent of governmental, non-governmental and international organizations took gender into consideration while drawing up their budgets, according to a 2009 survey by the Yemeni Strategic Development Center on gender-responsive budgeting.

"Gender budgeting is the biggest issue in development," said Al-Kadiri, who explains that with it, a majority of problems could be solved.

The program aims to teach students about gender budgeting, as well as more development-orientated subjects such as conflict resolution.

EVIDENCE-BASED STUDIES

Part of the Gender-Development Research and Study Center's work over the last few years has been very productive, said Al-Kadiri.

Campaign-orientated research into early marriage in particular bore fruit, as it contributed the beginning of a discussion on a minimum age for marriage. Although a law that sets 17 as the minimum legal age to marry is now being stalled in parliament, the discussion is an achievement, she said.

When you have statistical evidence of early marriage, female genital mutilation or gender-based violence, it is harder for people to ignore the problem, she said.

Hard facts and dialogue are a key to closing the gender gap, from the family-level to government.

In Yemen, only one of the 301 seats in parliament is held by a woman, and two ministries -the Ministry of Human Rights and the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs- are headed by women.

To date, women are outnumbered four to one in legislatures around the world, according to the UN.

"Despite the progress that has been made, six out of ten of world's poorest people are still women and girls, less than 16 percent of the world's parliamentarians are women, two thirds of all children shut outside the school gates are girls," according to the United Nations' Development Program's Web site.

Over 60 percent of all unpaid family workers globally are women, women still earn on average 17 percent less than men, and about one-third of women suffer gender-based violence during their lives, it says.

ACTION NOT WORDS

The program has received support from the University of Sana'a, said Al-Kadiri, but it seeks more technical support from international donors and UN agencies.

"This is the nucleus for changing society," she said. "This center with other partners will be a good change agent for Yemen, even regionally where conflict is high."

Al-Kadiri also urged local women's rights organizations to support the center's efforts and show a greater presence at its meetings.

"Talking about gender equality is important, but doing is more important," she said.

Although it showed improvement in scores from previous years, Yemen was ranked 130 out of 130 countries in the 2008 Global Gender Gap Report, an annual report issued by the World Economic Forum.