Taking Household Methodologies and GALS to Scale

Linda Mayoux

Independent Consultant GAMEChange Network28th June 2016

Elements in change

‘IN THE AIR’ ‘GENDER EQUALITY IS THE ONLY MODERN WAY OF DOING THINGS’ ‘GENDER’ IS FUNBut everyone is (and remains) ‘outside their comfort zone’Elements in change•Unifying Vision of Social Justice in which women’s human rights are non-negotiable•Proven change possibilities and benefits for large numbers of men as well as women•Creativity, dynamism and innovation: everyone can be a leader of change•Institutional mainstreaming: gender and GALS at operational (eg integration in other training) and organisational (eg integration in planning) levels•Flexible, linked network of expertise and information flow at different levels and different thematic expertise, based on ‘enlightened self-interest’•On-going

The upscaling challenge

• Not thousands but millions • Change is possible, can be rapid, but can reverse • GALS simple and flexible – but not ‘anything goes’• Upscaling what? Why? For whom? • From ‘proving impact’ to ‘improving practice’ • Dynamic and inclusive information networks• Stakeholder ‘win-win’ versus mission-drift• COST??!!• Donor project cycle

Upscaling Model: Amoebas, Hydras and Spiderwebs

• The amoebas Community level innovation, growth and ripple out effect

• The hydrasOrganisational replication with many heads

• The spider webs Multiple linkages as movement for innovation and advocacy

‘Dynamic change movement’

Seeding the Amoebas: Catalyst methodology

• Start with individual self-interest• Start with visions and the positive• Identify the ‘gender spark’ and fan

it• Action from Day 1• Pyramid peer sharing plan 1-5-3-3….• No ‘children’s drawings’•Make it Fun

• Vision

• Vision Journey

• Gender Balance Tree

• Change Leadership Map

• Multilane Highway

Individual voluntary peer sharing

Rocky Road to Diamond Dreams

Gender is Fun! The GALS Experience Linda Mayoux June 2016

Group sharing and planning

Gender Justice Review

• Vision Journeys• Challenge Action

Trees• Songs

• Gender Justice Diamonds• Challenge Action Trees• Multilane Highway• Interactive Theatre

Adaptations/other entry points•Organisational gender mainstreaming•Happy Family Happy Coffee•Livelihood and business strengthening/Value Chain Development•Financial Action Learning System•Advocacy research•Other…

‘Hybrid vigour’: Strength in Diversity

• Everyone is a leader• Inclusion of ‘non-standard’

households • Group structures • Participatory process and skills• Hand over ownership! – and

responsibility from the start

Maintaining the gender DNA

• Start in vision/drip-drip• Songs and videos• Clear tools in back of notebooks• Gender action commitments clear,

tracked and quantified• Integrate GALS/PALS tools into

other trainings and planning• CEDAW framework and gender

review after 1 year• Linking with women and men’s

movements and gender research• Action learning and feedback loops

Group 1: Methodology Questions

What elements need to be in place in the methodology to: •Inspire large numbers of men as well as women with new visions for changing gender inequalities?•What are the elements of ‘gender DNA?’ How to ensure deepening of change?•Motivate champions to share with very many people, maintaining gender DNA?•Promote collective action? multi-stakeholder communication?•Process stages? Entry points?

Challenges: •Preventing people starting to dominate as soon as they get a bit of power?•Maintaining focus on gender equality and transformation as things scale up?•‘Expert’ role and withdrawal? •Cost? What are external budgets needed for?

Hydras 1: Community champions

NOTE: ‘community’ means all levels – including organisation staff and consultants in their own networks

Individual pyramid peer sharing•Develop and implement own plans•Understanding of ‘gender balance’ and human rights for all•Peer sharing with family and friends•Group sharing and participatory facilitation •Track and quantify information•Exposure visits and inter-organisational exchange

Group facilitation•Participatory skills and tools•Songs to share and develop new ones•Role play facilitation•Participatory quantification •Gender and generational inclusion and sensitivity to need for leadership by all

Hydras 2: Organisation staff and managementWhat do they do?•Organisational field staff: gender ‘facipulation’ and monitoring•Organisational managers: participatory planning and gender mainstreaming across activities•Reporting

What do they need?•Learn from community champions and practise tools in own family•‘Business/development’ case for gender/HHMs•Organisational level gender training •Gender MandE systems•Documentation (multimedia), IT skills

Hydras 3: Process advisers

What do they do?•Champion catalyst process•Organisational gender training•Adapt materials•Facilitate sustainability plan from the beginning•Hand over to champions and staff•Review and documentation?•Inter-organisational exchange visit support?•Ongoing learning, reflection and innovation in response to new issues

Capacity-building needs•Mentoring by existing experienced champions/process facilitators in an existing implementing organisation•GALS on-line Forums•Multimedia and IT skills?•Advanced training (peer?/tertiary education?) in GALS and thematic areas

GALS Certification???

• Pros: have more control over quality of ‘HHM experts’• Cons: stifles innovation and voluntary effort, ‘ossification’ who

would do it, cost of certification process

My recommendations:• Community-level certification process based on voluntary

performance eg Bukonzo Joint• Organisation-level donor accreditation based on project

reporting• Process facilitators develop own personal websites • Links between websites of experience and cases (Spider Webs)•Modular advanced curricula on-line and/or linked to University

courses

MUST BE DYNAMIC AND BASED ON SELF-INTEREST

Group 2: Capacity Development Questions

In order to catch the amoebas so they grow and continue to spawn – with hybrid vigour and gender DNA:

•Role of individuals and communities? Role of service providers and experts?•What skills are needed by whom, at what level?•How to maintain momentum on gender at each level? •Certification: is it needed? why? for whom? by what criteria? who decides?

Challenges:•How to prevent power relationships from building up within and between ‘expert hydras’ at each level?•How to maintain motivation for voluntary skills sharing and ongoing self-funded capacity-building at all levels?•Moving onwards and upwards?•What learning is voluntary self-interest? What skills and for whom might external budgets be focused on?

Spider Webs 1: Action Learning Systems

• Monitoring, evaluation, impact assessment, research linked• Information for whom? Why? From

whom?• Mix of quantitative, qualitative and

participatory methods• Empowering Enquiry: ‘From proving

impact to improving practice’• Progress is tracked and analysed at the

level closest to where it is needed. Then aggregated.• ‘Optimal ignorance’• Exit Cases and control sample• Participatory Action Learning System:

feedback loops

Bukonzo Joint Information System

Ongoing and used by Bukonzo Joint for advocacy

Going deeper: qualitative information

• Red flags? Why questions• Diagrams (individual and

group)• Qualitative follow-up –

empowering enquiry, role play• Participatory photography

and video (WhatsAp, GENVAD and Insightshare)• External evaluation• Documenting Cases

(Uganda report)

Building a ‘business case’in coffee sector

• Challenge Action Trees for Increasing Incomes: farmer, staff, trader and company level – quantifies baseline/changes at individual and group level for production, marketing ad gender. • Company disaggregates coffee

delivered by GALS direct/indirect/communities and communities with no GALS• Qualitative cases and external

evaluation to put it together – who should do that? Link to branding? • Research Institutes?

Group 3: Questions for action learning SYSTEM

• How to combine participatory gender goals with project gender goals?• How to translate goals (broad indicators) into SMART indicators?• Who collects what information• With what precision and how often?• How is information shared, in what form? Feedback loops• Role of participatory, quantitative, qualitative methods?• Role of multimedia documentation?• Role of external evaluation and research institutions?• How can the information system contribute to empowerment and

change? • Costs?

Spiderwebs 2: Community/organisation networking

• Kinship networks – local and extended from leadership maps• Marketing and value chain

networks• Social networks eg church, VSLAs• Participation in village

committees• Networks and committees within

organisations• Professional networks

• HOW TO LINK THESE NETWORKS?

Types of linking network

• WhatsAp, Blogs, Facebook (Hivos and earlier WEMAN Yahoo groups)• Websites eg IFAD, Oxfam Novib,

AgriProfocus, Gamechange Network• Moderated e-discussion (eg DFID

EDIAIS on impact assessment methodologies)• Workshops and face to face

meetings• Exchange visits/Learning Routes

Community Fair

• Bring together range of stakeholders• Bring impact data• Incorporate participatory planning

moments• Self-funded through local sponsorship• International Women’s Day??? Other large

Forums??

Network Challenges

• Incentives to contribute? • Lack of time to contribute meaningfully• Overload of information - selection• Synthesis and analysis of information• Communication and IT skills• Linking information to policy advocacy• Tracking impact of network to get

funding• Copyright and

accreditation/organisational monopolies• Often needs face to face interaction• Sustainability/turnover/dynamism• Funding??

Group 4: Key questions on networking

Whose networks? For what? •How will information link to action?•Ongoing discussion and posting of immediate information and materials?•Repositories for ‘official versions’?•Outward linkages to external information?

Dynamic structure?•Process/moment-specific quick implementation•Public/private•Open/membership/monitored•Maintaining linkages and enabling people to move in and out?•Linkages between networks?

Communication forms?•Written/multimedia with photos/video/songs etc•Language? Local, regional, international?•Short messages/in-depth knowledge

Spider webs 3: Partnerships and modalities for implementation

Different interventions•Gender programmes: women’s rights, masculinity work•Livelihood programmes: food security, value chain, financial services•Civil society programmes: leadership and governance, conflict resolution

Different entry and delivery models•Amoeba – focussed: community-level, SHGs•Hydra – focussed : cooperatives, private sector, NGOs, service providers•Spiderweb - focussed: donor, government, research

• Aggregated and Collective Visioning (soulmate or diamonds)• Aggregate and collective

Strategic Planning• Challenge Action Trees• Upscale and advocacy

mapping• Participatory advocacy

research

Participatory Planning

Gender is Fun! The GALS Experience Linda Mayoux June 2016

Financial Action Learning/genfinance example

• Financial education community-level/ VSLAs produce savings/loan use contracts• Bank staff trained to assess these.• Gender mainstreaming across all

interactions• Social Performance Management• Participatory Product Market Research

Financially sustainable and profitable at all levels

• Link individual planning to government participatory planning processes

• Farmers present plans to local government officers

• Integration of gender training into government agricultural extension

• Use of monitoring information to influence local officials eg land boards

Engaging with government

Gender is Fun! The GALS Experience Linda Mayoux June 2016

• Issues: value chain, gender-based violence, land rights etc

• MandE aggregated from members to groups to organisation and used for advocacy

• Quantitative and qualitative follow-up studies on issues emerging

• Use of participatory methods so that analysis and findings are fed back to the people affected

• Community fair that could gather existing information and lead to new plans

• Linkage with Universities for in-depth research

Advocacy Research

Gender is Fun! The GALS Experience Linda Mayoux June 2016

Group 5: Partnerships and modalities for implementation

• What is your experience of multi-stakeholder processes? Challenges?• What strategies have worked well linking community-level processes

with cooperatives? private sector? With government? • What opportunities do you see moving forward?• How to maintain community-led approach? gender DNA?• Withdrawal strategies? Role of ‘experts’ and research institutes?• Project Cycle?