Working on gender issues with partners and other actors.

Discussions at the workshop centered around the Oxfam UK/1 program work on gender with its partners and other actors. Gender issues have been part of the program since 1985. Around 80% of the program involves mixed partners (men and women), while around 15% involves women-only groups. Strategies for working with partners include training, ongoing dialogue, involvement in planning, networking, lobbying, advocacy work, sectoral interventions, and research to highlight issues. Improving the gender work of existing counterparts and building new relationships are the goals of the Oxfam UK/1 program. Gender awareness should be used as a criterion in choosing those with whom work is done. Time-bound strategies are needed to persuade partners to respond to the gender-related needs of target groups. Resources are needed to enhance the capacity skills of willing partners. The workshop produced the following recommendations: 1) program managers must take conscious steps to invest time and resources in seeking out new relationships with new potential actors; 2) local culture should be analyzed to develop a locally appropriate approach to gender discrimination, and strategies have to synchronize policy directives with what is happening on the ground; 3) in seeking new relationships, centers of positive energy, which can create a domino effect and break down resistance, should be identified; and 4) networking should be broadened to outside the current universe of counterparts.