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The first GenderInSITE Planning Meeting was held in January 2010, hosted by UNESCO in
Paris and funded by Sida. Thirty participants from UNESCO, ICSU, Chinese Academy of
Sciences, InterAcademy Panel, FAO, AAAS, OIC, M. S. Swaminathan Research
Foundation, SOPAC Fiji, Zayeb International Prize for the Environment, as well as the
organizing groups, attended. The purpose was to consult with experts from all regions on the
value, targets, and focus areas of a campaign (See the full participants list in Appendix
One).
This first workshop was convened as a result of the situation that studies conducted over the
past 20 years have led to the recognition that there is a strong gender dimension to the
application of science and technology for development. Women and men contribute in
different ways to the creation of scientific and technological knowledge. Men and women are
often affected in different ways when science and technology are applied to meet
development objectives. Women and men have different S&T priorities in support of their
daily activities For example, in looking at gender differences in agriculture, women and
men grow different kinds of crops in different regions. Men tend to produce mainly field and
cash crops, while women grow and prepare food for the family in home gardens or small lots
near the home. Their priorities for seed, fertilizer, technology and other inputs will differ
accordingly.
The result of this first meeting was an agreement to develop an international campaign,
GenderInSITE, to work with decision makers on raising awareness of the gender, science,
technology and innovation dimensions of development. It seems to the GenderInSITE
participants that many policy and decision makers concerned with science, technology for
development are unaware of this gender dimension. If they were aware, and acted on the
basis of this awareness, we believe that their policies and decisions would have a major
impact on a new type of development. What is needed is a recognition that the different roles
and responsibilities of women and men /boys and girls in family care, domestic chores,
income earning, health support and food security require a gender lens be applied to STI
promote within the education system the access of girls and women to scientific
education at all levels;
improve conditions for recruitment, retention and advancement in all fields of
research;
launch, in collaboration with UNESCO and the United Nations Development Fund for
Women (UNIFEM), national, regional and global campaigns to raise awareness of
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We also know that the MDGs require both S&T and gender equality in order for countries to
reach their targets by 2015, and to achieve equitable and sustainable poverty reduction. For
example, it is critical to support womens poverty reduction and food security activities to
achieve Goal number 1 priorities should include prominent development and dissemination
of ergonomic and more efficient agricultural tools for women subsistence farmers, while
ensuring that adequate transport and roads exist to enable them to sell their agricultural
produce. Recognizing womens environmental management practices and local knowledge
about forests and common land management provide a basis for achieving MDG 6.
In 2007 UNESCO published the "International Report on Science, Technology and Gender
which brought up to date the analysis of these issues. It was complemented by 2006
InterAcademy Council report, Women for Science, as well as EU work in the area and
initiation of a range of regional and institutional programmes to study and act on removing
the barriers to increased gender equity identified in the international reports.
3. Overall vision, purpose and objectives
As a result of the discussions undertaken over the course of the two meetings, it was agreed
that the overall vision for the GenderInSITE campaign is best expressed as follows:
STI for development policy and programs will be more effective, equitable or sustainable
when the gender lens is applied that is, when it reflects the aims, concerns, situation and
abilities of both women and men.
The purpose of the GenderInSITE campaign is to participate in global discussions and
mobilise a range of stakeholders at all levels to:
Raise the awareness of policy and decision makers about the gender dimension of
science, technology and innovation for sustainable development.
Demonstrate with a limited number of issues and sectors how gender analysis of
science technology can lead to a new and fairer type of development.
Highlight women's role in development and how it can be supported using science
and technology;
Promote the contributions of women to STI.
The objectives are to support the vision by promoting an understanding of the need to:
Recognize and support the capacity of women to advance and use STI globally,
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nationally and locally, recognizing that countries cannot achieve development goals
and improve standards of living without empowering women
Mobilize STI systems and institutions to support women as social and economic
agents in rural areas.
The main beneficiaries are women and men / girls and boys at the grassroots; women
scientists; and decision makers.
4. Role/purpose of GenderInSITE
Some of the main agreed functions of the campaign can include consolidating and
connecting the messages of different groups as well as coordinating and connecting up
related initiatives in diverse sectors. All of this could increase the impact of individual
groups.
The intent is to work from top and bottom at the same time in a holistic approach. It will be
important not to add additional messages or problems to the mix, but to provide decision
makers and other groups with solutions to existing problems. The approach will be to help
people find their low-hanging fruit, i.e., work within their zone of comfort and help them
towards implementable and successful solutions.
One simple and straightforward activity is to identify and highlight practical and
effective solutions of STI for gender-equitable global sustainable development. This
involves building on lessons, models and experiences of other initiatives.
Connecting up to international and regional networks on science, technology and
development will spread the network of allies and provide channels for both for the gathering
and the disseminating of research and models.
5. Targets/ audience
The overall target for this campaign is decision makers in government and policy, science
institutions, NGOs and civil society, and international, regional and national agencies.
For several reasons, the message and the information conveyed by the campaign need to
be evidence-based, built on solid research and data; they will need to provide a bridge from
knowledge to action that is, provide concrete and specific recommendations and models
for action; and they will need to help policy makers solve their problems.
While some partners will be approached initially, the first targets of the GenderInSITE work
will be those who can become partners to help spread the word:
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6. Message
The discussion on message was the most comprehensive. It will be critical for the success of
the initiative to develop an overall simple and clear message that reverberates yet conveys
a very complicated message.1 This overall message will remain constant, but the case or
illustrative example can be changed each year. The decision on the illustrative cases will be
made to address pressing issues at the time or a major international event.
No clear final decisions were made, but a range of messages were discussed which might
have relevance for various levels and purposes of the campaign. It was agreed that it would
be most useful to have two or three main, concrete messages. These could apply to the
overarching theme of the campaign and/or the separate messages of the two arms of the
campaign. (See Section 9 below). The one underlying theme, which may or may not need to
be articulated as part of the message, is to present women as The untapped solution or
The 100% solution.
The messages which received the most support by the end of the meeting were:
Further work on refining the overall message will be done with the organizing group, key
partners, and advertising and marketing experts.
7. Activities
Role models and spokespersons
There was substantive discussion on the potential of using celebrity spokespersons at some
point in the campaign. The value of using these kinds of spokespersons is that they can
command global attention, they appeal to peoples sense of excitement and currency.
Types of potential spokespersons include:
- local women leaders and MPs
- women leaders who win international awards of some kind (e.g. Waangari Maathai)
- high-profile women politicians
- women athletes in Kenya and Ethiopia are seen as strong role models for girls who
promote independence, toughness, and physical ability. The other advantage of
using women athletes is that they are already engaged in a related activity and can
easily cross over to STI issues. Billy Jean King is an example of a woman who
understands the need for more girls and women to go into health and other sciences.
Developing awards for different activities, and ensuring publicity around them are also ways
of creating role models. Examples include the LOreal UNESCO Women for Science prizes
and the OWSDW-TWAS-Elsevier Prizes for Young Women Scientists. Awards for
mentoring are an example of an award which promotes activities to support women and girls
in SITE.
For this reason it was agreed to divide up the themes and messages under two main foci: Women in science,
innovation, technology and engineering; and SITE to support womens development and grassroots activities.
See Section 10 below.
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It was agreed that these two themes would include and provide an organizing framework for
the focus areas identified in the first meeting. These areas are:
1. Education and research, focusing on education and training of women and girls at all
levels of the STI system.
2. Employment / workforce and leaky pipeline issues, particularly the loss of women in
the transition from the educational system to the STI workforce
3. Innovation systems, SMEs and technology transfer, with a focus on the role and
situation of women in informal and grassroots innovation systems in both rural and
urban settings
4. Gender and STI dimensions of global climate change. Focusing on womens role in
the STI system, and development of technologies to support recovery and adaption
efforts.
For each of the overarching themes, the main goal, sub themes and areas of focus were
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New leadership for a new age (inclusive, importance of women leaders and
womens leadership, men need to think differently)
[Embracing] [Engaging] new leadership
A new generation of leaders, both men and women, to address issues of
sustainability and green technologies to change development through a gender lens.
During the discussion, the value of working with the IAP Women for Science regional
networks in LAC (coordinated by the InterAmerican Network of Academies of Science
IANAS), sub-Saharan Africa and Asia were highlighted, in addition to other regional
networks. It was agreed that a strength of the campaign could be the generation,
dissemination and highlighting of regional data, research, context, issues and activities
related to this topic.
9.2 STI for development to benefit both women and men
The title for the theme is Developing STI based development solutions with women and
men.
The overarching concept is taken from work developed by the Gender Advisory Board for
the CSTD, around gender, technology and sustainability. The main approach is to overlay a
gender lens to the interconnecting nature of the health of the planet and health of the
people. That is, addressing basic needs for human development with SITE is critical, but it
wont be successful or sustainable unless environmental considerations are taken into
account. All of this of course will not be effective unless a gender lens is applied, or unless
womens and mens differential access to resources, their concerns, perspectives, capacities
and creativity are taken into account.
Developing and implementing policies for this include understanding the policy environment
and harmonization; capacity building strategies for policy developers and programme
implementers as well as beneficiaries. Recognizing and supporting the innovative capacity
and knowledge of women and men and the grassroots is critical; as is recognizing the
importance of multi-stakeholder, diverse and flexible partnerships for development and
implementation; and scaling up successful models for action.
Some of the main goals of the theme include:
Women and men developing technologies
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Sub-themes would include basic grassroots technology and sustainability issues such as :
food security and agriculture
water and sanitation
energy
local knowledge systems
biodiversity
natural resources management
nutrition
poverty
climate change-related and other shocks and disasters.
Potential messages for the theme could include:
Women and men [imagining] and inventing new solutions together / in partnership
Picking up on womens contributions
STI with a gender lens = solution
Imagining a better world; if you can dream it you can do it
Doing SITE without women is like doing a job with one hand tied behind ones back
Executive Committee
|
Governing Council
|
(Ad hoc committees to advise on specific topics and issues)
|
Secretariat Regional Nodes
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Partners
|
Affiliates
Other bodies
Ad hoc committees
Communications / PR Committee made up of UN and publishing companies, PR and
marketing firms
Funding
Executive Committee will make decisions on funding, guided by UN Compact rules
concerning donor engagement and other considerations.
11. Partners
UNESCO
Academies / Women for Science
Connect up through the regional networks Women for Science which are
developing. These can be ways to find and disseminate regional research, data,
cases and models for action.
IANAS
EASAC
NASAC
AASA
NASIC
National Commissions UNESCO (Participation program) and selected Regional
Offices
Regional Offices TWAS
Regional Offices ICSU
Women Organizing for Change in Agriculture and Natural Resources Management
(WOCAN)
FAO
IFAD
International Development Research Centre, Canada (IDRC)
Relevant events which can be linked to or used to promote the campaign in 2011 include:
AU/ AMCOST Decade of Science
World Conference of Science Journalists, Cairo, June 27-29 2011
o Elsevier will have a stand there; Elsevier is supporting participation of
develoing country journalists and case studies in selected topics
International Year of Chemistry
o Intl Conference of Women in S&T, September
World Economic Forum, Dalian China Young Champions 14 -16 September
International Year of Forestry
TWAS meeting, Morocco, September
ICSU General Conference in Rome, September
World Science Forum
G77 Summit September - Libya
UNESCO General Conference 26 October 11 November
Bio USA
Triple Helix, UK
British Science Festival
LDCs conference, May
South Africa Science Centres and Museums October (UNESCO is the convener)
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Appendix One
Workshop to Plan
International Campaign to Promote
Gender and Innovation for Development
Paris, January 18-19, 2010
Participants
Kaiser Jamil, President, TWOWS
Shirley Malcom, Co-Chair GAB, Director, EHR, American Association for the
Advancement of Sciences (AAAS)
Mohamed Hassan, Executive Director, TWAS
Alice Abreu, Director, ICSU Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean
Meshgan Al-Awar, Zayeb International Prize for the Environment, Dubai
Honourable Sulayma Albarwani, MP, Sultanate of Oman
Shaidah Asmall, Country Director South Africa, USAID
Lidia Brito, Director, Science Policy Division, UNESCO
Lala Bukarau, SOPAC, Fiji
Gulser Corat, Director, Gender Equality, UNESCO
Mme Fang Xin, Praesidium, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Shuquin Fu, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Julia Hasler, Programme Specialist, UNESCO
Prof. S. Hassoun, President, Arab Academy for E-Business, Syria
Sophia Huyer, Senior Advisor, TWOWS
Yianna Lambrou, Senior Officer, Gender Equity & Rural Development, FAO
Zhao Langxian, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Diana Malpede, Science Policy Division, UNESCO
Tony Marjoram, Head of Engineering Sciences, Division of Basic and Engineering
Sciences, UNESCO
Peter McGrath, Program Officer, TWAS
Leena Mungapen, TWOWS Secretariat
Romain Murenzi, ex Minister of Education, S&T, Rwanda; Fellow, AAAS
Sudha Nair, Program Director, M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, India
Tanveer Naim, Organization of Islamic Countries, Pakistan
AnnaKarin Norling, Policy Specialist, Research, Sida
Peggy Oti-Boateng, Director, Technology Consultancy Centre, Kwame Nkrumah
University of Science and Technology, Ghana
Geoffrey Oldham, Prof. Emeritus, SPRU; Gender Advisory Board (CSTD), UK
Sandra Ravalico, TWAS
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GenderInSITE:
Workshop to plan an
International Campaign to Promote Gender and Innovation for Development II
Paris, February 1-3, 2011
Participants
Shirley Malcom, Co-Chair, Gender Advisory Board and Director, Education and Human
Resources, AAAS, USA
Farida Shah, Vice President Asia, Organization for Women in Science for the Developing
World (OWSDW), Malaysia
Mohamed Hassan, Executive Director, TWAS
Gloria Bonder, UNESCO Chair on Women in S&T in Latin America, Argentina
Jennifer Campbell, Director, Corporate Philanthropy, LOreal Foundation
Sophia Huyer, Senior Advisor, Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World
(OWSDW), Canada
Erika Kraemer-Mbula, UK
Peter McGrath, TWAS
Diana Malpede, Science Policy Division, UNESCO
Cora Neumann, Co-Director, RAND African First Ladies, Hungary
AnnaKarin Norling, Sida, Sweden
Geoffrey Oldham, Gender Advisory Board and Honorary Professor, Science Policy
Research Unit, UK
David Ruth, Senior Vice President - Global Communications, Elsevier, USA
Ylann Schlemm, Corporate Relations Manager, Elsevier, Netherlands
Judi Wakhungu, Director, Africa Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS), Kenya
Alyson Warhurst, Maplecroft, UK
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Appendix Three
Partners:
Young women scientists / OWSDW members.
Decision-makers/heads of institutions.
The scientific community (academies and their regional networks, learned
societies/ICSU and its members, etc.).
UN agencies, especially UNESCO, UN Women.
University networks, e.g. ACU, AUF, AAU.
Outcomes / Indicators:
Level of parity for women at all career levels (also considering life sciences vs other
sciences, basic vs applied, etc).
No. of grants awarded to women scientists.
No. of women scientists in academies.
No. of women scientists invited as guest speakers at major international
conferences.
Richer scientific community able to solve challenges / more productive. (Can we
identify institutions where there are a good number of women at all levels and
compare these to similar institutions in the same/neighbouring country?).
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Appendix Four
Harmonizing ST&I with women and men for better/meaningful futures
Main goals
Women developing technologies
Women setting agendas about technology development
Women choosing technologies
Technology supporting womens lives
Upscaling and disseminating appropriate technologies
Highlighting womens innovative responses to development challenges
Greater participation of women in the sectors and areas around / related to S&T
How to craft knowledge / conception of technology production for the wellbeing of
society and unreached groups as a part of education of extensionists and
educators
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