Planning from an Equality Perspective

This week, I had the opportunity to attend a workshop organized by the Office of Gender Equality at the Ministry called "Toolkit for Planning with an Equality Perspective". It was conducted by Edith Olivares Ferreto, an expert on Social Anthropology, who spoke to us about how to incorporate a gender perspective into public policy planning exercises. Edith has worked with the Ministry of Social Development, the Mexican House of Representatives, UNDP, the National Institute for Women, and various state and local governments in Mexico on gender issues. The participants came from different administrative units within the Ministry and included both Foreign Service Officers as well as Ministry staff.

Staff participating in the workshop

The first section of this week-long workshop was geared towards bringing awareness to the participants about gender-related inequalities in their own workplace and personal lives. Many salient issues were mentioned, including vertical segregation, wage gaps, stereotype prevalence, uneven distribution of domestic duties, unequal access to professional, education, and economic opportunities, among many others. We also took a look at how the Mexican legal system has incorporated a gender perspective into the National Development Plan and learned that incorporating it into all public policy is one out of three cross-sectoral principles that each government agency must include in its strategic plan (the other two are democratizing productivity and modern government that is close to the people through transparency and accountability).

The second section of the workshop consisted of using the "Logical Framework Approach" to define a problem, its possible causes, and design policy alternatives that contribute towards its solution, while incorporating a gender perspective into the process. I worked in a team with three wonderful women, Bibiana, Karina, and Agustina. The problem we worked on was the under representation of non Foreign Service women in decision making posts at the Ministry Headquarters. Here's a look at the "problem tree" we used to map out causes and effects:

Quite complicated!

The workshop was one of many in a series that the Office of Gender Inequality organizes as part of an effort to address the many complex situations that arise as a result of a phenomenon that is present worldwide: gender inequality. By the end of 2014, the office had trained 204 staff members on different gender-related issues, and while much has been accomplished, much remains to be done. I was glad to be a part of this activity and will surely use the tools that I learned in the workshop during the rest of my professional and personal life. 

Gender Perspective!