I'd like to thank you for the invitation to speak today. I work as a post-doctoral researcher at Radboud, as you said, but I'm going to talk specifically about some lessons gleaned from a very detailed analysis I undertook of gender mainstreaming implementation processes in the European Commission's Directorate General for Research. I'll call that organization DG Research for short, and these findings relate to the period between 2002 and 2006. I really hope this will be useful for you.
I want to start by mentioning two key messages that we see in existing academic research, and these relate specifically to implementation problems. I expect that members of the committee are fairly familiar with these, so I'll be brief in my description of them.
The first widely documented implementation problem is that civil servants or bureaucrats will often argue that gender is not relevant. Most normal people can't understand how gender could be relevant to all areas of policy. Research shows that even if a politician or a civil servant sees themself as pro gender equality, it doesn't by any means follow that they understand the notion that gender is socially constructed or understand that gender inequality is shaped, and in some instances actually maintained, by state policy. This means that gender mainstreaming or gender-based analysis can easily become a very confused and a rather empty policy once it passes from the rhetorical political stages into actual implementation.
Implementation structures need to be designed with this potential for confusion in mind, and I would argue for three priorities when designing implementation structures to tackle the dynamics I've just mentioned.
The first priority I see is really clear leadership from management, or high political backing. What I mean by this is that it's very important to develop a clear statement in each area of policy of what gender mainstreaming would actually mean, and this clear statement needs to cover a strategic vision, operational processes, and also impact assessment and evaluation procedures. If these aren't made clear, then gender mainstreaming implementation rather often degenerates into kind of ongoing contestation over what gender means and whether it's relevant here, in whichever given policy area.
In DG Research, the case I am telling you about, this conceptual policy development work was undertaken through a series of meetings between internal management staff, external gender policy experts, and women's civil society. Because the implementation procedures that they subsequently devised actually joined up those three levels that I've just mentioned—strategic vision, operational processes, and impact assessment—the foundations were laid for a kind of loop of collective work and also learning.
To elaborate, strategic management staff in DG Research took the EU's rather vague commitment to mainstream gender into all policy areas and they translated it into much more specific terms that were relevant to research policy. Their strategic vision for what gender mainstreaming meant in research policy was science by, for, and on women, so they created a kind of motto.
That vision was disseminated internally and it was also translated very clearly into tightly specified actions. These included quotas for women in decision-making and an implementation procedure called a gender action plan. This gender action plan was actually a section embedded into existing project management procedures that civil servants already used on an almost daily basis. This gender action plan, this new section, asks civil servants to supply two pieces of information: the number of women participating on a scientific project team and also a scientific project's impact on women.
This, too, had a very interesting effect on civil servants' practice and knowledge. When I conducted interviews about gender mainstreaming, civil servants in DG Research didn't want to have a conceptual conversation with me, but they all mentioned this one compulsory procedure, the gender action plan, and the obligations that it entailed. They all knew that simply counting women is over-simplistic and they knew they had to actually describe how gender was relevant to a scientific project's content and also its impact.
This two-pronged understanding in itself represents a small movement towards the kind of comprehension of gender that we need to see developing among civil servants. In interviews staff told me that they often had to seek help in order to fill in this second section of the gender action plan, but that's fine because, actually, the policy's architects had intended for that to happen. They had established an internal network of so-called gender leads, one located in each sub-department. This gender lead participated in bimonthly meetings with strategic management, and they were in turn responsible for supporting colleagues in filling out that section of the gender action plan that I described.
This tool, the gender action plan, managed to stimulate a flow of information that involved all of DG Research's staff. In essence the local gender lead was channelling the learning that had been undertaken by strategic management when they were developing the policy down into their own sub-department.
This brings me to the second and third priorities I see when designing implementation structures. The first priority was clear conceptual elaboration, and the second relates to learning processes. Gender mainstreaming really challenges institutions and individuals to incorporate new concepts into their practice.
I think the second key consideration in designing implementation procedures is that we should attempt to institutionalize ongoing learning relating to the relevance of gender. The gender action plan I mentioned stimulated the circulation of gender expertise and incorporated it into in existing implementation procedures. You need a good policy team if you want to work out how to do this. The work also needs to be properly resourced.
The third key consideration is high-level political commitment. This needs to take the form of resources and very clear rewards and penalties, which will incentivize active implementation. Civil servants implement policies when the priorities and implementation processes are clearly specified and if it will be good for their career. In DG Research, information on quota fulfillment and the content of gender action plans was actually collected in a database so that you could compare sub-departments and assess their progress. That gave staff an incentive to implement the policy well, because it meant you could actually see and compare actions taken.
Gender mainstreaming is a very ambitious policy that attempts to tackle gender blindness, which is structurally entrenched. We should, as a result, think of gender mainstreaming as a long-term learning process that needs to be properly incentivized and resourced. My key messages are as follows.
One, the gender mainstreaming or gender-based analysis needs to be thoroughly conceptualized across all policy stages, including strategic vision, operational procedures, and impact assessment. Collaboration between civil servants and external gender experts will be necessary for that.
Two, implementation processes should institutionalize a flow of information and knowledge about gender's relevance, from impact assessment and moving back into strategic policy development. When I say that, I don't mean everyone has to reach the same level of expertise, but I do think contact between experts or gender leads should be regularized.
Three, political pressure, proper resources, and clear incentives are essential to ensure that any policy is properly implemented. Gender-based analysis is certainly no different.
That's the end of my opening statement. Thank you very much for your attention.