Specific tools

Gender & Water
Drinking water in sufficient quantity and quality is one of the most basic human needs, and it is a human right. Millennium Development Goal 7 (Ensure environmental sustainability) aims to halve the number of people without access to clean drinking water and basic sanitation. Experience has shown that action which includes the views and input of both men and women generally has a greater impact. Water is not "gender neutral" because women and men have different gender roles and different access to power and resources. Often, women are not given any say in consultations or are not involved in management or decision-making.
"Gender & Water" is designed to support SDC project staff and partner organizations in mainstreaming gender equality as a part of SDC water, hygiene and sanitation activities.

Gender and water
(pdf, 1.6 MB)

Gender & Sport
In November 2003, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution urging governments to use sport as a way of promoting education, health, development and peace. Irrespective of whether one is talking about professional competitions featuring the world's top athletes or events at local club or school level, sport can make a meaningful contribution to achieving various development objectives. In the context of social development, sport can for instance encourage stability, tolerance and social integration.
Account should be taken of sport in gender issues for the following reasons. First, sport is a socio-cultural phenomenon in which society's ideas of masculinity and femininity play a key role. Second, women – and in some cases men too – can encounter concrete barriers in their wish to participate in a sport.

The document entitled Gender and Sport – Mainstreaming gender in sports projects looks into the question of why the gender perspective plays a role in sport. It includes concrete examples and addresses implementation of the Gender & Sport approach.

Gender and sport
(pdf, 1MB)

Gender in Training
In the past, education was – and sometimes still is – strongly geared to what was considered appropriate for the respective roles of men and women. In the case of women, for instance, this covered their tasks in the home and in the family, and for men, their function of earning enough outside the home to support their family. The same limitation applied to vocational training. For many years, women only had access to careers which professionalized their roles in private households, while the professional role of men was broader-based and offered upward mobility potential. Even though gender-role boundaries are no longer quite as clear cut and have become more flexible, they still have a residual impact.
The document entitled Gender and Training - Mainstreaming gender equality and the planning, realisation and evaluation of training programmes provides in-depth information and practical suggestions for an appropriate gender approach in the planning, execution and evaluation of training events. It is intended for all SDC staff members and consultants who are responsible for conducting training events, seminars, workshops and courses as part of their daily work.

Gender in training
(pdf, 1MB)

Gender and Qualitative Interpretation of data
The aim of these matrice is to assist users to reach a more qualitative understanding in their reading and interpretation of quantitative data from a gender perspective.
Quantitative statistical data is often used as the basis for understanding the context in which development work takes place, as well as a means to assess change. However, quantitative data has its limitations in helping to understand the dynamics of the economic, political and social relations with which development interventions engage. Even where it is disaggregated, it also has limitations in highlighting diversities and inequalities at the national level.

Questioning quantitative data from a gender perspective with the use of qualitative data may help to interpret better these statistics and to exercise the courage to grasp the real diversity in society. This will deepen the diagnostic of development problems and opportunities and help identify and create sound and useful information for baselines to feed into PCM, monitoring and evaluation processes.

Gender & qualitative interpretation of data (pdf, 870KB)

Gender, Conflict Transformation and the Psycho-Social Approach
In recent years, awareness about the individual and collective effects of violent situations has grown in international cooperation circles. Among other things, the psycho-social approach focuses on the impact of structural violence and armed force at individual level, on people's emotional state and social environment, as well as on social and political structures.
This tool is designed to provide assistance with incorporating psycho-social methods into the programmes already offered by international cooperation. It explains the relevance of psycho-social thinking for assignments in the area of structural violence and armed force and highlights its importance for daily work. Although the focus in this tool kit is on conflict zones, most of the papers can also be used for work in other areas. For instance, in the wake of natural disasters or epidemics, psycho-social missions have become an important component of emergency aid, alongside medical support, food aid or the provision of housing.
The tool kit goes into the basic concepts of the psycho-social approach, bringing out the psycho-social problems of different target groups and addressing the psychosocial aspects of various sectors.

Gender, Conflict Transformation and the Psycho-Social Approach
(pdf, 1.5MB)