IDRC Project Number: 103574

Project Timeline: January 2006-January 2010

IDRC Budgetary Contribution: CAD $708,900

 

 

 

Decentralization policies are often touted as a means of strengthening democracy and citizen participation, particularly amongst citizens who have been marginalized from government decision-making processes and policies.  Decentralized governance is espoused as a means of not only promoting democratic governance, but also the more equitable sharing of economic opportunities and responsibilities. Given the context in which many countries worldwide have turned to decentralization, investigating the gendered dimensions of such processes becomes critical.  In Latin America, decentralization has become a widespread development strategy and is transforming the structure of governance in the region.  Virtually all countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have implemented some form of decentralization. Given the extent of the phenomenon, it is timely to explore the gender implications of decentralization policies.

 

Decentralization and local governance are frequently presented as beneficial for women, but relationships, structures and processes of local governance can limit both the space for women’s participation and the policy potential for addressing gender issues.  Competing interests for power and resources at the local government level can operate in ways that exclude women.  Formal and informal systems and relationships can hinder women’s participation and for taking up issues important to them.  Furthermore, when the motivation behind decentralization is efficiency rather than equity, gender interests are less likely to be addressed. 

 

There already exists a body of research and evidence on women’s political participation in  decentralized systems in LAC, but there is a scarcity of research that investigates the conditions and policy impact of such participation.  There is also a dearth of action-oriented research focusing on what is required at the local level in order to facilitate women’s access to office in decentralized contexts, as well as policy making that works to protect and realize women’s national and international rights.

 

 

IDRC has run a research competition supporting research on the linkages between state decentralization reforms and decentralized systems of government and the protection and realization of women’s and girls’ rights in Latin America and the Caribbean. 

 

Research projects will document and analyze specific decentralization reforms which have worked to promote women’s and girl’s rights and/or reforms that have created barriers to the protection and realization of these rights, in order to inform the design and implementation of future reforms so that they effectively promote gender justice. This research project will foster research that investigates the following issues through a gendered lens: women’s rights to resources access, women’s political participation, decentralization and national machineries for women, accountability and rights.  The projects will bring new insights on the gendered dimension of decentralization in a region that has made remarkable progress in women’s codifying rights even though it has not necessarily translated into real gains for gender justice. The results will be used to inform the design and implementation of future decentralization reforms so that they effectively promote gender justice.

 

This project is part of a phased multi-regional competition on “Women’s Rights and Decentralization”.  The first competition, launched in 2003, and was situated in Sub-Saharan Africa . The second competition was launched in July 2005 and focused on decentralization and women’s rights in South Asia.

 

 

The overall objective of the research project is to establish a regional competitive grants program which will support research that empirically investigates whether and how contemporary decentralization reforms contribute to, or on the contrary, hinder the realization and protection of women’s and girls’ civil, political, social, economic and/or cultural rights.

 

The specific objectives of the Project are as follows:

 

 

The research competition was hosted, managed and administered by Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLASCO Argentina).  The small grants competition aims to attract proposals for mid-sized projects for a duration of 18 to 24 months, from experienced researchers, ideally partnering women’s organizations and preferably working in multidisciplinary teams.   IDRC, FLASCO and an independent international jury will review and evaluate incoming proposals and select the four successful ones. 

 

The research competition will support social science research based on feminist, participatory and action-research methodologies. The methods informing the projects may comprise either and/or both qualitative and quantitative approaches, including but not excluded to interviews, surveys, focus group discussions, archival research and participatory rural appraisal methods. 

 

 

The competition will foster stronger collaboration between traditional research institutions, academics and grassroots organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean that are working on decentralization and women’s rights. It will generate a body of research that illustrates how issues of gender, governance and women’s rights are inextricably intertwined. Specifically the resulting comparative case studies will illuminate how gender roles, relations and inequalities affect political processes such as decentralization and vice versa.  The research project will assist in filling the gap in cross-regional comparative work on the topic of decentralization and women’s rights through a knowledge-sharing workshop that will take place in Buenos Aires in August 2006.