Gender

Within COL's programme, implementing a mainstreaming strategy includes the identification of gender-specific activities and initiatives, as appropriate, whenever girls/women or boys/men are in a particularly disadvantageous position. Gender-specific interventions can target:

Open and distance learning (ODL) can be especially helpful for women and girls to access educational opportunities while also fulfilling other responsibilities; COL uses it to help promote gender equality. COL also has a growing number of initiatives aimed at fostering the full participation of women and girls (more fully in politics, school completion or technology, for instance) to address unequal gender relations that prevent equitable development. Initiatives will also be implemented for men and boys (where appropriate) in areas such as formal education. 

Gender Policy and Action Plan

COL's Gender Policy states that gender equality is a cross-cutting corporate goal that requires that both women's and men's views, interests and needs shape its programmes, policies and processes. Advancing the goals of gender equality and women's empowerment are central to COL's agenda of learning for development. 

The Policy describes how mainstreaming applies to COL. For example, COL has adopted gender mainstreaming as an organisational strategy to ensure that gender equality is considered an integral part of its internal policies and processes. It also explains how gender mainstreaming is integrated into COL's programmes. A staff Gender Committee provides direction for COL's work related to gender.

A new Gender Action Plan outlines how COL will implement the policy and promote a perspective with its partners. It focuses on three areas:

Integrating Best Practices in Gender Mainstreaming

COL hosted a workshop in July 2007 that reviewed the latest best practices in gender mainstreaming. Led by Dr. Tony Beck, an independent consultant who works with the United Nations and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) on gender issues, the session focussed on developing gender-sensitive and gender specific performance indicators and how to incorporate them into COL's work and monitoring and evaluation framework.

A second gender workshop in October 2007 explored how to increase awareness of gender issues within each programme sector and how to encourage positive action among partners. Some of the key issues discussed were how to mainstream gender within COL programmes; how to integrate gender at the initiative level and the challenges of working with partner agencies that may have different cultural beliefs and practices. This workshop was led by Dr. Jyotsna Jha from the Social Transformation Programmes Division of the Commonwealth Secretariat.

Monitoring Trends in Gender and ODL

COL is mapping trends in gender and ODL. This includes identifying the key issues and defining a role for COL. Results of this research will be presented at the Fifth Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning (PCF5) in London from 13-17 July 2008.

Supporting Gender Mainstreaming in the Public Service

Another initiative is also exploring how to use ODL to support gender mainstreaming training within the public service of Commonwealth nations. COL is working with the Commonwealth Secretariat's Gender Section and the Governance and Institutional Development Division to research this opportunity.

Online Resources

COL's website offers a wealth of information related to gender including the following which can be downloaded under 'Resources':

The Gender Management System (GMS) Toolkit: An Integrated Resource for Implementing the Gender Management System Series. This print resource was developed by COL with the Common­wealth Secretariat to help Commonwealth governments to mainstream gender issues into their decision-making and to support the work of those responsible for gender mainstreaming.