Section 1: Why Social Exclusion and Gender? 4

Contents

Executive Summary 2

Introduction 4

Section 1: Why Social Exclusion and Gender? 4

Section 2: Specific Recommendations 7

Poverty Reduction Budget Support (PRBS) 7

Sector Programmes and Projects 11

Trust Funds 18

Social Funds 19

Cash Transfers 19

Technical Cooperation 21

Humanitarian Aid 25

Policy Dialogue 27

Section 3: Key Messages for Guidance on Aid Instruments 30

Annexes

Annex 1: Terms of Reference 34

Annex 2: Report on the Survey of DFID SDAs’ Experience of

Different Aid Instruments 38

Annex 3: Literature Review 43

Annex 4: Gap Analysis 53

Executive Summary

Social exclusion and gender inequality deny people access to rights and also to opportunities. This in turn affects market forces and restrains economic growth. Social exclusion impacts on all the MDGs; and is also a leading cause of conflict and insecurity. Gender is also essential to achieving the MDGs, particularly those that are off-track; to promoting economic growth; and to tackling insecurity.

All aid instruments can be used in ways that will support initiatives that tackle social exclusion and promote gender equality, but only if they are designed in ways that ensure more concrete outcomes. In terms of outcomes for gender and social exclusion, there is no intrinsic value to the aid instrument per se; it is rather the way it is used, its relationship to other aid instruments and any supporting initiatives that accompany it. This report highlights the interrelationship between different aid instruments; their complementarity, and the importance of linking them in order to ensure strategic impact.

Drawing on experience from a number of country programmes, three determining factors stand out as having been important in achieving outcomes on gender and social exclusion. Firstly, the political and institutional context: in particular, gaining political recognition of the difficulties of certain groups, and ownership of measures to address those difficulties. Secondly, ensuring sufficient government capacity to translate policy into action; and thirdly, developing mechanisms to improve accountability, by supporting the voice and action of other players, particularly civil society actors and parliamentarians.

In many contexts, DFID has a comparative advantage in addressing these three issues, with respect to advisory support it is able to offer, and the flexibility of its financing mechanisms. DFID Advisers or support through technical cooperation, have been vital in a number of contexts, for building up a constituency of support, and identifying and developing relevant entry points. Ensuring dedicated financial resources and access to flexible sources of money has often been crucial to embedding social exclusion and gender in a range of ways.

Having the flexibility to work at various levels with different tools has been a significant factor where change related to social exclusion and gender has occurred. DFID needs to maintain, or in some contexts, develop the flexibility to use a mix of aid instruments in complementary ways, in order to maximise this comparative advantage.

In terms of social exclusion, DFID has often been a leader and has initiated work, partly due to the availability of technical resources in country. There is a risk as DFID moves towards greater harmonisation, that other donors will not take up the baton of social exclusion.

The commitment of DFID staff and effective policy dialogue have been of critical importance in getting social exclusion and gender equity addressed. However, there are real tensions between supporting country ownership, and at the same time, ensuring that donor concerns related to gender and social exclusion are addressed. This report does not explore in any detail the legitimacy of donors’ influencing national agendas. However, we do highlight the importance of analysing the context in order to inform decisions about the effective and legitimate use of aid instruments; and particularly of policy influencing work. The Drivers of Change approach can help to identify the incentives and disincentives to addressing exclusion and gender discrimination; and provide insight on the power relations and individual political agendas that may shape change in particular country contexts.

The issue of legitimacy is particularly poignant in the context of harmonisation. Harmonisation can provide further opportunities for improved outcomes on gender and social exclusion. These need not be in competition with governance and economic policy agendas; and donors need to explore together how gender and social exclusion might complement or support other policy agendas. However, the need to achieve multi-stakeholder consensus can increase the challenge of influencing the national agenda with new or more radical ideas, and needs to be carefully managed. Advisers have often played a vital role in facilitating these relationships.

PRBS creates opportunities for enhanced policy dialogue with governments on gender and social exclusion, and opportunities to negotiate clear and costed targets for gender and social exclusion outcomes – often through the PRS. Predictability generated through PRBS allows for long-term thinking on social exclusion, and provides an entry point for new initiatives specifically targeted on the more vulnerable and socially excluded groups – particularly longer-term cash transfers.

However, general PRBS is not sufficient to get gender and social exclusion addressed. Even in sector PRBS, invisibilisation and resistance to gender equity goals has been noted in the shift from projects to sector wide budgetary support. Policy commitments for measures to address social exclusion and gender do not get translated into activities unless clearly linked to budget processes. Whilst PRBS provides scope to support governments’ plans, donors need to focus within PRBS on those policies particularly important for addressing exclusion and gender issues, and on strengthening the demand for these issues to be addressed.

Sector interventions to alleviate capacity constraints are often needed alongside PRBS, in order to support sectors to identify priorities, and to establish and implement strategies.This clearly illustrates the complementarity of different aid instruments: technical cooperation can help ministries to present and argue their case; and information gathered through projects can strengthen ministries’ capacity to develop strategies and bid effectively for resources.

Projects can provide the space for rights initiatives with civil society, for piloting equity approaches in the context of PRBS, for capacity-building with weaker Ministries, and for innovating and demonstrating what is possible. They also play a critical role in reaching harder to reach groups. However, Advisers need to become more adept at converting the potential of individual interventions into wider strategic impact.

Trust funds have been used to facilitate discreet strategic pieces of analysis work around social exclusion, that have gone on to have wider impact. Multi-donor Trust Funds led by the World Bank or others tend not to have addressed issues of gender or social exclusion, unless earmarked funds are included.

Strategic Technical Cooperation (TC) alongside PRBS remains vital for turning aspirational policy into action, and for influencing IFIs. TC can empower marginalized Ministries and strengthen their strategic thinking. More successful TC has been long term, embedded in Ministries, and has worked to develop key relationships and trust.

Carefully designed humanitarian aid can work as an effective mechanism for targeted inputs addressing the immediate needs of women, children and other vulnerable groups. However, experience suggests that in the majority of cases, humanitarian initiatives have lacked a strategic approach, been subject to poor targeting and elite capture, and have worked against inclusion in the medium-term. Cash based social protection if properly designed, may have the potential to be more empowering.

Overall however it must be noted that there is a weak evidence base demonstrating the relative effectiveness and impact of different aid instruments on the lives of poor women and excluded groups in different contexts. There is a need for more impact assessment; for greater dissemination of lessons; and for ensuring capacity and commitment to follow up.

Introduction

DFID’s Aid Effectiveness team is developing ‘Guidance on Aid Instruments’ which will be accessed as a DFID intranet based resource. The site will bring together policy and guidance on financial and other aid instruments; it will review the structure, strengths and weaknesses of different aid instruments, and available evidence on their performance and use in different regions and country contexts.

This report was commissioned to inform the ‘Guidance’, by providing analysis on the use of aid instruments to support progress on social exclusion and gender[1]. The overall aim is not to have a separate guidance on aid instruments for gender and social exclusion; but to ensure that these issues are fully reflected and mainstreamed into the overall Guidance. Many of the findings in the report were informed by discussions with 18 Advisers, all of whom have been directly involved at the country level in developing work for improved outcomes related to gender and social exclusion.

Much of the recent literature relating to gender and social exclusion has focused on the more “upstream” aid instruments, particularly general Poverty Reduction Budget Support (PRBS). This report underlines the importance of working with the range of aid instruments, and highlights how certain instruments can complement each other to ensure stronger outcomes[2]. It highlights issues specific to gender and social exclusion, and does not attempt to summarise the more generic strengths and weakness, particularly the short-falls of stand-alone projects and technical cooperation, as these will be addressed in the main ‘Guidance on Aid Instruments’. It also does not explore in any detail the legitimacy of donors’ influencing national agendas.

Section 1 provides a brief overview of the challenges related to gender and social exclusion. The following section, and main body of the report, analyses the constraints and opportunities of six of the most relevant aid instruments, highlighting how these can work together to ensure stronger outcomes for excluded groups. Section 3 summarises the key messages from the interviews and literature review, and represents the specific Recommendations for the forthcoming Guidance on Aid Instruments. There is an additional four-page report on the Advisers’ experiences of working with different aid instruments at Annex 2; and an annotated bibliography of 16 key documents at Annex 3. Annex 4 highlights some of the gaps in existing literature in this area, and outlines some areas for further exploration in order to improve DFID and partners’ understanding of the links between aid instruments, exclusion and gender.

Section 1: Why Social Exclusion and Gender? [3]

Social exclusion describes a process by which certain groups are systematically disadvantaged because they are discriminated against on the basis of their ethnicity, race, religion, sexual orientation, caste, descent, gender, age, disability, HIV status, migrant status or where they live”[4]. Discrimination may be open, for example through laws and policies; or unofficial, such as through institutionalised discrimination reflecting social prejudices; or simply reflecting a lack of awareness of needs. (Reducing Poverty by Tackling Exclusion, DFID, 2005)

Social exclusion and gender inequality exists in some form and to a certain degree in all societies across the world. Many poverty reduction policies have failed to reach socially excluded groups unless specifically designed to do so. Men, women and children are still systematically excluded from public institutions (such as health, education and legal services), the economy and political participation; as well as within social institutions like the household. They often represent the final 10-15% of the population that remain un-reached by development programmes, with literally millions of people denied rights of access to income, assets and services.

Social exclusion denies certain groups the same rights and opportunities afforded to others; and causes poverty of particular people. This in turn affects market forces and restrains economic growth. Social exclusion impacts on all the MDGs; and is also a leading cause of conflict and insecurity.

Women tend to be more discriminated against than men; more women are poor than men and their poverty tends to be more intractable. “An unacceptably high level of African women remain illiterate, suffer gender–based violence, often in conflict situations and are likely to die in childbirth. Preference for sons and the low status of women in Asia continues to affect the survival chances and life opportunities of girls. Caste, race, class and ethnicity combine to restrict opportunities available to poor women”.[5]

The arguments for promoting gender equality are well rehearsed[6]: it is essential to achieving the MDGs, particularly those that are off-track; to promoting economic growth; and to tackling insecurity. Successful promotion of gender equity and women’s rights has strengthened pro-poor growth in a number of countries. Women who are economically and socially empowered are more likely to be able to tackle livelihood insecurity, and insecurity resulting from political instability and conflict.

Government policies can exacerbate social exclusion and gender inequalities, or work to reduce them. Much can be done by ensuring that public expenditure benefits certain groups; through legal, regulatory and policy frameworks that promote social inclusion; by improving economic opportunities and access to quality services for women and excluded groups; and by promoting political participation by all in society.

There are specific challenges to working with excluded minorities (such as definition/identification, reach, enabling people to engage in processes in a meaningful way). There are also real risks for socially excluded groups: particularly where working on land issues, and also where there are strong ethnic and regional divisions. It is important to identify the mix of instruments that will most reduce risk – working with parliamentarians and strengthening linkages with organisations that have oversight responsibilities for human rights can provide a formal interface with the public, and may allow excluded groups to engage in less public and therefore safer spaces.

Recent evaluations of donor efforts to support gender equality and women’s empowerment show that despite solid commitments, actual progress has been patchy and inconsistent. There is common perception in much literature, that that a move towards upstream aid instruments and a focus on country ownership is reducing donors’ ability to promote gender equality. The experience of Advisers suggests that this need not be the case; but that upstream aid instruments require different ways of working, as well as sufficient resources and flexibility.

Aid instruments can be used in different ways to support initiatives that tackle social exclusion and promote gender equality. This paper highlights some of the constraints and opportunities that the different aid instruments present, for improved outcomes on gender and social exclusion.