bout de papier, Vol. 30, No. 2 (2017), pp. 8–12
Given our feminist Prime Minister, Canada has an opportunity to become a global leader on
women’s rights and gender equality by implementing a feminist foreign policy. The new Feminist International Assistance Policy is a bold and welcome first step, and we should
now focus on ensuring its ambition is implemented, and also applying this approach to other areas of foreign policy.
“We shouldn’t be afraid to use the word feminist.”
Gender is one of the most important predictors of who will be poor and who will have power. Power is linked to economic status, financial security, physical and sexual health and rights and personal freedom. Violence and discrimination against women and girls continues because the power imbalance between men and women is deeply rooted — no country in the world is free from gender-based violence. If we build a feminist global policy that gives more power and more voice to women, then we can effect change.
For Oxfam Canada, a feminist approach means being bold in our ambition. It’s about rethinking who we work with and how we work with them. It’s about walking the talk: ensuring that our financial commitments and political capital match our level of ambition.
Feminism challenges all forms of domination and inequality. Inequality is entrenched globally, and patriarchal systems and attitudes are the norm. A significant shift towards equality, including in Canada, therefore requires resources and time. A feminist approach needs to address structural and systemic inequality and transform power relations, grounded in principles of intersectionality, agency and process. The approach will have its critics, but a feminist approach has the power to truly transform societies.
But what does or could a feminist foreign policy look like for Canada?
Sweden’s Take
Sweden was the first country in the world to adopt a feminist foreign policy agenda, which focused on the importance of three Rs: rights, representation and resources. Sweden promotes women’s representation and participation in politics in general and in peace processes in particular; advocates for women’s rights as human rights, including women’s protection from sexual and gender-based violence; and works toward a more gender-sensitive and equitable distribution of global income and natural resources.
“It’s time to become a little braver in foreign policy. I think feminism is a good term. It is about standing against the systematic and global subordination of women.” — Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrôm Sweden’s Foreign Affairs Ministry created an Action Plan with six key objectives: (1) promote the rule of law; (2) combat gender-based and sexual violence; (3) address sexual and reproductive health and rights; (4) support the economic empowerment of women; (4) advocate for sustainable development; and (5) increase women’s participation in peace processes.
Throughout these objectives, the Plan highlights the importance of involving men and boys to advance gender equality and underscores the necessity of an approach based on analysis and research.
Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy
The new Feminist International Assistance Policy, which guides Canada’s development cooperation, was released in June and provides a bold vision and ambitious commitment to putting gender equality and women’s empowerment at the heart of Canadian aid. The Policy includes commitments to challenging unequal power relations that hold women back, such as support for: addressing sexual and gender-based violence; closing the gaps in sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) for women and girls; promoting women’s leadership and political participation, including in climate adaptation, peace negotiation and conflict prevention; and addressing decent work and unpaid care as part of achieving growth that works for everyone.
Crucially, the Policy commits to scaling up cooperation with women’s rights organizations and movements, recognizing them as key partners in this agenda. It also acknowledges the importance of advocacy for challenging gender inequality and transforming social norms and power relations, an approach which Oxfam is also increasingly adopting in the countries where we work across the world.
This policy, while new, builds on decades of Canadian experience. Four elements could be considered immediately to strengthen it:
1. increasing resources, both political capital and financial, for women’s rights and gender equality;
2. supporting civil society, policy and advocacy along with women’s leadership;
3. supporting research and learning; and
4. ensuring that Global Affairs Canada is “fit for purpose” to deliver on its gender equality commitments.
Canada must walk the talk if women’s rights are a true priority. Historically a leader in the field of gender equality, Canada has gained an international reputation through its advocacy on women’s rights, its support to women’s organizations and networks overseas and its pioneering work on an organizational gender policy. In recent years, however, Canada has cut its overall aid budget (and there is still no timetable to increase the international assistance envelop to reach the benchmark of 0.7% GNI) and devoted less and less of its foreign policy resources to women’s rights.
Over the past five years, only 1-2% of Canada’s aid budget has been allocated to programs specifically designed to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment, which is below the OECD donor average. Even at the height of Canadian leadership on gender equality, our commitment to gender equality specific programming was not significant. CIDA-managed ODA was only 1.85% in 1999-2000 and fell to 1.01% by 2005-2006 for gender equality programs.
The commitment to ensuring that 15 per cent of all new aid investments have as their principal focus advancing gender equality is welcome and starts to move Canada towards addressing the structural funding gap for women’s rights. A significant portion of these funds should be directed to women’s rights and feminist organizations and networks, which are doing front line work to advance, sustain and defend women’s human rights and gender justice around the world. These groups have the capacity to bring about transformative change if only they are given the means and the space.
It is also important to consider the many non-financial resources of the department that implement trade and foreign policy. Canada has always played a strong role internationally by raising violence against national institutions, and promoting women, peace and security. Continuing to speak up in international fora and expanding our influence and diplomacy to include all the issues that impact women’s rights and gender equality will also demonstrate that Canada is serious about equality and rights. Similarly, progress on women’s human rights in Canada, as guaranteed by the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, would bring coherence and demonstrate that we can really “walk the talk”.
Political, not Technical Fixes
A feminist approach is inherently political because it challenges discriminatory laws, policies and programs, and systemic inequality. It is significant that Prime Minister Trudeau self-identifies as a feminist. However, Canada will be more effective if it supports citizens to do policy and advocacy work and to claim their rights, rather than focus on service delivery alone.
Civil society space is a critical “enabler” in the fight against poverty and the pursuit of social justice and gender equality. To strengthen civil society space globally, Canada can prioritize support for policy citizens and state authorities in both its development and diplomatic work. Feminist advocacy would empower those with less conventional economic, social or political power and would engage marginalized people in decision-making to claim their rights. Building bridges among diverse sectors and groups (known as intersectionality) creates legitimacy for change. Bridging micro-level activism and macro-level policy initiatives is a critical component of building civic space and feminist principles.
Advancing women’s civil and political rights has been de-funded and de-prioritized in the development sector as a whole in recent decades. Canada can lead by bringing these core human rights issues back to the center of its international development and policy portfolio.
Research and Feminist Learning
An important fourth R is research and analysis to increase the evidence in support of a feminist foreign policy. For example, two decades of research in 70 countries confirms that a strong feminist movement is the best strategy to reduce violence and discrimination against collectively standing up for women’s rights have made significant progress in changing behaviours and attitudes at the community level, but more research is required to understand how change happens and, especially, how underlying social norms on equality evolve. Gender-sensitive economic and social policies, better laws (and their enforcement) are critical to overcoming gender discrimination — again, an area where collaborative, practice-informed research would help reach our goals. Existing and new research that demonstrates the impressive correlation between women’s participation in peace processes and sustainable peace would help convince nay-sayers.
A feminist learning approach suggests areas where Canada can teach (e.g. strong legal framework that promotes gender equality) and others where it can learn (e.g. indigenous women’s rights). Feminist work requires inclusiveness, opportunities to learn from experience, including exchanges and collaboration. Our approach to learning and research also needs to recognize agency and complexity. Understanding how the power of networks can be leveraged for change is critical, as is how to better connect people and organizations, including digitally.
A Feminist Department
In order to implement a feminist global policy, the department itself needs to transform to become “gender just” organizationally.
Oxfam Canada’s own transformation to a gender just organization took years of change and learning. In 2006 we decided to make women’s rights and gender justice our strategic focus. This shift was not only about changing the thematic focus of our programs and campaigns. It was about our organization. We looked hard at our internal dynamics, attitudes, and culture, as well as those of partner organizations and communities. We commissioned a gender audit for ourselves, and funded gender audits for our partners. We built a strong suite of policies and programs that supported our ambition to become a feminist organization.
Here are lessons we learned implementing feminist practice and discourse institutionally:
e Hire feminists. Skilled profes-
sionals are not necessarily feminists. Stop hiring people because they are good at, say, education or diplomacy, and then expect them
to apply feminist principles.
e Apply these principles to every
aspect of work, not just the obvious. For example, we should think about feminism in mining, not just health.
Internally, use a feminist analysis before deciding anything. Don’t choose an area of work based on another analysis and then try to
make it feminist.
e Engage with partners who adhere
to feminist principles.
e Ensure that the program architec-
ture, the theory of change, the capacity building model and partnerships are infused and guided by feminist principles.
Support a feminist approach to monitoring, evaluation and learning.
¢ Embrace social accountability.
Frank feedback of stakeholders is critical in transforming power
relations.
Preparing Global Affairs Canada to be “fit for purpose” includes ensuring adequate professional expertise and a structure that supports the mandate.
Political will, the commitment of senior leadership and the existence of women leaders within the organization will increase the understanding, ownership and integration of a feminist approach to international assistance, diplomacy and trade. However, GAC still has some way to go when it comes to hiring and promoting women. Although there have been female Deputy Ministers, there has never been a female in the most senior role, that of Deputy Minister of
A
Protesting violence against women in Banglades] Spaces — Oxfam Canada’s new 5-year program th organizations to create space and take action to € Creating Spaces is funded by Global Affairs Canc As recently as the mid-2000s, there was a dedicated foreign policy team exerting leadership, advancing our engagement internationally on women’s equality and pushing other parts of the department to get with the program. On the development side, there was a well-staffed division dedicated to gender equality, along with advisors in every department and at every program support unit abroad. Where is that capacity now? Why is there no longer a “Human rights and international women’s equality” division? We cannot credibly promote a global feminist policy without ensuring that feminism is reflected organizationally.
From Assistance to Foreign and Trade Policy
Putting feminist principles into practice is difficult for an organization. Oxfam Canada’s own transformation has been long, winding, and it continues. Using the “f-word” signals a commitment to gender equality that goes well beyond gender mainstreaming or “women and girls” as a focus.
Beyond international development, the application of a feminist approach to trade and foreign affairs would generate challenges. Allowing feminist principles to guide trade negotiations, while also considering business and investor interests, may not be instinctual, but ensuring a meaningful and robust gender assessment as a precursor to a deal would allow unquestioned social norms. The department should consider the time and resource investment needed to build capacity, understanding that culture change is complex and requires a long term strategy, risk taking, innovation and persistence in the face of resistance. Demonstrating positive social change is complex as is making plausible links between programme interventions and the changes. There is an inherent tension between feminism and the hierarchical organizational structure of organizations such as GAC.
But a feminist approach also offers enormous opportunities. When it comes to international development, it is an amazing framework serving the core purpose of sustainable development and human rights: deep, longstanding and structural transformation that improves our understanding of the levers of change.
On the world stage, Canada currently enjoys credibility on gender equality and women’s rights. Prime Minister Trudeau’s feminist declarations and Canada’s track record have also generated expectations that Canada will deliver. The path is open for Canada to make a strong contribution to the international discourse and to its implementation. Being transformational is not easy. But it will be worth it.
Julie Delahanty is Executive Director of Oxfam Canada. A committed feminist with over 20 years of international development experience, Julie joined Oxfam after years with the Canadian International Development Agency and the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, where she held a number of posts including Director of the Central America Program, Director of the Gender Equality and Child Protection Division and Deputy Director Jor International Women’s Equality.
Oxfam Canada is a feminist organization that believes ending global poverty begins with women’s rights: www oxfam ca
Rental Manaaement
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 30, No. 2 (2017), pp. 8–12. Read the rest of this issue →
