Working towards a Gender Transformative Graduation Approach
Fundación Capital and Canada´s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) have recently engaged in a collaboration agreement in order to integrate gender transformative approaches into graduation programs.
Graduation programs have proven to be an effective anti-poverty strategy. They combine a holistic set of services including: coaching, livelihood trainings, productive asset transfers, consumption support, and savings. They seek to address the many challenges of poverty simultaneously and strengthen the productive, financial, human and social assets of the extreme poor. The aim is for participants to become self-sufficient and resilient.
Globally, graduation programs mainly target women and at Fundación Capital, more than 70% of the direct participants are women. However, the impact on gender inequalities within graduation programs is not fully understood yet. This could be a missed opportunity to engage in a more effective and sustainable initiative that addresses inequality at its core.
By incorporating a gender transformative approach — one that is attuned to normative, cultural, economic and political forces that shape gender inequalities in access to and control over resources, — graduation programs can maximize their impact promoting sustainable transformations that include and benefit women and men and the overall community. Yet there is little experience and evidence of how best to implement such approach.
Women’s empowerment programs are typically conceived with an economic focus, prioritizing access to resources. While this is critical, it does not take into account social norms, power relations and institutions. Gender transformative approaches go beyond a focus on access to resources, and also seek to transform power dynamics and institutions that are at the root of gender inequalities.
The recent collaboration agreement between IDRC Canada and FC is a unique opportunity to address this gap. This initiative will not only tackle economic vulnerability but also address other gender-based constraints such as domestic violence, lack of intra-household decision-making power and limited reproductive health rights, which undermine women’s position both at household and community level.
Through an applied research agenda that includes the design, testing and evaluation of a gender-transformative graduation program in Paraguay for the next two years, we expect not only to inform Paraguay’s public policy, but also to inspire policies that address gender inequality and foster women’s empowerment in Latin America and beyond.
About IDRC:
Part of Canada’s foreign affairs and development efforts, IDRC invests in knowledge, innovation, and solutions to improve the lives of people in the developing world. Bringing together the right partners around opportunities for impact, IDRC builds leaders for today and tomorrow and helps drive change for those who need it most.
About Fundación Capital:
Fundación Capital is a nonprofit social enterprise working in partnership with governments and financial institutions to improve the lives of millions of people living in poverty around the world, designing and delivering solutions that increase economic opportunities and make people more resilient to economic stress.
Get in touch:
info@fundacioncapital.org
Twitter: @FundaCapital
LinkedIn: Fundación Capital
