Instituting a Web of Gender Responsiveness

So I am now at the halfway point of my time here at UNEP HQ. I thought I would share with you a little bit about where I live, what I've been working on, and gender in my workplace.

Nairobi, Kenya
I live in a very nice suburb of Nairobi called Runda. It is the home of many expatriates who work at the U.S. Embassy or the United Nations Office Nairobi compounds that are nearby. I am enjoying my stay in a two bedroom guesthouse within 30 minutes walking distance of work. My landlady used to work for the UN World Food Programme, and my landlord directed safari trips; they are a very nice couple.

Prices in Nairobi for food, taxis, shelter, etc. have increased significantly since 2008 and are actually the same or more expensive than where I study in Troy, NY, therefore, I do a lot of walking. I share this pedestrian trait with many Kenyans. Since I usually forget how to say, "Habari ya asubuhi", I instead just say "Good Morning". It is a good thing that many Kenyans speak English, Kiswahili and their tribal language!

On the weekends I go to an eye hospital (as part of my dissertation research), shopping at the local mall, and to church. Now that I am becoming more comfortable with riding on the matatus, I will venture more often into the city center. I want to see: Kenyatta's mausoleum; the view of Nairobi's cityscape from the Kenyatta International Conference Center; and any museums and art galleries that I can find. There is a great blog called Nairobi Now with all sorts of cultural events in the city.

My Projects
I have two projects; the first involves consulting on Project Atmospheric Brown Clouds and in particular, its mitigation component Project Surya. Surya means “Sun” in Sanskrit. Project Surya had a pilot phase in India where it: evaluated cookstoves, assessed localized air pollution, assessed women’s experiences with new cooking technologies, and eventually settled on a new cookstove design. This project has three goals: (1) reduce global climate change by decreasing black carbon (a residue of incomplete combustion); (2) reduce deforestation by decreasing dependence on biomass; (3) improve the health of women and children by decreasing air pollution. As a consultant, my role is to report the best practices for gender mainstreaming environmental policy and planning that come out of the Project Surya pilot phase, and, to evaluate the proposed Phase II of Project Atmospheric Brown Clouds to see how gender mainstreaming can be improved.

My second project is to create an annotated bibliography on best practices for gender mainstreaming environmental policy and planning. I am working with a web designer to make this annotated bibliography searchable and sortable when it is published online. This web designer has been working with my supervisor to re-design the UNEP Gender website (the old website is here).

Please note: pictures of the old website (L) and new website (R) were added to this blog entry on 2011-September-16

Gender at UNEP
I find myself fascinated by my supervisor's job and the history of how it came into being.

Apparently, a team was formed in 2007 to look at how to make UNEP a more productive, efficient and effective institution. As part of that team, my supervisor, Ms. Janet Kabeberi-Macharia worked with others to create the UNEP Gender Plan of Action.

Fast forward to 2011, and Ms. Janet Kabeberi-Macharia is now the Senior Gender Adviser for UNEP. She spends a lot of time reviewing prospective employees on HR hiring boards, meeting with individual project managers, and writing policy recommendations and reports, among a range of other activities all of which are tied to gender-mainstreaming. Policy and practice has to be changed at many levels in order to perform a "web of institutionalization" of gender-responsiveness (using Caren Levy's concept). For example, this may involve gender-responsiveness training for staff of UNEP collaborating research centers, as well as the project teams from various UNEP divisions. Also, each project team in UNEP has a team member who also serves as their gender coordinator. Finally this “web of institutionalization” involves changing the organizational composition of UNEP itself to encourage more gender equity in leadership roles and attention to gender mainstreaming by leaders.

This concept of a "web of institutionalization" encourages one to think across scales of an organization in order to implement good policies and practices for gender-responsiveness. Its enactment here at UNEP demonstrates an excellent unity of theory and practice. However its enactment is very difficult. It is neither singularly top-down, nor bottom-up. To be effective, it must encompass both of those modes of institutional change as well as include lateral (instead of vertical) modes that cross-cut divisions, teams, and ideologies.

People who are smart and dedicated to the mission of UNEP may still resist such changes because: (1) it is not a process with which everyone is familiar, and (2) it is difficult to set goals and indicators for this process. It is exciting to be a part of this process for my 10 weeks here at UNEP.