EN FRANÇAIS

By Christopher Mason
GV Contributor

MONTREAL - On the eve of Kenya's December 2007 presidential elections, it was possible to look on the state of the country's gender equality with a healthy sense of optimism.

More women than ever before stood for election in the vote, an indicator often used by international observers to gauge the level of gender equality in a region.

But as the world now knows, any number of women candidates could not have prevented what was to come: horrific violence following the disputed victory of incumbent Mwai Kibaki over opposition leader Raila Odinga.

In all, some 1,500 were killed and 250,000 displaced in fighting between the two sides that lasted well into February 2008.

As information surfaced of the widespread rape and violence towards women that occurred in the election's aftermath it became clear that gains in gender equality, as defined by a record number of female election candidates and numerous women's rights organizations, were hardly as robust as originally thought.

In fact, some experts now say the extent of the violence and sexual abuse against Kenyan women suggests the international community is due for a re-think of how to gauge gender equality gains and to begin anew attracting funding and personnel to challenge the institutionalized attitudes toward women that motivates violence.

A commission of inquiry charged with investigating the Kenyan election and ensuing violence issued its report in October 2008, finding extensive evidence of sexual violence, the effects of which will be long-standing due to psychological and physical injury, the spread of HIV/AIDS and other diseases as well as the social impact whereby investigators found numerous examples of husbands who left sexually abused wives.

Millicent Obaso, a sexual- and gender-based violence advisor for CARE International and an HIV/AIDS advisor for East and Central Africa, told the commission that the instances of sexual violence were "the direct consequence of existing inequalities between men and women".

Many were caught off-guard by such stark evidence that perceived progress on gender equality in Kenya disappeared in a time of crisis.

But L. Muthoni Wanyeki, director of the Kenyan Human Rights Commission, said the global optimism, and funding, towards gender equality that surfaced around the beginning of the decade has failed to produce substantial progress.

"All of the gender mechanisms put in place to move the issue forward were insufficient," Wanyeki said in a speech at a recent conference in Montreal examining the state of the gender equality movement.

She added that in Kenya, as in other countries, organizations and government ministries specifically dedicated to moving forward the cause of women's rights lack the tools they need to limit violence against women.

"They lacked the influence, power and human resources," Wanyeki said, adding the violence caused "a paralysis of the women's rights movement" in Kenya.

Government agencies tasked with promoting gender equality were equally unable to mitigate the violence against women following the Kenyan election.

"Even dedicated gender ministries within government lacked capacity," Wanyeki said. "It has been difficult, if not impossible, to get money to where it is needed most."

Incidents like the post-election violence are leading to a re-think of how best to improve gender equality efforts, and how best to measure those efforts.

Part of that re-evaluation includes a growing belief that numerical benchmarks often used to assess progress in gender equality development really don't tell the story. For example the number of women MPs or candidates is often used as a measure of success in efforts to promote gender equality in developing countries (the voters' willingness to elect a woman is seen as a sign of evolving attitudes, as is the woman's freedom to run for office in the first place).

But many have come to view that as a simplistic way of measuring progress, especially if those women politicians do not have the power and security they need to be effective in government. In this case, Kenya's women politicians were not able to effectively defend or promote women's rights amidst the post-election violence.

"Too often numbers are used as measuring sticks, but they don't always reflect the reality on the ground," said Rose Mensah Kutin, director of ABANTU for Development in Ghana.

The numbers issue overshadows both positive and negative developments in gender equality, she said. For example, in Ghana's most recent elections, there were seven fewer women elected to parliament.

"But the landscape has greatly improved in terms of awareness of gender equality," Kutin said.

Identifying new approaches for measuring progress on gender equality, as well as drawing the world's attention to the significant work still to be done, is of much debate amongst those who work on gender equality issues.

It was a much-discussed topic at the Montreal conference Wanyeki and Kutin spoke at, which brought together mostly Canadian NGOs, academics and government agencies to debate how to improve their effectiveness on issues of gender equality.

Though solutions have yet to come (however, all are unanimous in the need for greater funding of organizations working on women's rights issues), one thing is clear: if there is to be further tangible progress made on gender equality, organizations need to do a better job of getting limited funds to those working on the ground while reducing the bureaucracy - an issue that challenges all development sectors.

One development that has helped empower women is the growth of micro credit programs that give small loans to create capital for those who would otherwise not be able to start or grow a business.

But those programs, at least now, do not work on a large enough scale to have a widespread impact on gender equality, which puts all the more pressure on the development community and governments, both foreign and domestic, to institute change.

"The response from the state on women's issues is poor and problematic," Wanyeki said. "It's not a very rosy picture compared to where we thought we were in the 1990s."

A former reporter/mentor at the Daily Monitor newspaper in Uganda, Christopher gained an on-the-ground look at the role the media plays in development efforts. Previously, Christopher wrote for the New York Times. He now covers Canada for the UK's Financial Times. His blog on Governance Village can be found at http://www.igloo.org/radiosilence