ASSESSMENT ON THE PRACTICE OF GENDER INTEGRATION IN PROJECT PHASES IN THE CASE OF THE ETHIOPIAN CATHOLIC CHURCH SOCIAL AND DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION

Abstract

Various studies indicate that the development projects don’t equally engage male and female and the impact of projects is not similar for both sexes. Gender equality is a global phenomenon that interlinks with all aspects of human life. Studies indicate that there are various factors affecting participation of women in the project phases. There were different researches conducted to assess project management in gender lens by focusing on a single phases or area of knowledge. The purpose of this study is to assess the practice of gender integration in the project phases in the case of the Ethiopian Catholic Church Social and Development Commission (ECC-SDCO). The study aimed to assess the practice of gender integration in project problem identification phases, planning/designing phase, implementation, monitoring and evaluation phases of the projects implemented in the ECC-SDCO and four branch offices. Additionally, the study intends to explain the impacts of gender integration on project performance. The study design is descriptive and used qualitative and quantitative methodologies for data collection and analysis of the findings. The researcher used questionnaire, KII and secondary data review to collect data based on structured and unstructured questions. The major findings of the study indicates that there are few areas that the organization had integrate gender in the project phases like using sex disaggregated data, setting gender sensitive objectives and activities. However, there are major gap identified in the study which shows limited integration of gender in the project problem identification, project designing phase, and implementation and monitoring and evaluation phases. The study directs that the projects don’t analyze the different status of women and men roles, decision making power, access, and control over resources, needs, priorities and challenges in the project planning and implementation. Additionally there are gaps on designing strategies, using monitoring and evaluation lessons to enhance participation of women in the project. The study also indicates that the projects that engage women specific activities and promoting gender equality contribute to the project sustainability, effectiveness as well as relevance. The finding of the KII indicates that gender integration in the project phases enhances stakeholders’ satisfaction. The researcher therefore, recommends the organization to increase effort to integrate gender in the project planning, execution, monitoring and evaluation using a standard tools like gender analysis, gender planning and gender sensitive indicators. Moreover, projects needs to use monitoring inputs and lessons learned from the evaluation to enhance participation of women and contribute to gender equality. The researcher also elaborates that the need for further research studies to examine the impact of gender integration on projects performance.