Reconciliation and Business Laboratories: Gender and Social Inclusion Strategy

The strategy aims to avoid potential adverse impacts that reinforce gender stereotypes and/or the risk of gender-based exclusion that could result from the project interventions. The approach to participation is based on literature on gender and development and women's participation in peace-building. Participation is understood not only as increasing women's presence in certain spaces but to challenge the practices and discourses of those spaces. It is crucial to identify the structural inequalities that leave women outside decision-making and the ways in which exclusion works in an informal way. Such an approach expects that women's participation is not limited to a number or a percentage but that it also has an impact in substantive terms. The concept of women's participation is closely linked to discussions on empowerment, as it has been considered one of the main variables to measure it. An increase in women's participation contributes to their empowerment. The approach to participation explained above is aligned with an understanding of empowerment that proposes it not as an individual and self-reliance concept but as multidimensional. This approach considers the unequal gender power balance and cultural norms in which local women are embedded, and that may constrain their possibilities of being successfully involved in productive and collective activities. The Gender and Social Inclusion Strategy of the Business and Reconciliation Labs articulates the described approach to participation along its four phases. For the regional diagnosis phase, the team will capture the gendered roles, conditions, and practices of each specific context in which the project is being developed. This diagnosis must include the perceptions, voices, and knowledge of local men and women that will be involved in the project. It must also identify the conditions and practices that exclude women from decision-making spaces and limit their access to resources, opportunities, and services. The information gathered during the regional diagnosis is key to understanding gender inequalities in a contextualized way. It will display how gender functions within business operations, peace-building, and dialogue processes in Buenaventura, Buriticá, and el Cañón del Porce. This information will allow the team to consider the relations that may limit women's presence in the project activities. Thus, women will be able to acquire competencies related to knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform in dialogue settings during the training phase of the intervention. A set of Variables of Inclusion is proposed to establish the different dimensions along which the Gender and social inclusion strategy intends to promote women's participation. These variables include participation, active participation, and inclusion. Participation refers to women's attendance to training sessions and technical assistance meetings. Active participation refers to a woman who has actively participated when she feels respected by other team members, feels that her opinions are valued, and has a clear understanding of what was discussed, accomplished, or assigned. Inclusion refers to the inclusion of women's preferences in decision-making processes throughout the project. The objectives of the Gender and Social Inclusion Strategy are aligned with the gender equality and women's empowerment objectives included in USAID's cooperation strategy for Colombia for the period 2014-2018. The strategy aims to reduce gender disparity in access and control of benefits by promoting women's conditions to participate in social and technical trainings, and in dialogue and cooperation processes in their territory. Additionally, it aims to increase women's capabilities to fulfill their rights, choose their life decisions, and influence decision-making in their homes and communities by strengthening women's capabilities to actively participate and have their voices heard.