A first approach to gender mainstreaming: Women’s Handicraft Exports Program in Cusco, Peru.

1. A first approach to gender mainstreaming: Women’s Handicraft Exports Program in Cusco, Peru. Financial & Private Development Sector Forum: Female Entrepreneurship: What do we know? What is next? April 6th, 2011

2. Introduction • IDB Trade and Gender Initiative • Action Plan: knowledge building and gender mainstreaming into trade operations • Challenge: to have some operational results in 2011. • What we are showing today? An example of that particular challenge: Mainstreaming gender into a women’s handicrafts entrepreneurial development project

4. Pending challenges for 2nd phase • Association strengthening • Consolidate the business model for KAMAQ • Products certification • Improving production, business and quality processes • Equipment • Commercialization • Promotion and marketing • Consolidation of the export partnership model • E-commerce • Gender mainstreaming: How to do this?

5. Starting points • What do we want the project to achieve? • Empowerment, leadership roles, increase income… • What does "empowerment" mean to these women? • Let's ask them (and let's devote funds in the project for specialized assistance: for a baseline identification of gender indicators by a gender expert, Quechua speaker). • First conclusion: we need specialized gender expertise. • Developed a questionnaire that tried to address different issues: • Leadership, ownership, empowerment, impact on lifestyle, consequences for family… • 11 interviewees from 4 associations • Bias: interviewer from Ministry of Commerce and Tourism may have unwillingly conditioned some answers

6. Key answers to the concept of “gender empowerment" • Learning process and exposure in the project linked to self-esteem and rise of expectations for the future (they see the potential), new leadership roles in the community (admiration from others), increased empowerment to face other social groups. • The whole family is affected by project's activities: reorganization of daily activities to some extent. • They are very aware about the importance of sales, but would like the project to continue capacitating them further (education gap with men)

7. Empowerment • “The training courses have helped us a lot. First of all, to participate in our community meetings. Previously, women have been sitting without a sayand if for any reason we were offered to assume a position, we have never accepted, we felt diminished. But now, although I only understand some Spanish and can not respond much, I value myself (…) as a woman (...) I can express myself. Today, many women in our community participate in the board (…)” • "Of course, even though I am illiterate, I am able to undertake a leadership position. Perhaps the presidency. As a leader, I can do it "

8. Conclusions • Gender objectives: we can mainstream gender into the original project's goals, but it doesn’t make sense to consider gender aspects in parallel or independently from them. They must be embedded into the project as is. • 2nd phase will not have a separate component on gender. • Gender will be introduced in results, activities and indicators. • Translate the “empowerment concepts” into the project’s results and indicators: • Introduction of gender indicators in the logical framework

11. Final remarks • We need a baseline of indicators and more information on women's characteristics (it is important to deepen our knowledge of their specific circumstances to find out the underlying realities that affect gender equality. For example: share of tasks in the production process, educational gap, use of income by women) • The project may have to work on bridging the educational gap in order to ensure gender equality. • Literacy activities may be necessary to support the learning process of women and reduce the educational gap faster.