From Counting Women to Making Women Count: Focusing on Women in Media Development Programs

"Progress towards gender goals requires a long-term commitment to equity, empowerment, continuous monitoring, evaluation and research to inform our understandings of how media development can be best leveraged in pursuit of these goals."

The report explores improved gender integration strategies in media assistance programmes in the hopes of initiating a dialogue about how media can contribute to broader gender and development goals and improve conditions for women around the world. Through in-depth interviews with Internews country staff around the world and a number of stakeholders, including representatives of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Open Society Foundation (OSF), the World Bank, think tanks, and academic experts, the paper looks at the following questions and issues:

• What does gender integration or gender equality mean and how do these terms apply to media development?
• Does gender matter for media development programmes, and, if so, why?
• What are the biggest challenges donors and practitioners face in supporting gender goals through media development?
• What are the best practices or outstanding examples of media development programmes or achievements that have helped advance gender goals?
• What are the priorities for gender goals in terms of media-related work?

"Despite the number of published materials, the authors found that few focus on gender integration in media development. Moreover, many still misunderstand what gender integration means - both broadly as well as specifically with regard to media assistance. While the authors found a rich trove of academic literature and an established network of scholars and gender specialists," they call for greater opportunities to improve research on gender and media development as well as additional networking to connect gender experts with media development programmes.

Based on this research, the paper offers 10 steps for successful gender integration in media development:

1. Review Organisational Language and Commitment - example: In 2011, Internews' partner Nai held 5 regional conferences with media outlets to develop a "Draft Regulation for Private Media Contracts". The document's 4 chapters and 14 articles include definitions of gender equality and polices against violence against women and sexual harassment, as well as an outline of the conditions of employment. Nai submitted the draft regulation to the Ministry of Information and Culture, and it is being reviewed by the Ministry of Justice.
2. Mandate Organisational Policy on Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment - example: As part of its humanitarian information project in Eastern Chad, Internews developed a methodology for training radio reporters on programme production, focusing on, but not limited to, violence against women in conflict regions. The project developed a step-by-step approach to setting up and nurturing a radio programme that dealt with issues arising from gender-based violence (GBV). The training included examples of consequences arising from inaccurate, one-sided, and insensitive reporting, as well as examples of positive outcomes resulting from programmes grounded in local realities and responsive to needs on the ground.
3. Ensure Leadership and Accountability for Gender Equality Goals - example: Internews partnered with the International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF) to develop women's leadership skills in the region so as to better prepare them to advance to higher-level, decision-making positions in the industry. They ran a leadership training for 25 emerging women journalists from the former Soviet satellite republics. Women in the field of journalism from across the region worked one-on-one with participants to strengthen their skills as leaders and to help build and devise strategies to sustain professional connections.
4. Assess Women's and Men's Statuses and Gender Relations Specific to Media Development Programme Contexts - example: Focus group discussions (FGDs) revealed that, given low education rates among women in South Sudan, radio in local language is especially important as a source of information - yet, if there is a radio in a household, it is usually controlled by the man of the house. The programme was able to adjust its modus operandi, based on the FGDs.
5. Gather Data for Media-Specific Gender Analysis and Develop Baseline Evaluations - example: As part of its work to help address gender imbalance in Kenyan newsrooms, Internews convened and supported the publication of "Guidelines for Election Coverage by the Media Council of Kenya". The guidelines aim to help journalists provide comprehensive, accurate, impartial, balanced, and fair coverage of the elections, to ensure that voters can make informed choices.
6. Commit to Clearly-Defined Objectives and Rigorous Monitoring and Evaluation of Progress Toward Gender Equity - example: In Palestine, Internews carries out annual surveys. When Palestinian media professionals were asked to list their training needs, only 16% selected training for women as most important. Women journalists in the FGDs, however, strongly articulated that trainings should not be segregated by gender, believing that joint opportunities were more effective: "'Separate,'" they said, "...is not equal." This helped Internews design the trainings to be more responsive to the needs of the women journalists, monitor programme interventions, evaluate programme effectiveness, and redesign, if necessary, each year.
7. Advocate for Gender-Responsive Policies - example: Radio Nargis in Nangahar, Afghanistan, has developed a range of strategies to address the public perception that it is "un-Islamic" to allow women to work in the media. The station manager visited the families of young women who were interested in working at the radio station and engaged in dialogue with local mullahs. When she received death threats from the Taliban for talking on air about the rights allowed women by Islam, she used the mullahs' own narrative to frame her dialogue with culturally acceptable messages. Reportedly, because the station took time to communicate in a way that built trust, it has been accepted by the mullahs and has not experienced problems since.
8. Create Space for Dialogue and Collaboration Beyond Familiar Partners - example: Internews partnered with the G-Kenya Kelega Youth Empowerment and Education organisation to train 14 leaders from gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities in Nairobi in human-rights reporting skills. The group launched Freedom in Speech, an online platform that invites sexual minorities to share their stories, connect with one another, and spur public dialogue about the issues they face.
9. Look for Openings and Expand the Spaces for Women's Voices - example: Internews has partnered with Bytes for All (B4A), a Pakistani organisation, to build the capacity of women and young girls to teach them digital storytelling and online safety skills. The "Take Back the Tech" campaigners in Pakistan have been working to raise awareness about technology-related violence against women, focusing on privacy and security of women and girls online so that marginalised voices can be heard without being intimidated or silenced.
10. Experiment, Innovate, and Incubate - example: Internews and Jakarta-based nonprofit OnTrackMedia Indonesia (OTMI) collaborated on a project to respond to the need for sensitive coverage of women's human rights issues and ran a 2-week training on filming, editing, and producing features for women's human rights organisations based in Aceh covering subjects such as domestic violence, bereavement for husbands missing during the conflict, and women's right to make personal choices. In addition to posting the videos on YouTube, participants also posted them on the citizen journalism websites of mainstream TV stations.

According to the report, each of these steps calls for a significant commitment to research, data collection, analysis, and advocacy of gender and media issues. Action items include:

• Provide more opportunities to share lessons learned, best practices, and creative approaches to applying gender integration to media development programmes.
• Increase opportunities for training, skills building, and practical application of the core principles of gender integration, empowerment, and equality for the everyday work of media development programme implementers.
• Improve mechanisms and access to funding for researching and incubating new ideas to improve gender goals through media development interventions.
• Make better use of monitoring and evaluation in media development projects as opportunities to study how and why media matters to gender and development goals.
• Strengthen linkages between academic experts who focus on gender issues and the wider media development community to fully utilise existing knowledge.
• Conduct a comparative analysis and mapping of different donor institutions and their expectations, guidance, resources, and best practices.