A network of people studying and working on gender-related issues and a gender and development “case bank” (http://g-case.id666.com/) are taking shape to accelerate gender mainstreaming in China.

With support from the Ford Foundation, the Gender and Participation Research Centre (社会性别与参与式工作室) of Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences has created a multidisciplinary platform to facilitate gender and development case sharing.

The platform brings together not only gender researchers and experts, but also people working in the front line on gender-related issues, to enhance communication between the two sides.

Most of China’s “gender work” takes place in academic research and theory, but the theory is not put into practice, according to Professor Zhao Jie (赵捷), Director of the Centre, who also leads the project.

“There are more theories than actions,” she says.

Gender and development experiments, such as organising grassroots women’s groups in villages or protecting women’s land rights, are mainly confined to project interventions. “There are some encouraging stories here and there, but few are collected and written into case studies that can be shared or taught in class,” Zhao says.

Due to the lack of convincing case studies, gender advocacy in China is largely limited to raising awareness and gender specialists find it difficult to persuade government agencies to pay more attention to gender equality.

China has seen some innovative projects in places like Beijing, Tianjin and Yunnan. However, when less developed provinces such as Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia want to start their own gender intervention work, they find no path to follow and so have to find their own way. This can lead to repeated mistakes and inefficient use of resources.

In September, the Centre organised a six-day workshop in Kunming, Yunnan Province, attended by more than 80 gender specialists from 17 provinces and municipalities. The participants came from various backgrounds, from gender researchers to environmentalists, from government officials to law practitioners.

At the workshop, gender specialists introduced the latest development in theories while practitioners shared their work in the frontline.

Consultants from the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction and the Regional Development Research Center at Yunnan University also analysed the case studies and offered advice on writing and using case studies for gender mainstreaming.

With funding from the Ford Foundation, the platform is providing seed funds of USD 5,000 each to ten projects in different provinces. Each project is supported by gender specialists from the network.

Zhao hopes that all ten projects will grow into successful cases next year and become the first batch of examples in the gender case bank.

Report by Chang Tianle, November 29, 2006