Gender Questions in Development Cooperation: Emerging Issues in the Czech Republic’s Bilateral Programmes

This paper explores the challenges posed to the Czech Bilateral Development Cooperation (CZBDC) in including the principle of gender equality as a result of the governments‟ commitments to related international treaties and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). My analysis of the CZBDCs‟ policy contents and institutional practices together with policy- makers‟ perspectives reveals that the gender equality principle surfaces in limited „templates-related‟ gender language without any practical implications in project management and implementation manifestations. When the inclusion of gender equality appears, the formulation is reduced to the efficiency-driven approach known as Women in Development (WID), using the Gender Roles Framework (GRF) being implemented by non-government development organizations (NGDOs). The paper further explores some possible explanations of current level of this inclusion and shows that the framing of Development Cooperation along the lines of conventional Aid motivated by economic and political interests may be one reason. Consequently this limitation must be placed in the broader context of the transition of Czech society from one styled by Soviet principles to another guided by European Union (EU) norms, playing an important role in providing the conditions within which to promote gender issues beyond a certain level. Yet the views and initiatives taken by selected groups of civic actors in academia and at the grassroots level show emerging and diverse interests in engendering CZBDC. Although these activities are at early stage, not yet impacting on policy and practices, already some constraints in doing so can be foreseen. The varied understanding of gender and its policy implications requires considerable dialogue, debate and reconciliation of diverse and often diverging views to find common ground for action. In addition, these interest groups do not have the means to access the body of knowledge on gender and development to help them foster their own perspective based on a historical and comparative understanding of both the gender and development domains. Given the prevailing logic of 'efficiency' written into country policy and gender equality frameworks, it seems inevitable that any gains to be made through civil actors‟ pressures in integrating the gender equality principle in Bilateral Development Cooperation will have to negotiate this economic efficiency mentality. Finally, programming gender in policy will presumably meet a different set of challenges related to the current trends in CZBDC. From a budgetary standpoint, the financial crisis will affect allocation to bilateral activities while the Czech Republic‟s (CR) EU membership will require more allocation for multilateral purposes. Last but not least, government bureaucracy but also NGDOs appear partly, if not considerably gendered, which might limit the impact of pioneering civil actors‟ endeavours.