ODE TALKS PODCAST
TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH KATHERINE FRITZ AND PAYAL
PATEL
Derek Rooken-Smith (Office of Development Effectiveness, AusAID):
Hello and welcome to ODE Talks. I’m Derek Rooken-Smith.
Today we are discussing ODE’s current evaluation of Australian aid support for women’s economic
empowerment in Asia and the Pacific.
With me are two experts in this area, Dr Katherine Fritz and Ms Payal Patel from the International
Centre for Research on Women based in Washington DC. Both Katherine and Payal have considerable
experience in social science research in general, and gender and development issues in particular.
They are working with ODE on the evaluation of women’s economic empowerment…. the aid program
has for a number of years now been increasing its focus on women’s equality and economic
empowerment and we are really very interested in finding out how our aid can accelerate
development gains in these important areas.
Katherine and Payal, welcome to ODE Talks.
Katherine Fritz and Payal Patel:
Thank you.
Derek Rooken-Smith:
Let’s start with a broad overview from your perspective in Washington. I know that you’ve been active
in this area in various places all over the world, but if you can sort of summarise your feelings about
the current situation on women’s economic empowerment in different parts of the world. What are
their big issues?
Payal Patel:
What we know is that in developing countries around the world women make up a large percentage of
the labour force, particularly in sectors such as agriculture. We also have a large body of evidence and
research that demonstrates that women’s economic contributions in various sectors, particularly in
agriculture, go a long way to supporting economic growth, poverty reduction as well as broad benefits
to the well-being of communities and families.
However, at the same time we do know that around the world, particularly in specific developing
country regions there are a number of barriers that prevent their full and equal participation in
economies, which in turn limits the economic potential that they’re able to realise.
So for example, as compared to men, let’s say in the Pacific and Asia region, women generally have
more limited access to important resources – economic and other resources such as land, credit,
education even, other agricultural inputs, all of which could help strengthen their economic activity
and improve earnings.
Similarly women’s work tends to be concentrated in sectors that have lower earnings such as smallscale agriculture, such as micro-entrepreneurial work and paid trade. Similarly gender norms play
quite an important role in terms of influencing perceptions around the types of work that are
appropriate for both women and men to be engaged in and oftentimes norms such as these
presuppose that higher earning sectors are more appropriate for men and that those domains are not
as frequently available to women.
So overcoming some of these constraints are critical to really enabling women to achieve their
economic potential and to really accelerate processes of economic development, poverty reduction
and just broadly community empowerment, and there’s a whole wealth of evidence that shows what
happens when the playing field is evened in the economic sector, particularly in agriculture.
For example, a recent Food and Agricultural Organisation report addressed what would happen if, for
example, men and women farmers had equal access to a variety of agricultural inputs. They found
that agricultural yields would increase as much as 4% around the world, which of course has broad
implications for fostering food security and promoting broader livelihood improvement for poor
communities.
Derek Rooken-Smith:
You mentioned that you are getting near to the end of the evaluation. I know you are here getting
feedback from a range of people who work with the aid program. Can you give us a few sneak
previews and the sorts of things you’re coming up with in terms of both how we are doing and how we
can improve?
Payal Patel:
There is a strong policy framework in place that we found both in terms of the global, agency-wide or
corporate level, as well as to some extent when we dig deeper at the country level.
And we found that thus far, the Australian aid program again recognising that really the increased
focus around women’s economic empowerment is a fairly recent development, really beginning in
2011 (so only a couple of years ago), recognising that context we found that quite a good deal of
progress has been made in country programs’ abilities to implement approaches that are supporting
women’s economic empowerment …we found this to be true not only in sectors such as agriculture
and rural development that lend themselves more to delivering direct services that reach
communities and that reach men and women farmers, but we’ve also found some good progress in
more macro level sectors related to infrastructure such as energy, such as roads and transportation.
Derek Rooken-Smith: Yes, the infrastructure area can be quite difficult to engage with… gender
awareness. People working there often argue that infrastructure benefits everyone, so they’re a bit
loathe to undertake gender analysis. But tell me, did…in your work with the Australian aid program,
did you find any good examples of using gender analysis in infrastructure?
Payal Patel:
Quite clearly, I mean in terms of thinking strategically about enhancing women’s employment
opportunities, let’s say in roads development as well as maintenance and management.
Derek Rooken-Smith:
This was in the Pacific?
Payal Patel:
This was in the Pacific. It was an initiative in the Solomon Islands that not only thought about ensuring
that women in addition to men were able to access various employment opportunities through the
managing contractors, but actually did conduct a gender analysis and its really recognising the
opportunities and the needs and the entry points for which men and women could benefit from these
opportunities.
And so there were compliance mechanisms set in place, checklists that the Australian aid program’s
staff had a role in overseeing and in engaging with managing contractors to make sure that certain
targets for participation in employment by women were actually met.
Derek Rooken-Smith:
And that was well received by the communities involved?
Payal Patel:
That’s right, yes, and women’s participation.... in a range of jobs both in terms of more managerial,
work in maintenance crews as well as women employed in more technical areas in terms of
accounting, working with those managing contractor firms.
But you know, at the same time, we should recognise in clearly creating entry points for women’s
employment is absolutely relevant to sectors such as energy, such as transportation, but that projects
such as these macro level infrastructure endeavours have a broad reach in terms of the men and
women who actually benefit from access to roads, from access to electricity.
And so there are clear implications there in terms of a larger reach in terms of where are roads
developed? Who has access to them? Do they lead to markets where women may have a role to play,
where they are already engaged in some sort of trade or where they could be engaged in selling
services and other goods that they’re already engaged in?
Similarly, the benefits of electrification can go a long way to supporting women’s productive work,
whether that be in terms of increasing the productivity of food processing activities, replacing
women’s own manual labour with perhaps electrified mechanisms for carrying out work more quickly,
also for reducing women’s burden in the household, if it means being able to cook food and take care
of other household responsibilities with greater productivity or efficiency.
Derek Rooken-Smith:
Looking ahead though for the Australian aid program are there any sort of, I guess, ideas which you
were coming up with, in ways in which we can improve?
Katherine Fritz:
We’re still working on the exact recommendations that are going to come out of the report, but the
things that are rising to the top right now are really having to do with, for one, raising awareness
among staff of the existing strong guidance and strategies that are there to be used.
I think it is always a challenge in every large institution to really disseminate information especially the
practical how-to guidance, but also the examples of best practices that have been used.
And because the Australian aid program works in such a large number of countries and such a
diverse array of countries, as we found in this report, there are some great examples that we think
that even despite that diversity across contacts that could be brought up and used as wonderful best
practices and could be the basis of how-to guides that could give people some extra encouragement.
Derek Rooken-Smith:
I did mean to ask as well, looking at projects in the Pacific and Asia – I know you visited examples of
both, and with your experience in other continents, was there anything you think that was unique
about the issues and problems that our region faces, and hence the Australian aid program faces in
trying to address the issue in the Pacific and Asia?
Payal Patel:
I think obviously, probably, folks who have been working with the Australian aid agency know quite
well that in the Pacific one of the key challenges really for women’s empowerment and engagement
more broadly has to do with violence against women in the domestic setting, which clearly is a crossregional issue, but I think has a particularly high prevalence rate and really broad implications in the
Pacific region, perhaps more so than we see in other parts even of Asia or Sub-Saharan Africa.
Simply providing women with new opportunities, economic opportunities outside of the home may not
actually go a very long way in terms of improving their overall well-being, their overall agency and
ability to contribute to development outcomes in their families as well as more broadly in their
communities.
So I think that is a clear issue that particularly stands out in the Pacific. And it’s also an emerging
issue – we were in Laos as part of our work, and that’s actually been an emerging issue that hasn’t
been very well talked about in recent years, but it was something that came up in our interviews with
stakeholders across the board, including in the governments and including with civil society
organisations.
Derek Rooken-Smith:
Well best of luck with the rest of your work on the evaluation and we all look forward to its completion
and publication and I’m sure it’s going to be a great help, both for those of us who are closely working
in the aid program and those with an interest in the region more generally. Thanks for coming.
Katherine Fritz and Payal Patel:
Thanks so much.
Derek Rooken-Smith (outro): You’ve been listening to ODE Talks, produced by the Office of
Development Effectiveness at Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. For more
information go to ode.dfat.gov.au