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UNEP Centre Workshop Raises Gender Consciousness

On 25 September 1995, Ms. Catalina H. Trujillo, Coordinator of the Women in Human Settlements Development Programme of UNCHS (Habitat), conducted a one-day workshop on Gender-Awareness Building for IETC staff, including some Japanese cooperation staff from the Global Environment Centre Foundation (GEC) and the International Lake Environment Committee Foundation (ILEC). Among the 15 participants who took part in the workshop at the IETC Office in Osaka were 11 women and 4 men. Ms. Shio Nemoto came from the UNIDO Office in Tokyo to participate and Ms. Yoko Tanaka came from the UNCRD Office in Nagoya.

The workshop was designed to introduce the concept of gender, to build awareness in the participants of the "different but equal" roles of men and women, and to make them understand the value that this awareness can contribute to ensuring the success of projects. Using prepared worksheets, three working groups of 5 participants each had fun discussing and describing the daily routine activities of three prototype families located in three different corners of the world. Not surprisingly, these discussions illustrated a common image of a male hierarchically-dominated but female-organised and managed household. Later the participants worked on how to include gender considerations in workplace activities, particularly when working on specific projects.

Discussions during the workshop generated interesting expectations and very positive reactions especially from the Japanese staff. In his introductory remarks, Richard Meganck, Director of IETC, expressed his particular hope that the workshop would create better and more open communication and more active working relationships between and among the staff of IETC, GEC and ILEC both men and women.

The workshop did not simply end in talk. In an immediate follow-up the day after the workshop, Mr. Hiroshi Shiroi, a Japanese cooperation staff member at IETC whose present project is the preparation of an International Source Book on Municipal Solid Waste Management, sent an e-mail to the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID) - commissioned by IETC to do a study for the book - and requested that HIID include a focus in their study on the role and participation of women in municipal solid waste management. HIID sent back a very positive response. In Japan the term "gender" does not have an equivalent in the national language, perhaps, because until now there has not been a demand for it in a society where social relationships and roles of men and women have been clearly defined by deeply rooted cultural and traditional values. These values persist to this day despite modernization and impressive technological development. Yet, the workshop generated interesting expectations and very positive reactions especially from the Japanese staff. In his introductory remarks, Richard Meganck, Director of IETC, expressed his particular hope that the workshop would create better and more open communication and more active working relationships between and among the staff of IETC, GEC and ILEC, both men and women.

We certainly hope that the one-day workshop, brief as it was, has already planted at IETC the seed of a new gender consciousness.

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