Page 42 - SCAT GBV Report - Addressing Gender-Based Violence - 2021

5.5 Sustainable resourcing
As this report illustrates, LDAs contribute significantly to social and economic development and assist rural communities in proactively responding to gender discrimination and GBV. Moreover, they are a pivotal resource for democracy building and access to justice in marginalised areas, and are frequently a stop-gap for weak service delivery on the part of the state. As with the CAO sector as a whole, the need for LDAs to be formally recognised and resourced by the state is of critical concern. In this context, SCAT as an intermediary offers a lifeline to rural community organisations in being able to access funding, a role that one respondent suggests has evolved over time:
In the past it was top down – okay, we [intermediaries] are coming to you and you need our help – but now there is a sense of collective strategising between the advice office sector and the NGOs that are supporting them. There was almost a rethink of even the way they are approached – not as the done to, but as the doing with.
Vuyiswa Sidzumo, key informant.
The following strategies could be explored to grow resourcing for LDAs:
• Funding models that work towards the provision of sustained support e.g.
salaries for LDA core staffing.
• Collaborative efforts amongst urban-based NGOs, together with LDA partners,
to lobby the state and private social justice funders to promote optimal funding
models for rural contexts.
• The establishment of a dedicated joint fund specifically focused on GBV initiatives
in the CAO sector, with a strong emphasis on growing the sustainability of anchor
organisations in rural areas.
• The development of grantmaking practices that embed project ownership and
agency within community structures.
• Targeting resources towards increasing the leadership of women, and young
women in particular, in and across the CAO sector.
5.6 Institutionalising a gender focus
To support SCAT to institutionalise its gender work further, the following are proposed:
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“Finish this Elephant”: Rural Community Organisations’ Strategic Approaches to Addressing GBV
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Revise the organisation’s programmatic objectives on gender to ensure the integration of this subject across all areas of activity.
Integrate gender as a cross-cutting key performance area for all staff, and enhance SCAT’s internal gender expertise and capacity through staff development and targeted recruitment.
Incorporate gender more fully into programme design, staffing, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation, whilst considering the following:
• Gender as an operational strategy ‘recognises that development initiatives
are never neutral and so they have differential impacts on men and women, young people and older people, rural and urban populations’ (FAO - Dimitri, 2011:20). Consequently, it is important to approach gender as a strategy that cuts across all development programming and prioritise it accordingly.
• Gender as a method of analysis recognises that the social problems development strategies seek to address require ‘systematically exploring the roles and responsibilities of men and women [and LGBTIQ persons] and the degree to which they have access to and control over resources, benefits and powers’ (FAO - Dimitra, 2011:21).