As part of the activities under the Gender Equality Project (GEP), the School of Women and Gender Studies (SWGS) and University Forum on Governance (UNIFOG) with support from the Democratic Governance Facility (DGF) held a public dialogue on 13th September 2018, to reexamine indicators for Uganda’s gender equality sector and their measurement.

Uganda is one of the many countries that have received recognition for its relentless efforts towards realizing gender equality. Impressive steps including, putting in place legal and policy frameworks, such as the 1995 Constitution and other policy shifts have provided for participation of previously excluded groups in political decision making processes. Furthermore, Uganda has ratified international frameworks critical to gender equality, such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women - CEDAW) (2000), the Maputo Declaration on gender mainstreaming (2003), and the African Youth Charter (2006), among others. The county has also made a commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): SDG 5 concerns gender equality, SDG 10 targets reduced inequalities, while SDG 8 aims at inclusive economic growth. Additionally, Uganda has ratified Domestic frameworks such as Vision 2040; the National Development Plans (NDPs), the Uganda Gender Policy (2007), the National Youth Policy (2016) and the Equal Opportunities Commission Act (2007) domesticate the international aspirations. This positive legal framework is additionally underlined by several state and non-state agencies working on gender equality.

“Uganda has a number of gender policies in place, but there exist numerous gaps that barricade the possibility of realizing broad-based equality of voices, rights and opportunities between and amongst diverse social groups,” observed Associate Prof. Sarah N. Ssali, Dean SWGS in her welcome remarks. She noted that the project therefore seeks to strategize on enhancing gender equality legislation.

Associate Professor Sarah N. Ssali, Dean SWGS giving her remarks

The half day discussion that gathered gender equality stakeholders from the academia, civil society, political society/policy makers as well as students’ community and the media, aimed to reflect on the existing and commonly used indicators in the measurement of gender equality in Uganda. The workshop featured a key note address, a panel discussion and a plenary session.

While delivering the key note address titled: Indicators and Measurement of Gender Equality in Uganda; the strength and gaps, Dr. Tabitha Mulyampiti, Senior Lecturer School of Women and Gender Studies shared the relevance of gender responsive indicators; noting that indicators are used to track outputs and assess gendered outputs, outcomes and impact for planning, budgeting and reporting on performance. Dr. Tabitha decried the fact that the affected parties are often not part of the gender equality indicators and measurement processes and tokenistic practices which heavily influence the process outcomes. She stressed the need for appropriate strategies in development programs noting that “One way to test how well development programs are able to function in a political context is to check that the programs include the appropriate strategies and resources.”

On the left is Dr. Tabitha Mulyampiti, Senior Lecturer, SWGS delivering the key note address and on the Right is Ms. Isabella Akiteng sharing her views

During a Panel discussion, it was highlighted that the gender equality discourse in Uganda is narrowly focused on differences between men and women, and existing gender equality laws and policies tend to be less inclusive as they are narrowly focused on and are often mixed up with women empowerment policies. Hence, this makes the tracking of the results of gender equality inadequate, as it often collapses back to binaries between males and females in the public sphere, discounting the private sphere.

In her remarks, Ms. Isabella Akiteng, a panelist noted that to monitor and ensure that all sectors adhere to gender equality in decision making and service delivery in the country, the government of Uganda launched National Priority Gender Equality Indicators (NPGEIs) in 2016. The 106 indicators focus on six thematic areas which include, education, economic, human rights, health, leadership and political participation and Information Communication Technology provide ways of measuring the gender inequalities existent in Uganda and address their underlying causes.

“In 2016, government launched National Priority Gender Equality Indicators (NPGEIs). The indicators are 106 in total. Are they too many to be tracked? Despite the commitments in reports, it is difficult to track progress or change in the gender terrain due to lack of gender equality sensitive measures in place, lack of gender sensitive data and failure to understand gender,” noted Ms. Akiteng.

Members called for the need to make and measure gender sensitive indicators, noting that the focus should be on the privileges enjoyed by men and not women, pay attention on how gender equality laws and policies are working in terms of improving opportunities for everyday Ugandan citizens especially the marginalized groups, have readily available disaggregated data, ensure everyday citizens are involved in determining what should be measured under gender equality indicators and find appropriate ways of measuring gender equality indicators without collapsing back to the binaries of male and female.

The activity was followed by Gender Equality Toolkit Review Workshop that run from 14th – 16th September 2018, to review a gender equality toolkit on gender equality results, indicators and measurement developed by the GEP project. The toolkit is a comprehensive user-friendly framework for gender equality training which can also be used as a reference document for state and non-state actors.