The Practice of Gender Auditing in Culture and Tourism Bureau, Amhara National Regional State, Ethiopia

Abstract

Gender auditing is an assessment tool used to assess the level of gender mainstreaming practice in a given organization. It is also a tool to promote gender mainstreaming practice by suggesting viable solutions for gender related problems. To know the level of gender mainstreaming practice in Amhara Regional State Culture and Tourism Bureau, a gender audit was conducted by using four major organizational dimensions (political will, staff accountability, organizational culture and technical capacity). Quantitative and qualitative data collection methods were employed. The quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. And, the qualitative data was analyzed through the thematic approach. The result of the study showed that the leaders of the bureau had low commitment to reinforce the proper integration of gender issues into the organizational activities of the bureau. The staff were also not accountable for gender activities since they lack the necessary skills to undertake various gender related technical activities such as gender analysis, gender budgeting or gender planning. The audit also found out that the organizational culture of the bureau was lesss gender friendly. Generally, it was concluded that the ANRS Culture and Tourism Bureau is left with much work to do with respect to implementing of gender mainstreaming strategy.

Key words: Gender Audit, Culture and Tourism Bureau, Amhara Region, Ethiopia

^a Assistant Professor
^b PhD Candidate, Bahir Dar University

Background of the Study

Traditionally, audit is linked with financial accounting audits. Accountants have done financial auditing in organizations in line with the established financial rules and regulations. In the 1980s, companies introduced quality management audits to evaluate their performance. This quality management audit was then transformed to social audit which intends to evaluate the multiple social impacts that the organization brings (Underwood, 2000). By sharing some major traits of the accounting audit and social audit, a gender audit was established to assess how gender mainstreaming strategies are implemented in organizations (Netherlands Development Organization, 2004).

To promote gender auditing, various organizations have developed gender audit guidelines. For instance, ILO developed the first ever gender audit manual in October 2001. In 2003, Inter Action developed a very detailed gender audit manual. The International Trade Union Confederation-Asia Pacific also formulated a gender audit assessment guideline in 2007. Moreover, UNICEF developed a gender audit manual in 2011. From these manuals, the ILO and Inter Action gender audit manuals are widely used (EU, 2015).

Inter Action (2003) defined gender audit as: “an assessment tool and process for organizations to use in identifying how gender issues are addressed in their programming portfolio … that requires consistent and demonstrated political will from senior managers in the organizations.” It is the process of organizational assessment by itself that examines the political will, staff accountability, organizational culture and technical capacity which are likely to affect the work of the organization to promote women’s right. Hence, gender auditing enables organizations to identify the impact of gender relations on their agency's culture, processes, programs and organizational performance and vice versa. In a nutshell, the ultimate objective of gender audit is to develop a plan that helps an organization to attain gender integration and to improve gender equality within organizational processes, programs and activities (Moser, 2005).

Literature reveals that there has been very few formal gender audits conducted in developing countries. To mention some of them, gender audit was conducted in Vietnam to evaluate the social organizations with respect to gender mainstreaming (Ministry of Planning and Investment and UNICEF, 2011). In Tanzania, USAID (2009), published a report that documents the implementation of a gender audit. The result showed that the commitment of the leaders of the organization towards gender equality is the determinant factor for the proper integration of gender issues into the organizational activities (Rubin and Missokia, 2006). The Indian National Energy also conducted gender audit research in 2008 (Parikh and Sangeeta, 2008). In Ethiopia, there was only one gender audit research conducted at the national level (Ministry of Mines/Energy of Ethiopia, 2010). Hence, there is no ample research on gender auditing in developing countries in general and in Ethiopia in particular. With this gap in mind, this gender audit assesses the Amhara National Regional State’s (ANRS) Culture and Tourism Bureau. The specific objectives of the audit are:

• To examine the levels of political will, staff accountability, organizational culture and technical capacity vis-à-vis gender mainstreaming.
• To identify a correlation among political will, staff accountability, organizational culture and technical capacity.
• To compare the levels of political will, staff accountability, organizational culture and technical capacity based on sex.

Significance of the Audit

This gender audit research generates empirical evidence regarding the extent to which gender mainstreaming has been internalized and acted upon by staff. It also identifies and provides information on mechanisms, practices and attitudes that have made a positive contribution to mainstreaming gender in the organization. Furthermore, it sets up the initial baseline of performance on gender mainstreaming in the organization with a view to introduce an ongoing process of benchmarking to measure progress in promoting gender equality. The findings will practically help the ANRS Tourism and Culture Bureau to attain the full integration of gender issues into its organizational programs and activities. Conceptually, it can lay down a vantage point for other researchers to conduct further research on the issue under study since such kind of research is scanty in Ethiopia.

Scope of the Audit

The audit was conceptually delimited to examine the practice of gender mainstreaming in relation to political will, staff accountability, organizational culture and technical capacity. Geographically, it was carried out at ANRS Tourism and Culture Bureau that functioned at regional, zonal and district levels.

Operational Definitions of Key Terms

Gender Mainstreaming: A strategy for making women’s as well as men’s concerns and experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation processes within the organization (ILO, 2007).

Political Will: Means in which an organizational leaders show their commitment to work towards gender equality in their organization (Inter Action, 2003).

Technical Capacity: Level of ability, qualifications and skills of individuals to integrate gender issues in their organizational activities. (Inter Action, 2003).

Accountability: Level of responsibility of the staff to integrate gender issues in the programs and organizational structures that their organizations have (Inter Action, 2003).

Organizational Culture: Cultures in an organization that promote or undermine women’s right (Inter Action, 2003).

Conceptual Framework

This gender audit applies the Gender Integration Framework (GIF). GIF suggests that gender mainstreaming can only occur when the four organizational dimensions are ready for gender integration. These four elements are political will, technical capacity, accountability, and organizational culture, as viewed in the following figure.

Figure 1: The CAW‘s Gender Integration Framework (Framework adopted from    the Commission on the Advancement of Women. Copyright, 1999.)

Research Approach and Design

Gender audit research conventionally uses mixed methods that involve collecting data sequentially to best understand information that shows the level of gender mainstreaming in the organizations. This information is both numeric and text information. Hence, applying both quantitative and qualitative approaches is deemed to be appropriate to carryout gender audit research. Among the mixed method designs, sequential explanatory design was employed in this audit. As Creswell (2003) stated, in a sequential research strategy, the quantitative and qualitative data collection can be conducted in a separate periods, but interpretation combines the two forms of data. In this design, the researcher collects both forms of data at sequential time during the study and then puts together the information in the interpretation phase of the study. In a similar fashion, for this gender audit, the researchers first conducted a survey and then analysed the result in order to identify the problems among the various gender audit dimensions. Then they used focus group discussion as a data collection instrument for gathering more information on the identified problems.

Population, Sample and Sampling Techniques

The total population of ANRS Culture and Tourism Bureau in the region was 1477 staff. Among them, 853 were male and the remaining 624 were female. These staff work at regional, zonal, district and city administration levels. Ten percent of the total staff population were selected through proportional random sampling technique. The staff were selected either from the zonal, district or city administration bureau. In total, 1 regional, 10 zonal, 2 city administrational and 18 district bureaus were included in the audit and a closed ended questionnaire was administered to 148 respondents. However, there was a 17 percent non-response rate (N=123).

8 focus group conversations were held with selected staff of the Tourism and Culture Bureau from 7 zones (South Gondar, North Gondar, North Wollo, South Wollo, East Gojjam, Oromia and North Shewa), one city administration (Dessie City Administration) and one regional administration (ANRS Tourism and Culture Bureau). The discussants were purposively selected by considering their knowledge and work experiences. Each focus group discussions had six to eight participants. In total, 51 focus group discussants participated in the qualitative audit.

Data Analysis

The quantitative data was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The descriptive statistics were frequency, percentage and mean. And, the inferential statistics that were used in this auditing were Pearson Correlation and independent T-test. For the qualitative data, thematic qualitative data analysis was employed; the analysis and interpretation of the raw data involved four stages. First, the raw qualitative data gained from focus group discussions was transcribed from audio version into text form. Then the transcribed data was translated from Amharic to English, coded and organized based on the four dimensions of the framework, and then interpreted. In the end, the information gained from the quantitative data and qualitative data were analyzed through triangulation technique.

Ethical Consideration

A fundamental ethical principle for every researcher is never to coerce anyone into participating; participation must be voluntarily (Inter action, 2003). In conducting this study, ethical standards expected to be followed by Inter action Code of Gender Audit Research Ethics relevant to the nature of the study were respected. The core ethical issues in this code like respecting the autonomy and dignity of the respondents were ensured in the study.

In accordance with the code of ethics, the basic purposes and importance of the study had been explained for respondents and consent was obtained from each of them in oral form. The researchers protected the privacy of the respondents by not disclosing the name of respondents in the research document. So, anonymity of information was strongly maintained in the whole process of the study.

Result

This section presents the main findings of the gender audit in four steps. First, the basic background information of the respondents is described. Second, the status of the level of political will, accountability, organizational culture and technical capacity is dealt with. Third, the correlations among political will, accountability, organizational culture and technical capacity are presented. Finally, the four dimensions are compared based on sex.

Socio-Demographic Profiles of Respondents

A total of 123 Culture and Tourism organization workers participated in this audit. Of the total respondents, 49.6 %, 43.9 % and 6.5% of participants were working at woreda, zonal and regional administrative levels respectively. 74.0% of the respondents were male making the male to female ratio 4:1. In terms of age composition, from the total respondents, the majority (61.8%) were between the age range of 18 and 29. And, 30.1% were within the age range of 30 and 45, whereas 7.3% and 0.8% of the respondents were found in the age category of 45 and 60 and above 61 respectively. Regarding their educational background, the majority of the respondents (68.3%) were first degree holders, whereas 20.3% and 5.7% were diploma holders and second degree holders respectively. Only a minority of them (0.8%) were trained in Technical and Vocational Colleges. Nearly half of respondents (48%) had a work experience of 1 to 5 years. And, 23.6 % of them had a work experience of 5-10 years, 15.4 % had below 1 year work experience and the remaining 7.3% had more than 10 years work experience (Table 1).

Table 1: Distribution of Socio-demographic Characteristics of the Respondents    (n= 660)

Level of Political Will, Accountability, Organizational Culture and Technical Capacity

The levels of political will, accountability, organizational culture and technical capacity in respect to addressing gender issues within the entire organizational activities was examined mainly quantitatively. These four dimensions were examined using 31 Likert scale items: political will (7 items), accountability (8 items), organization culture (11 items) and technical capacity (5 items). The response categories used were strongly disagree (1), disagree (2), moderately agree (3), agree (4) and strongly agree (5). In order to measure the levels of the dimensions, a one sample T-test was computed; and the test value was taken to be 3 from which difference could be measured. To interpret the quantitative result, qualitative data was collected from the focus group discussions.

Table 2: Level of political will, accountability, organizational culture and    technical capacity 

One-Sample Test

As indicated in the Table 2, political will with a mean score of 2.62 (SD=0.67, df= 122) received low agreement from the respondents at P<0.001. This means that the top management were not committed to mainstream gender issues into the organization’s activities. The focus group discussants also agreed that top officials of their organization had exerted little effort to integrate gender issues into the organization’s work. The discussants gave different explanations for the failure of the higher officials. For instance, one focus group discussant said:

The head of our organization lacks knowledge on gender issues. The head often orders us to properly carry out our main activities which include culture, tourism and heritage management. Concerning gender issues, however, the leader only requests us to prepare an annual plan having gender disaggregated information. But I believe that gender is not only about preparing gender disaggregated data, rather it is far beyond that. Since gender issues are cultural issues, our organization can contribute a lot to redress the existing gender inequality. Nonetheless, it is not yet well addressed as the top officials have not yet given due emphasis for gender issues.

Another focus group discussant also noted:

Some of our organization leaders are assigned from professions that the bureau does not demand. For instance, a woman with a nursing professional background was assigned as a head of the Culture and Tourism Bureau. Needless to say, a nurse may not properly know how gender issues could be treated and addressed within this organization. As long as we want to enhance the commitment of leaders towards gender issues, we need to first assign a leader whose profession directly fits the bureau’s demand.

Generally, the Culture and Tourism Bureau’s top management officials appear to lack the commitment to implement gender mainstreaming. Such commitment problem is attributed to lack of knowledge on gender issues and the absence of leaders professionally trained based on the bureau’s need.

Another important measure was the respondents view towards staff’s accountability for gender mainstreaming activities. The measure was found to be 2.9957 (p>0.05) which is below the test value (Table 2). This entails that the staff’s accountability towards gender mainstreaming was quite poor. Likewise, the qualitative data affirmed that the staff were not responsible to integrate gender issues in their day to day activities.

As a staff, I would be loyal for gender equity policy and practices whenever my organization is strict for it. Currently, however, my organization is not that much concerned towards gender issues, and for that matter, I do not consider gender issues part and parcel of my main tasks. Thus, how could I become accountable for gender equity policy given that the bureau itself is not responsible for it.

Organizational culture was found to be significantly undermining the practice of gender equality. It received a mean score of 2.74, t= 6.75, df= 636, p< 0. 001 (Table 2). This means the norms, customs, beliefs and codes of behaviour of the organization were not established in a way to support gender equality. Similarly, the qualitative data showed that the organizational culture of the bureau was not gender responsive. Some of the female staff of the bureau were forced to experience verbal harassment by their male workmates. Both male and female staff had negative perception towards women leaders and they perceived them as if they are incompetent to lead an organization or a program. The bureau also forced its female staff members to go to remote areas during field work without giving proper protection. Moreover, the three months maternity leave given for pregnant female staff is not believed to be sufficient. In this regard, a participant elucidated that;

The government has a gender policy which aims to promote the participation of women in the labor market. However, significant number of female governmental employees often quit their job after delivery. This happens due to two major reasons. In the first place, the maternity leave period is not enough for them, and because of this, they face problems to balance their work and family responsibilities. The second reason is that they are unable to assign babysitters for their new born babies since getting housemaid in the market is problematic for them; and even if they get housemaid, they could not afford their salary.

Hence, we can understand that the Culture and Tourism Bureau failed to take measures to retain its woman staff after delivery. In the time of field work, the researchers also observed that no daycare centers were established for the staff, even in the city. Therefore, we can conclude that the organizational culture of the bureau was not conducive for female staff.

As per the result presented in Table 2, technical capacity received a mean score of 2.65, df= 115, p< 0. 001. This implies that the staff had low ability and skill to carry out the practical aspects of gender integration for enhanced program quality. Correspondingly, the focus group discussants revealed that the organization’s staff had no proper skills to do gender planning, gender auditing, gender analysis and gender budgeting. In spite of this problem, the bureau had not so far taken any measures to improve the gender related knowledge and skill gaps of its staff. One participant noted that; “I graduated with BA degree in History. I had been working in this organization for more than five years as a culture officer. Throughout my stay, I do not remember any gender related training program organized by my bureau”. This shows how the bureau lacks the concern to raise the knowledge and skill of the staff on gender issues.

Correlation among Political Will, Accountability, Organizational Culture and Technical Capacity

As presented in Table 3, Pearson’s product moment correlation coefficient was computed to examine whether there was a correlation among political will, staff accountability, organizational culture and technical capacity. Looking into the correlation among these variables, it can be seen that there existed a strong positive correlation between political will and staff accountability (N= 117, r= 0.722, p<0.001). This means that as the political will for gender equality increased, staff accountability for implementing gender policy also increased. In support of this finding, one of the focus group discussants said: “If our leaders have commitment to ensure gender issues, we, the experts, would also develop commitment to work aggressively on gender issues.’’ The staff accountability was also strongly correlated with organizational culture positively (N= 117, r= 0.756, p<0.001). This shows that when the staff accountability increases, the gender friendliness of the organizational culture would also increase.

It can also be noted from the data presented in Table 3 that political will maintained a moderate positive correlation with organizational culture (r= 0.665, p<0.001) and technical capacity (r= 0.514, p< 0.001). Furthermore, the result showed that there was a moderate positive relationship between staff accountability and technical capacity (r= 0.562, p< 0.001), and again between organizational culture and technical capacity (r= 0.547, p< 0.001).

Table 3: Correlation among Political Will, Accountability, Organizational Culture    and Technical Capacity

Descriptive Comparison of Political Will, Accountability, Organizational Culture and Technical Capacity based on Sex

An independent sample T-test was computed to examine if there existed a significant difference on political will, staff accountability, organizational culture and technical capacity between females and males. The following table shows the T-test results of the comparison between males and females.

Table 4: Descriptive Comparison based on Sex

Note: The Levene's test for equality of variances was computed. Since the significant    associated with the F-value exceeded 0.05 for staff accountability, organizational    
culture and technical capacity, equal variances were assumed, but the Levene's   significance test for political will was 0.040 which is below 0.05 leading this analysis not
 to assume equal variances for political will. 

As indicated in table 4, female respondents had statistically significant lower agreement towards the presence of political will for mainstreaming gender issues in the organization’s activities compared to their male counterparts, t (119) =2.780, p=0.016. Females had also lower agreement towards the staff’s accountability on gender equality than males, t (113) =2.959, p=0.004. It is also shown in Table 4 that statistically significant differences were exhibited between males and females regarding their response towards organizational culture, t (119) =2.790, p=0.004). This suggests that females had lower agreement for the existence of gender friendly organizational culture (mean= 2.29, SD=0.75) than males whose average score was 2.79 with an SD of 0.87. Furthermore, females had higher disagreement against the technical capacity of the organization’s staff on gender issues when compared to males, t (112) =2.770, p=0.021.

Discussion

This section presents the discussion of four major gender audit dimensions by comparing the current research findings with results found in prior related studies.

Political Will

As per the finding of this audit, there was low level of political will (M=2.62, SD=0.67, df= 122). Similarly, a gender audit conducted in the ANRS Transport and Trade Bureau, revealed a low mean score (2.5) for political will (ANRS Transport and Trade Bureau, 2015). This suggests that the organization leaders of ANRS Tourism and Culture Bureau and ANRS Transport and Trade bureau had not showed the required commitment to integrate gender issues into their respective organizational programs and activities. This might be attributed to the lack of knowledge on gender issues among the organizations’ leaders.

Accountability

According to the gender audit done at ANRS Agriculture Bureau (2017), significant numbers of the staff were accountable to integrate gender issues in their organizational activities. Contrastingly, the present audit found out that there was low level of staff’ accountability in ANRS Culture and Tourism Bureau with a mean score of 2.73. However, the finding of the present audit is consistent with the audit done by three other bureaus namely ANRS Education Bureau, ANRS Trade and Transport Bureau, and ANRS Water and Irrigation Bureau. This means that the staff in these bureaus were not obligated to do their activities by being gender responsive.

Organizational Culture

The audit conducted by ANRS Health Bureau (2015) reported that there was absolutely no positive gender organizational culture at the Health Bureau. Especially, health extension workers had encountered different forms of gender based violence while working in rural areas. Another audit done by ANRS Water and Irrigation Engineering Bureau (2016) also reported that there was male domination during organization meeting and decision process. This implies that the organization culture of the bureau did not favor its women staff. Moreover, the audit done by ANRS Education Bureau (2016) reported that verbal harassment was committed against female staff. Congruent to these findings, the present audit also found out that there was low level of gender friendly organization culture at ANRS Culture and Tourism Bureau (M= 2.74, t= 6.75, df= 636, p< 0. 001). This low level of gender friendly organization culture is manifested in the form of verbal harassment against women staff and a negative perception towards female leaders. Furthermore, the bureau did not give sufficient maternity leave and it also failed to give proper security protection for its female staff during field visit to remote rural areas. All these conditions make the working life of female staff gloomy and as a result some female staff are forced to abandon their job.

Technical Capacity

According to the gender audit of ANRS Water and Irrigation Engineering Bureau (2016), the top officials of the bureau recognize that there was a gender skill gap among the organization staff but they did not allocate adequate financial budget to provide training for their staff. The present audit findings showed that the level of technical capacity of ANRS Tourism and Culture Bureau was low (M=.65, df= 115, p< 0. 001). This means that the staff do not have the necessary knowledge to carryout gender mainstreaming at program and operational levels. In contrast to this finding, the ANRS Health bureau’s staff had necessary knowledge on gender issues though its sister organizations’ staff lack that gender knowledge.

Conclusion

Based on the result of the audit, it was concluded that the leaders of the organizations have a knowledge gap on gender issues and, as a result, they failed to properly reinforce the implementation of existing policy-driven gender mainstreaming strategies. Most of the staff of the bureau lack technical capacity to integrate gender issues into the organizational activities. Moreover, the bureau does not have an independent gender department. In spite of these problems, the bureau had not taken any attempt to enhance the knowledge of its staff on gender issues. It was also observed that the organizational culture at the bureau was not gender-sensitive. Some female staff had been assigned and accomplished very risky field work at remote areas where security service is inaccessible. The maternity leave and paternity leave given for the staff were not sufficient. Since most of the staff of the bureau were not gender aware, they had shown low accountability for the integration of gender issues into the organizational activities. The correlation test showed that the accountability of the staff had a strong positive relation with both political will and organization culture. This means that when the political will increased or when the organizational culture became more gender friendly, the accountably of the staff would also increase. Comparing the responses of female to male staff, the female staff had a lower agreement response towards the presence of political will, accountability, organizational culture and technical capacity. This difference may result in women’s knowledge of their problems, and their positionality to easily sense the gender related problem that prevailed in the organization. All in all, this gender audit shows that the level of gender mainstreaming practice in ANRS Culture and Tourism bureau was significantly low.

References