Three Case Studies: Involving Men to Address Gender Inequities

This 72-page publication published by the Interagency Gender Working Group (IGWG), highlights three programmes that have engaged men and boys in efforts to improve reproductive health outcomes for both men and women. Though planned and implemented in different geographic regions within different cultural contexts, these programmes share a number of features. All three evolved and developed during the process of implementation and continue to evolve as they continue to work within their respective communities. All three include a sequence of ideas and activities that draw participants into the change process. All three require facilitators of the community process to also be participants and to acknowledge, face and resolve their individual challenges related to the programme. These are participatory processes that involve communities as leaders and participants at the same time - bringing out linkages between individual behaviour and community norms.

from the Introduction:

"...The Interagency Gender Working Group's (IGWG) Men and Reproductive Health Subcommittee was founded in 1997, following a survey by USAID to determine the nature and extent of male involvement activities that had been undertaken by its cooperating agencies, the agency's contractors, and grantees. The survey revealed that what was most needed were models of programs whose goals were to improve women's reproductive health and gender equity by involving men in a conscious, considered, and constructive way.



The members of the subcommittee decided to respond to that need by publishing case studies from which other organizations could learn. The subcommittee examined approaches that have been used by organizations around the world to affect change in three areas: preventing genderbased violence, improving the socialization of male adolescents and young men to increase gender equity, and promoting awareness of dual protection (preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs)/HIV/AIDS).



Three innovative programs that have engaged men and youth in efforts to improve reproductive health outcomes for both men and women were identified. Salud y Género of Mexico has worked with men in Latin America to reduce genderbased violence and improve men’s support for women's reproductive health. The Society for the Integrated Development of the Himalayas (SIDH) in India has focused on education as a means of achieving social justice in its work with young people of both sexes to improve gender equity and reproductive health outcomes. The Stepping Stones program, first developed in Uganda, is a communication, relationships, and life skills training package, which has worked with men and women, including youth, to increase awareness of gender issues to prevent transmission of HIV.



Each of these programs illustrates ways in which men were not only involved but were challenged to examine their assumptions of masculinity and of their right to greater power than women, and the effect of these assumptions on their own health and that of their female partners. The approaches sometimes attempt to shed light on the fact that accepting traditional masculine roles - such as risk taking and abusing power over others - often has negative consequences for men as well as for their sexual partners, and that men who are more in tune with their feelings make better partners, resulting in happier and healthier families.

While the three case studies chosen have not been formally evaluated, these programs provide valuable models of how to constructively engage men, including innovative approaches to involving men in social change, as well as the creative methodologies and approaches each of them used. They are worthy of study, rigorous evaluation, and possible replication by other organizations..."



Please note: As of September 2006, the Men and Reproductive Health subcommittee of the IGWG no longer exists. However, according to IGWG contacts, the subcommittee was critical in laying the foundation for the work that the IGWG has continued in the area of male engagement in reproductive health. Constructive engagement of men and boys remains one of the IGWG’s four priority areas.