CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS
5.2 P OLICY R ECOMMENDATIONS
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5.2 Policy Recommendations
Overall, aid directed to gender equality should incorporate recipient’s individual needs;
aid cannot only be directed through world leaders and organizations or guided only by globalized principles delivered in conferences. Multidimensional aspects, as the ones that characterize gender, should be incorporated into mainstreaming and policy design, foreign aid plays an important role in achieving the Millennium Development Goals set in September 2000 and ready to conclude this year 2015. Contrary to past beliefs, it is not the amount of Official Development Assistance, which is important, but its distribution.
To reach these goals, it is imperative that donors are aware of the allocation of aid and are able to react to changes in the developmental requirements, political scenarios and other non-developmental criteria. (McGillivray and Feny, 2009)
Aid will be effective for development, specifically to improve gender equality in
Honduras, only if movements and organizations representing women are established. In order to actually create an impact on gender equality, women do not only need funds directed to the subject matter but opportunitties that allow them to be part of policy creation and development. Providing positions of power in all scenarios, including parliament, NGO’s and international organizations, focused on working with development projects, is the only way women can aquire the adequate freedom to promote and claim their rights and successfully achieve international development goals and initiatives.
Development projects targeting gender equality in education will achieve desired outcomes when re-discussing quality and content of the educational material in
Honduras. Educational content needs to be severely analyzed in order to include gender equal conduct and disciplines, considering measurements of enrollment alone cannot be the only device used to achieve genuine parity, due to the fact that women may be given the equal chance to attend school but the content they are exposed to may strengthen their previously imposed roles that have denied them from freedom in the past. There is a need for men and women to understand the value of gender equity in education that can
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of household shores and child bearing as well as women being free and supported to enter the workforce in all areas with equal pay for performance.
Revising national educational content can eliminate established roles for girls and boys, which have left Honduras behind in terms of achieving equality. Gender barriers, particularly stronger in poor backgrounds, may be incorporated in social conduct and strengthen through educational material that imposes behaviors that leave women in a more disadvantaged position.
Development programs focusing on achieving gender equal results in health through maternal mortality should consider the country’s overall health situation. Honduras continues to have weak health regulations and procedures for any public health expenditure. There is a prevalence of few materials and scarce equipment to deal with obstetrical complications. There is a need for clear technical policies regarding the
provision of obstetrical care and an immediate need for equipment donations. Concerning all cases of maternal deaths, only 12 of the 27 hospitals in the country have maternal mortality committees working to prevent deaths from pregnancy related causes.(Bautista, 2004) The research states a need for all hospitals, public and private, in urban and rural areas, to have a maternal mortality unit that has internationally trained personnel to deal with childbirth and other reproductive health services.
Political instability also may cause an impact in the internal plans and logistics within the Ministry of Health, including hiring new personnel for every re-election, translating into inefficient and unsustainable projects. Maternal morality should continue to be national priority by law, were all hospitals are demanded to contribute to the reduction of such tragic, yet preventable, statistics.
Reproductive health services should be incorporated in adult educational material in all communities, hospitals and health facilities within the content of maternal mortality, where both men and women become educated and trained about birth control, sexual hygiene, prenatal care and secure conditions for delivery. Programs should also focus on strengthening the health care units in the rural areas of Honduras.
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Although an Electoral Law of Equal Opportunities for women has been set since 2000, being amended after the coup in 2009 to an increased quota of 40 percent for women in national congress, the country has only reached half of the goal with a 20 percent of seats held by women. (Valladares, 2013)
The law has not been effectively implemented, and needs to be a larger change in the representation of women in politics. Honduras experiences a low level of representation of women in all areas that involve power positions and this exclusion may stem back from other inequalities that prevail in the country’s culture and ideals of gender roles, excluding women from politics, leaving them with fewer resources to control and participate in political campaigns and tying them up with their cultural responsibility for the bare of children. There is a need for international organizations to supervise the fulfillment of this particular law. Programs interested in the completion of gender equality and empowerment, specifically in achieving desired gender quotas in national parliaments, should not only push funds into the creation and acceptance of laws but should issue the same amount of funds and strategies into the monitoring and evaluation of such laws.
Finally, all variables evaluated in this research: education, health and empowerment are important areas that need to be prioritized if gender equality is desired to increase in the country. Their relationship with foreign aid has been stated since developmental goals and programs have focused on their completion and although significant raises stem from the delivery of funds and technical support from international organizations, there is more advancement to be made. Interestingly, the variables can also be linked, while improving education overall can impact women’s knowledge on their maternal risks and prevention of deaths, their overall well being and health accompanied with proper opportunities to educate themselves can lead them to occupy positions in national parliaments and achieve overall empowerment.
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