3.1 The concept of women’s empowerment was further sharpened through the process of critical consciousness-raising for transformation among the poor and the oppressed.

3.2 Over the years our approach has evolved from an understanding of the importance of women’s  participation in development and women’s empowerment, to emphasising the centrality of gender equality as a cross cutting goal. Thus, as a developmental organisation, Caritas India is now engaged in looking at developmental initiatives with a gender perspective.

4.2 In UN millennium Declaration, agreed upon by 191 governments committed to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women and pledges to combat all forms of violence against women and to implement the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). (September 2000 at the UN Millennium Summit).

4.3 The Constitution of India not only grants equality to women but also empowers the State to adopt  measures of positive discrimination in favour of women for neutralising the cumulative socio-economic, educational and political disadvantages faced by them. The role of men and boys in achieving gender  equality is stressed. (UN Commission on Status of Women: Beijing+5).

4.4 Caritas India was affiliated to Caritas Internationalis Rome, right from its inception and continues to be a member of Caritas Confederation. As a member of Caritas Confederation gender equality concerns are of great relevance to Caritas India.

3. Understands gender equality as a cross cutting goal that needs to be integrated into all its policies, programmes and projects;

4. Realises that gender differences are socially culturally constructed and reinforced by caste, class, ethnicity, language, age, region and religion and that restructuring gender relations to reclaim the dignity of girls and boys/men and women is essential;

5. Believes that gender equality can be achieved through a partnership between men and women;

6. Promotes women’s empowerment as being fundamental to achieving gender equality.

2. To effectively incorporate a gender perspective in all interventions that influence goals, strategies, resource allocation and outcomes.

3. To ensure that all decision-making and all practices are informed by gender equality analysis

4. To move towards the achievement of gender equity or substantive equality for women and men through  the empowerment of women.

5. To develop institutional capacity and knowledge for gender mainstreaming within the organisation and among the partner organisations.

In developmental interventions Caritas India will focus on:

1. Greater awareness of gender issues to be developed to arrive at a common understanding of gender and related terms.

2. Development of institutional guidelines for gender mainstreaming

3. Ensuring that each project be informed by gender analysis

4. Development of a mechanism to screen all newly developed projects with a gender perspective

5. Devising and implementing gender sensitive monitoring and evaluation mechanisms for every stage of the project.

6. Pre-funding gender analysis for every project and post funding gender audit to assess gender justice

7. Women’s empowerment as a priority

8. Promotion of the programmes that aim at enhancing access to opportunities and resources and  increasing women’s control over assets and decision-making;

9. Support of programmes that challenge the subordinate position of women in homes, communities and society.

10. Capacity enhancing training of all collaborators, co-workers and women at all levels

11. Involving Gender specialists and specialised agencies to be part of developing the training programmes and be resource persons for the same.

12. Ensuring equal pro-active participation of women and men in all projects and at all levels.

13. Implementing recommendations of policy developments, international conventions and other civil society  organisations

14. Action research projects to refine Caritas India’s programme interventions and support strategies

15. Promotion of efforts to develop strategic alliances with other secular human rights groups and organisations, civil society, peoples’ movements and state and central governments.

16. Dissemination of Caritas gender literature, data, training modules and policy to relevant church bodies seminaries and religious congregations.

   2. Organisational Development

Within Caritas India, appropriate measures will be taken to eliminate gender discrimination. These include:

1. Providing equal opportunities for women with special focus at professional levels.

2. Ensuring sufficient space for women in all the decision-making bodies and providing for equal representation of women at all levels including Governing Board, Central, Regional and Diocesan level.

3. Setting targets for reaching gender parity in staffing at various levels

4. Changing recruitment criteria and procedures to incorporate the objectives of the gender policy.

5. Sensitising all associated with Caritas India (partners, collaborators, communities) through the use of     church documents, documents related to national and international instruments, knowledge and experiences based on people’s lives and struggles.

6. Providing access to grievance re-dressal systems for gender justice

7. Creating gender working groups to contribute to gender perspectives in the production of tools and methodologies

8. Initiating dialogue on gender issues with other church and international bodies.

9. Providing qualified personnel and adequate resources to plan and implement gender mainstreaming in  the organisation’s programmes and projects, as well as in its own structures and practices, and to assist  the management in the process of institutionalising the gender equality process.

2. Appointment of gender specialists and specialised agencies to be part of developing the training programmes and to be resource persons for the same.

3. Creation of a think tank for continuous assessment of the impact of gender development programmes through monitoring and evaluation.

4. Development of strategic alliances with other secular human rights/ women’s rights groups and organisations, civil society, people’s movements, and state and central governments.

Towards this end it will:

1.1Create a gender-working group whose mandate would be to develop a Strategic Country Plan and plan of action to implement the policy

1.2 Evaluate the existing structures analysing from a gender perspective in the recruitments, appointments and service rules and develop a framework that would bring about gender equity and gender balance in decision-making positions.

1.3 Establish and strengthen accountability mechanisms within the organisation to ensure gender mainstreaming at all levels of the projects.

1.4 Ensure that resources both material and human are made available to implement the gender policy.

1.5 Put mechanisms in place to monitor, conduct mid-term review and evaluation of the projects and programmes, and to assess their impact on women.

1.6 Make gender audits mandatory

1.7 Conduct the first evaluation in 2005 and subsequently every two years.

1.8 Institutionalisation of the organisational learning process to ensure continuity and
       further development.

1.9 Incorporating responsibilities for gender issues into the job descriptions of all middle and senior managers.

1.10 A time bound plan and periodic revisiting are essential elements of implementing the policy.