Gender Mainstreaming the Rural Development Programme: Updating a case study of Northern Ireland

This research will update former research on how to more effectively engage women in the Rural Development Programme (RDP) for Northern Ireland.
The EU is committed to gender equality through gender mainstreaming. RDPs delivered across Member States incorporate a commitment to gender mainstreaming. This is enshrined in Article 8 of the Rural Development Regulation 2007-2013.
Our project will update research on how to increase the impact of the RDP on rural women. We will update desk research, qualitative interviews, and focus groups. There is concern at a regional and EU level that the RDP is not having a sufficient impact on women. While we will specifically focus on Northern Ireland, lessons will be relevant to other regions in the EU. This research will also contribute to the theoretical literature on gender mainstreaming, specifically by critically reflecting on the notion of gender mainstreaming the RDP, seen as one of the most male policies in the EU.
This research will consider how the RDP might be mainstreamed, and whether there are tensions between the EU's commitments to gender mainstreaming and a viable agricultural industry. There are inherent difficulties in trying to gender mainstream RDPs. In general across Europe, men inherit land. While women are rarely the holder, they are key contributors to the farm family labour force, and frequently their off-farm labour is essential to the viability of the family farm. It is unclear how gender mainstreaming can apply to an industry that is intrinsically premised on the exploitation of family labour.
We will also examine if the RDP is adopted in ways that reflect existing gender imbalances. It may be the case that gender mainstreaming is circumvented by cultural norms and established patterns of practice, and this normative knowledge shapes how the programme is implemented. This is particularly relevant for those elements of the RDP aimed at women in rural areas not on farms. These women are not bound by the same cultural and historical constraints as those involved in agriculture, yet women continue to be under-represented in monitoring boards and implementing bodies.
The European Commission and Parliament have expressed concern about the differential gender impact of the RDP across Europe. In the NI context, a policy report was commissioned in 2000 to make recommendations on how to increase the impact of the RDP on women (Shortall and Kelly, 2001). While there is awareness of the need for gender equality, the Mid-Term Evaluation Report of the current programme specifically notes that there is little evidence to date of active targeting of women in the current programme, and recommends that DARD actively engages with relevant organisations to use their expertise to reach this target group to promote the programme. It states the need to do this many times but it does not suggest how this might be achieved.
The research process will actively engage with policy makers, civil society sectors, and the political sphere. It will be designed in close consultation with DARD, the Local Action Groups who deliver the programme, women's networks, key rural development and agricultural organisations, and political actors.
The research will produce a final report and briefing notes for the relevant sectors engaged with the project. It will produce academic journal articles and conference presentations for academic audiences. There will be collaboration throughout the project, bringing together a university, a government department, civil society groups and the Northern Ireland Assembly, in an innovative four way transfer of knowledge. There will be a final project launch, media interviews will be given and it will be publicised on Queen's University's website.

The research will impact on governmental policy makers and non-governmental practitioners and delivery organisations, in the area of agriculture and rural development policy and practice, at a Northern Ireland (NI), United Kingdom (UK) and (EU) level. The timing of this project is particularly important as it will conclude at a time which coincides with preparations by DARD and the rural development sector in NI for the next round of the RDP, thus assisting in addressing the frequently cited problem of a mismatch between the policy cycle and the availability of a current and robust evidence base.
In the short to medium term, at a NI level, it will provide a robust evidence base on how to engage women more effectively in the Northern Ireland Rural Development Programme (NIRDP), a key recommendation from the Mid-Term Review of the NIRDP.
It will be of specific interest to the NI Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD), in particular policy makers and civil servants with responsibility for Rural Policy, the RDP, equality, as well as those developing statistical and other types of evidence within DARD. It will also be of interest to Northern Ireland's MEPs, Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development and the NI Assembly committee with scrutiny and oversight responsibility for that ministerial portfolio; the Assembly Committee for Agriculture and Rural Development. It may also be of interest to the Assembly Committee with scrutiny and oversight of equality issues; the Committee for the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister. The research will be of use to this wide range of actors in the policy making process advising on more effective targeting of the current NIRDP (2007-13) and informing the development of the future NIRDP post 2013.
Non-governmental rural development organisations, and more specifically the Rural Development Council, the Rural Community Network, the Women's Resource and Development Agency, Northern Ireland Rural Women's Networks (NIRWIN), the Rural Network NI (RNNI), the Local Area Groups (LAGs) and the Ulster Farmers' Union, will have a robust and updated evidence base to engage with policy makers in the policy making and consultation processes for the better targeting and implementation of the current, and the development of the new, NIRDP; activities which can shape and enhance the effectiveness of the NIRDP.
Within the UK, the research will be of interest to rural development policy and practitioner communities seeking to inform the targeting of current and future rural development programmes across Scotland, England and Wales to enhance the effectiveness of these programmes. The European Commission, and policy and practitioner communities in the new Member States and accession countries will also have an interest in the lessons from the NI experience of engaging women in the RDP and how the effectiveness of women's engagement can be enhanced.
In the medium to long term, the research has the potential to change organisational and cultural practices within Northern Ireland's rural development policy and practitioner communities by contributing to the evidence base on the ways cultural and contextual factors influence the development of normative knowledge about women and rural development and its influence on the implementation of rural development initiatives at the level of the member state. In the future, this evidence could also feed-into the design and delivery of more effective rural development programmes and policies targeting women more broadly, at a regional, national and EU level.
Our engagement, involvement and communication plans throughout the project are a key element of our research proposal and are targeted to a range of academics, policy makers and politicians, non-governmental organisations and practitioners at a regional, national and EU level.