Mainstreaming gender equality: A comparative analysis on gender roles of the Awura Amba and the nearby community, Amhara Regional State, Ethiopia

Abstract

This study was undertaken in the Awura Amba community and its neighboring villages, South Gondar Zone in the Amhara Regional State. The Awura Amba community was established in the early 1970s by a few members as a social organization. It is a good instance to be taken as a role model for the fair gender roles adjustment unlike other groups of people in the Amhara Region of Ethiopia. Despite the community being assumed to play an exemplary role in gender equality, due emphasis has not yet been paid to study the questions of how this community is able to achieve it, and how it interacts with the surrounding community to share its good experiences. Thus, this comparative study aimed to examine gender equality and the division of gender-based roles in Awura Amba and its surrounding community. The study employed an explanatory mixed-research method. The data were collected through a survey questionnaire from 170 respondents, focus group discussions (FGDs), and key informant interviews. As the study relied on qualitative and quantitative strands, it used both probability and non-probability sampling techniques. The quantitative data were analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistics while the qualitative data were thematically analyzed to substantiate the quantitative findings. The result shows that the Awura Amba community has better awareness and concern about gender equality and mainstreaming as compared to its surrounding community. The study also found that the Awura Amba community is unsuccessful in sharing its learnable pro-gender experiences with the adjacent neighboring community on the one hand, and in learning some important cultural practices and values from their neighbors on the other. This study suggests that the concerned bodies have to design strategies that would help the two communities to know each other sufficiently, and to create a stage for experience sharing. Besides, the local government of Fogrea Woreda should work hard so as to make the values of this community acceptable to the grass-root surrounding community instead of being very politicizing to outsiders. Above all, national, regional and local level gender mainstreaming programs should focus on strategic gender needs that are capable of changing the gender power relations.