3R METHOD IN UBC

The UBC Executive Board decided to introduce the 3R-method for analysing and following up the Gender Equality perspective in all activities of the UBC.

UBC has in the General Guidelines and the Action Plan decided that Gender Equality will be integrated in all the work within the organisation. How do we follow up these decisions? There has been a lack of simple and practical methods in analysing gender factors.

The Swedish Association of Local Authorities (SALA) established in 1995 a committee, which has the task of developing methods for the work on gender equality. The committee introduced the 3R-method as an analytical tool, to produce information needed to gender mainstream an operation in a systematic way.

The project "Gender equality in local Agenda 21" under the UBC Women's Network has used the 3R-method in analysing the local Agenda 21 process in three cities, Lahti, Lübeck and Sundsvall.

By answering questions under the headings Representation, Resources and Realia activities can be analysed from a gender equality perspective. The analysis shows how power is shared between women and men and how gender aspects affect the activities.

Proposals and decisions, even those which do not explicitily take up gender equality, affect women and men in different ways since women and men are living partly different lives. A gender mainstrem policy takes this into consideration.

The first R, Representation (1R) is a systematic analysis of the representation of men and women in the process and in the different operations.

• Who are the chairpersons of the boards, the committees and other groups?
• Which is the target group? Men or women? Boys or girls?
• Who are writing and preparing the proposals and the plans? Who are the members of project groups, working groups, reference groups, etc.

The second R, Resources (2R) is an analysis of how the resources, e. g. money, space and time, are allocated between men and women.

The third R, Realia (3R) is an analysis of different values and norms which can be expressed in questions like: Are the interests and wishes of women and men being met to an equally great extent? Which experiences and values have governed the decisions? Whose needs are being met? Which are the effects and the results for women compared with those for men? What is the factual contents of the operations? For women? For men?

This way of analysing the UBC activities gives us a good picture of the situation and we will follow up the decisions about Gender Equality, taken by the UBC Executive Board.