Heifer's Gender Equity Statement
By Martha Hirpa, Heifer International's Director of Gender Equity
The word “gender” is often misunderstood and  misused. Some people equate “gender” with “women” and so believe that gender issues refer only to women’s issues. Others consider addressing gender issues a feminist and Western approach that has been imposed on the developing world.
At Heifer, however, the concept of gender applies to both women and men, as well as to their relations with one another and to their environment. The way women and men share resources, make decisions about their livelihoods, and plan for the future of their children, family, community and society at large—these are all issues that pertain to gender.
Addressing gender issues is crucial to sustainable development. Development — improving people’s livelihoods — isn’t sustainable unless both men and women participate, unless both take responsibility for their futures.
 For Heifer, examining gender issues means scrutinizing the causes and effects of poverty and hunger. It is about identifying and analyzing who lives in poverty and why. Who is hungry and why? Who has the power to escape from poverty and who does not and why? Who has the opportunity for improvement in life? Whose voice is heard and whose is not? Who is denied the right to make life decisions? The concept of gender looks at all these questions because the answers are critical to bettering the lives of women and men living in poverty around the world.
As an organization that believes in people’s ability to change their own lives and to create a better future, Heifer promotes and supports sharing and caring among people, which is fundamental to equity, or fairness. Heifer sees itself as a facilitator in this crucial process, and not as a provider of answers or as a problem solver.
Heifer has succeeded in alleviating poverty, hunger and social injustice through helping communities develop their own resources. Gender inequity is social injustice. The disproportionate number of women suffering from poverty—70 percent of the world’s poor are female—calls for a concerted effort and a thoughtful strategy to achieve justice and fairness in economic and social development.
In many poor countries around the world, the inability of families to build a better future for their children means poverty is perpetuated down through the generations. Many children, girls and boys, are born and grow up in poverty, becoming impoverished adults, women and men, unable to escape lives of deprivation.
Chronic poverty affects women and men differently. Culture and tradition often encourage the unequal distribution of resources between women and men, starting from childhood. In many developing countries, boys have better access than girls to school and health services and more opportunities to build assets and own property.
This discrimination based on gender creates persistent inequality between women and men in all aspects of life—economic, political and social—exacerbating the vulnerability and insecurity of women and girls. Escaping from this kind of intergenerational poverty without outside help, particularly for women, is difficult, if not impossible.
Conventional development programs have excluded the creativity, energy and knowledge of women and girls for years. Experience, however, has taught us that development efforts that do not address the inequality between women and men are partial ones and so are neither effective nor sustainable.
Ensuring that the voices of poor women and men are heard is one of Heifer’s most important tasks.
Heifer International strongly believes that recognizing the harmful effects of global and national policies on the poor in general and poor women in particular is crucial to ending poverty and hunger. Heifer works with both local and international partners to address the critical issues of gender equity and justice in all spheres and at all levels.
Heifer also realizes that the persistent inequality cannot be eliminated in a short time. Hard work and a realistic strategy are needed to level the playing field—because as long as the playing field is uneven, development efforts will not be effective.
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