GETNET'S Approach

home | training|working with men | research| materials development | networking & partnerships

Research Programme

In order to ensure that GETNET delivers quality training services, we engage in ongoing research and materials development. These activities are vital to maintaining our position at the cutting edge of debates, stimulating debate among peers and among clients. They enable us to utilise current, indigenous, and internationally recognised gender perspectives on gender equality and women’s empowerment.

The value of this ongoing research is evident in the training reports, the development of the Panel Training Programme (PTP), the Men’s Gender Training Programme, the Gender and Local Government booklet, the development of the GETNET framework as a resource for training programmes and the SADC research report on the implementation of the Beijing Platform of Action and CEDAW in the SADC region.

While our research activities continue to focus on gender theories and training methodologies, workshop and materials design, and research is ongoing in areas such as racism and gender, violence against women, and culture and religion, we are shifting these support activities in a more programmatic direction to a defined Research Programme in line with our strategic priorities.

We have identified new issues that require detailed research in addressing questions of policy implementation, the impact on and outcomes for women of patterns of governance at national and institutional levels, and of how to overcome resistance to gender equality in organisational arrangements. Such institutional learning is crucial both for the timely modification and/or refinement of implementation processes and policies as well as for future policy development.

More specifically, we are giving priority to designing our research programme to play a vital part in upgrading GETNET trainer’s expertise on issues in the following areas:

  • gender equality mainstreaming perspectives and strategies, with a focus on the role of change agents
  • gender and local government, constraints and possibilities for women’s empowerment
  • the integration of HIV/AIDS prevention strategies in gender training masculinities and power in institutions and organisations
  • monitoring and evaluation of national and international instruments for achieving gender equality
The importance of linking HIV/AIDS prevention to our research for training is evident in the edition of the journal Agenda, 44. The socio-economic and socio-cultural influences on sexual behaviours need to be understood, and gender analysis is a critical input here. Gender analysis highlights the gendered socio-cultural norms surrounding sexuality, sexuality identities and practices, the different motivations of men and women for sexual activity and the issue bargaining power and capacities for negotiation in same sex and heterosexual/ male-female relationships, all of which are critical to understanding sexual behaviour patterns and networks and the potential for behaviour change.
Home | Organisational Profile | Getnet's Approach| Publications | What's New | Links