Gender and Social Inclusion. Unless MCC and the Government agree otherwise in writing, the Government shall ensure that all Projects and Activities undertaken, funded, or otherwise supported in whole or in part (directly or indirectly) by MCC Funding comply with the Gender Policy, Counter-Trafficking in Persons Policy, and the Operational Requirements and Milestones for Social Inclusion and Gender Integration.
Gender and Social Inclusion. The Parties will agree in writing to the applicable gender and social inclusion measures for each activity of the ACFD Project as activities are identified.
Gender and Social Inclusion. To address women’s mobility barriers, the CTR Project includes a three-pronged Improved Women’s Mobility Sub-activity, described above. The ESIA conducted by ANE indicates that the construction of the Licungo Bridge has the potential to improve income generation opportunities for women and youth, initially through the Project’s construction jobs and afterward, through enhanced access to the sale of agricultural and livestock products. The CTR Project may present social and gender-related risks to women, children, and communities near project sites, mainly in terms of sexual harassment, gender-based violence, and trafficking in persons (particularly sex trafficking). Construction works may involve a large influx of male workers who may engage in harmful behaviors, especially toward women and children. The initial trafficking in persons assessment identified that forced labor is a risk in the CTR Project and highlighted the risks that improving roads can support existing trafficking corridors and tendencies. Road safety is also of significant concern in Mozambique and will need to be further assessed in the proposed roads, both for motorized and non-motorized road users. The Licungo Bridge ESIA conducted by ANE also identifies the increase in gender-based violence by affluent workers in the region and increased prostitution, early marriages, and unplanned pregnancies. Therefore, the CTR Project will mitigate these risks through a holistic approach, including awareness raising among communities and with construction workers/employees, setting up effective reporting and response mechanisms, conducting strong oversight during implementation, and working with relevant government and non-governmental institutions. The Project will also explore the use of digital platforms to monitor compliance and report safety incidents. Finally, the CTR Project also includes efforts to improve women’s and youth’s employment through the road construction, rehabilitation, and maintenance interventions. These efforts will consist of resources for skills training, job orientation, mentorship, and support in establishing associations to compete for maintenance contracts.
Gender and Social Inclusion. Through the ZCAP Activity, the PRIA Project will seek to address the needs and opportunities of both women and youth. It will have as targets that: 40 percent of the smallholder farmer beneficiaries will be women and 30 percent of the smallholder farmer beneficiaries will be youth. The ZCAP Activity will support this effort by implementing the Gender Action Learning System through the Sub-activity discussed above. To accomplish this, the ZCAP Activity’s technical assistance to aggregators and smallholder farmers will provide support with inclusive business plans for aggregators, results-based financing, extension services and provision of inputs (such as seeds and fertilizer) to smallholder farmers, implementation of the Gender Action Learning System, and gender-based violence risk mitigation. The Gender Action Learning System has been successfully implemented with Mozambique’s farmers in past projects. Based on this earlier success, the PRIA Project expects to improve women’s participation in managing household income, production, and assets, as well as reduce gender-based violence, raise awareness of gender inequality and improve the allocation of chores within the household. Without this effort, the ZCAP Activity would continue replicating the gender disparities in Mozambique’s agricultural sector. Moving forward, the ZCAP Activity will explore the use of digital platforms to enhance the impact of interventions, especially on women smallholder farmers and youth (for example, to improve access to extension services and coordination with aggregators). The initial trafficking in persons assessment identified trafficking in persons risks related to family farming, therefore, the PRIA Project will seek to further assess this risk and address it appropriately, focusing more on the risks of forced child labor.
Gender and Social Inclusion. The CLCR Project presents exciting opportunities to support women and youth in the fisheries sector, both from an income generation focus and from participation in decision-making in the fisheries sector. Selected partners will integrate methodologies to support women’s empowerment and decision-making at the household and community level. The Project will support institutional strengthening of the Ministry of Fisheries from a gender and social inclusion perspective. The CLCR Project will benefit from gender and social inclusion analyses to understand better how gender, age, socioeconomic status, and other social norms create barriers and influence opportunities for women, youth, or other marginalized social groups. These analyses will also guide the Project’s efforts to support fisheries with an inclusive and gender- responsive approach, promoting women’s economic empowerment and participation in the fisheries management committees. The analyses will also assess and propose mitigation measures for potential risks to women and vulnerable groups, including issues related to land ownership. The analyses will be designed to include, learn from, and influence diverse members of communities, provincial and district government, the private sector, and staff of the implementing agencies. These analyses will also explore gender and social risks, including the risk of sexual exploitation and other forms of gender-based violence that women face in the fisheries sector. The CLCR Project will shape ongoing attention to gender and inclusion through follow-up studies, public communications, support to Mozambique, and intensive work with communities. The CLCR Project will also build upon the initial trafficking in persons assessment to identify trafficking risks. Of particular concern are the young boys impacted by the planned beach seine removal program, which may put these boys at risk of traffickers or further exploitation.
Gender and Social Inclusion. Having a sound policy and institutional framework as well as an enabling environment for improved performance for the electricity sector has direct implications for social inclusion, and gender and social inclusion considerations have been incorporated into numerous components of the Reform Project. • As described in Section B.3(a)(i)(B) to this Annex I, the Reform Project supports the Ministry of Energy’s integration of gender through the development and initial operationalization of a gender mainstreaming plan, to account for the different energy needs for men and women. • Through the Utility Strengthening Activity, proposed components to improve KPIs for connections performance and improve the MV network have direct implications for poor and vulnerable populations in Senelec territory. • The Regulatory Strengthening Activity implicates gender and social inclusion issues as follows: o By supporting the Government’s efforts to update the regulatory, policy, and institutional arrangements in the sector, the Reform Project aims to facilitate additional investment in rural electrification and ensure that CRSE has the capacity to monitor contract compliance (and take appropriate action when a licensee is noncompliant), thereby contributing to the reduction of geographical discrepancies of access and quality, which excludes poorer and rural populations from the electrification process. o To combat electricity illiteracy and lack of consumer awareness and protections, the Reform Project also supports CRSE to engage more effectively with consumer stakeholders and others through technical assistance to develop appropriate communications strategies and plans. o While the Program is designed to lower the cost of service in the long-run, the Parties recognize that there may be a short-term increase in the tariff, with an associated risk of adverse social impact. To mitigate this risk, the Reform Project includes a specific communication plan to accompany any change in the tariff (either in tariff value or in structure), and a social inclusion approach shall be integrated into the cost of service study planned under the Reform Project.
Gender and Social Inclusion. The HSS Project integrates gender and social inclusion across its activities. There is particular attention to providing local health services, including VHWs and health outposts that reach the most remote villages, and empowering health clinic managers, nurses, and VHWs to better collect and use data for health services and decision making at the local level. Coordination and supportive supervision of VHWs is aimed at improving health care access for remote and underserved populations, and then better connecting these patients to higher levels of the health care system where they will benefit from improved health center services, referrals, patient data tracking, and district hospital services. The Project integrates and highlights GBV response throughout the project design through its focus on providing better and expanded services for GBV survivors at PHC locations, addressing pre-service training of health staff, ensuring protocols for GBV are standardized in all health facilities, applying international best practices on tracking GBV in the health data system, and ensuring confidentiality, coordinating referrals both within the MOH as well as to and from other relevant government institutions and nongovernmental service providers, and promoting awareness in communities of GBV-related health services. The Counter Domestic Violence Law provides the legal framework for implementation of all the GBV treatment, referral work and reporting that is integrated throughout the HSS Project design. The HSS Project does not involve large works, but nonetheless poses a risk for women working with foreign and Basotho contractors of being coerced into sexual relationships in exchange for maintaining employment and achieving better working conditions. Also, given the anticipated increase in internet access and usage as a result of e-government services and data use in the HSS Project, there is an increased risk of social media being used to find and lure victims into forced labor and sex trafficking. The Government will conduct a stand-alone, project-level trafficking-in-persons (TIP) risk assessment for the Project.
Gender and Social Inclusion. The MDIH Project offers significant potential to support employment of women and youth, particularly in the Irrigation Infrastructure Development Activity. The Activity offers short-term income earning opportunities and the chance to develop skills and work experience that participants can use in future employment, as well as in works maintenance. To facilitate these results, project engineering and construction firms will develop a plan for recruitment and retention of women and youth in construction and monitor results. With respect to safeguards in the Irrigation Infrastructure Development Activity, MCC and the Government will focus on considerations in building infrastructure and carrying out resettlement in communities where gender norms are deeply entrenched, and many smallholders and community residents are poor and historically disempowered. Engineering and construction contracts will employ gender and social expertise to support development of protocols and ensure quality implementation and monitoring. The quality and gender-responsiveness of the HIV and AIDS plan will be particularly robust in the context of a country with a 23 percent prevalence rate, despite significant recent successes in epidemic control. Particular attention will be on the quality of the TIP risk assessment and TIP risk management plan, in the context of the country’s recent move from the State Department’s Tier III list to the Tier II watch list. Child labor is also reported in construction work, and women employed on construction sites have been harassed by their Basotho and South African employers, which can increase vulnerability to sex trafficking. Given the high risk of TIP in Lesotho overall and the specific project risk for the irrigation infrastructure construction and increased horticultural labor, MCC and the Government will conduct a stand-alone project-level TIP risk assessment to augment the ESIA.
Gender and Social Inclusion. The BETA Project was developed with input from several private sector and NGO partnerships to ensure the inclusion of women, youth, and rural communities. The design of the Project achieves this inclusion by directly targeting women- and youth-owned MSMEs, and businesses in and serving remote rural economies in each Activity. Each Activity is categorized as either gender accommodating, gender empowering or gender transformative. Additionally, the BETA Project’s learning agenda will seek to better understand which interventions are most effective with respect to women and youth-owned firm creation and growth as well as successfully addressing issues related to access to finance. GSI safeguards will be employed to reduce risks, including countering TIP.
Gender and Social Inclusion. District capacity-building efforts open the opportunity to advance stronger gender and social inclusion capabilities and more gender equity in the sector. In supporting improved technical staffing of District Councils, the AGC Project will include training or staffing plans which build technical abilities around the management of environmental and social risks and to increase greater gender equity in both planning and procurement. In contract works, the AGC Project will incorporate a number of measures to increase women’s opportunities to benefit from the project, including via contract targets. If MCC supports efforts to equip local industry players to bid or subcontract on Compact funded works, this should also include explicit gender-equity components. The trafficking in persons risks of the AGC Project are high. This is based on a) Malawi’s placement on Tier 2 in the State Department’s 2021 Trafficking in Persons Report; b) the World Bank’s 2018 report of pervasive sexual abuse and exploitation on Malawian roads construction projects; c) and MCC’s own prior experiences with trafficking in persons incidents. The most likely risk of this project is sex trafficking. The AGC Project includes substantial mitigation measures drawn from emerging best practices. These include a sensitization campaign along the Corridors and project-level risk assessments to be conducted in ESIAs.
