Using CLA to Promote Transparency with Gender Equality and Non-Discrimination

The USAID El Salvador Government Integrity Project (GIP), promotes the application of the Institutional Integrity Model (IIM) to create organizational cultures based on workers’ ethical performance as well as ethical institutional procedures especially designed to foster equality and transparency and reduce corruption. The IIM helps institutions become self-reliant and able to support El Salvador’s achievement of its development goals independent of external aid. Employing the IIM and committed to building the capacities of its counterpart institutions, the GIP set out to strengthen the Government Ethics Tribunal (GET) and Access to Public Information Institute (APII) through their adoption of an equality and non-discrimination policy and action plan. In El Salvador, the 2011 Law of Equality, Equity and Eradication of Discrimination Against Women makes it mandatory for all state institutions to take actions toward the achievement of equality between women and men and non-discrimination. The GIP decided to partner with USAID/El Salvador Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Initiative (MELI) to strengthen these institutions because one of the objectives of MELI is to develop Collaboration, Learning, and Adapting (CLA) processes among implementing partners (IPs) and USAID and because MELI has gender expertise and previously developed a Gender CLA among 20 IPs.Together, the GIP and MELI decided that the CLA approach was the best means for GIP to build strategic self-reliance through strategic collaboration with these two key institutional partners and to foster collaboration between these key institutions for developing government transparency and accountability in El Salvador. The Institute for the Development of Women (ISDEMU) also participated in the process to ensure that the policies developed fulfilled the mandate of the law. The GIP and MELI implemented a work plan which included 16 CLA Sessions over 8 months involving work teams of multi-level staff and resulting in equality and non-discrimination policies in both institutions as well as Gender Units that seek the establishment of cultures of equality