Greater Access to Trade Expansion (GATE):  Working in seven countries over a three year period, this $6.1 million project conducts demand-driven and technical policy research and technical assistance on men and women’s differential access to the benefits of trade with the aim of supporting gender-aware programming for economic growth initiatives across sectors.  dTS offers a menu of sectoral gender analyses that identify opportunities for ensuring greater equality in access to the benefits available from trade, raising productivity, stimulating labor demand, and improving the terms and conditions of employment for poor men and women. At the same time, dTS explores opportunities to improve the terms and conditions of employment and exchange in the formal and informal economy and the potential to formalize these activities through trade expansion.

Afghanistan: Economic Governance:  dTS is engaged as a subcontractor to support USAID and the Government of Afghanistan in establishing conditions that enable a thriving private sector economy.  dTS is supporting institutional capacity building and organizational development for the economic cabinet entities. Crosscutting issues such as gender and ethnicity are also being explored such that equity options and related constraints can be anticipated. Examples of dTS’ work include:

HR Capacity Building:  Assisting the MOF in developing the necessary internal capacity to identify and respond to training needs on an on-going basis. 

Organizational Strategy and Development: To facilitate the oversight of the ANDS process, dTS provided an organization analysis, identified business processes and functions and clarified donor support for the office of the Senior Economic Advisor to the President.

Organization Development and Operational Plan for IPDA: Developed an operational plan for the newly created  Industrial Park Development Agency (IPDA) and recommended a public-private partnership (PPP) model.

Customs Strategic Planning: As part of the Customs Strategic Planning Team, undertook a strategic planning exercise with broad stakeholder participation and buy-in to update and develop a new Customs 5-Years Strategic Plan covering period 2007 – 2011 to guide the customs reforms process.

Afghan Telecom Restructuring: Assessing the organizational structure of Afghan Telecom, and recommending ways to improve its structure and operations in its transition to a fully commercial enterprise. 

Asia Near East Women Economic Empowerment Documentary and Workshop:  USAID invited dTS to develop, film, direct and produce a documentary to highlight current USAID initiatives that offer women employment opportunities as it relates to income generation, self-employment and entrepreneurship. Emphasis was placed on identifying and showcasing best practices and lessons learned in high threat and post conflict areas.  The documentary, covering Afghanistan, Philippines (Mindanao), and Lebanon, includes successes and barriers to women’s entrepreneurship and skills training.  The documentary publicizes USAID programs that offer women economic opportunities that provide support for export of high value products, microfinance initiatives, and programs that promote functional literacy.  The documentary was launched on March 8th, International Women’s Day, in Washington, DC. 

As a follow-on activity to the documentary, dTS produced guidelines for USAID on promoting women’s entrepreneurship in high threat environments.  The guidelines provided a typology of objectives and potential interventions for women’s entrepreneurship across a range of threat scenarios and levels of women’s empowerment in the ANE region.

Jordan Sustainable Achievement of Business Expansion and Quality (SABEQ): SABEQ is working with both the public and private sectors to achieve two principle goals: 1) increase the number of jobs available to Jordanians, and 2) enhance the competitiveness of Jordanian firms (ranging from micro through small, medium and large). 

As a subcontractor to BearingPoint, dTS maintains a leadership role in the crosscutting gender component. In particular, dTS is responsible for developing and implementing gender mainstreaming activities across all project components as well as stand alone gender projects.   The overall goal for the gender component for SABEQ is to increase women’s entry into the economy as both business owners and laborer force entrants.  To achieve this dTS has conducted a gender assessment to reveal opportunities for gender integration and advancement and provided training to project staff on integrating gender into their components to maximize impact. 

Afghanistan Small and Medium Enterprise Development (ASMED):  The purpose of the ASMED project is to build a more vibrant private sector.  It is anticipated that increased opportunities for small and medium businesses under ASMED shall also generate employment at the local level and help integrate women and former combatants into the formal sector.  dTS has been subcontracted to find creative ways to incorporate gender concerns into ASMED activities by providing gender, economic growth, and business development expertise.  To date dTS has participated as part of the ASMED core team in the project’s work planning activities in Kabul to develop a logical structure and grouping of project activities to include gender impact and impact on vulnerable groups.

Bosnia Enabling Labor Mobility (ELMO):

ELMO aims to eliminate obstacles to economic growth of SMEs by the legal environment and labor market practices in Bosnia, and to fill crucial requirements for the transition to a fully functioning market-oriented labor market. dTS conducted a gender assessment to identify gender issues relevant to the project, and proposed an initial strategy integrating gender into the project.  dTS guided the project to focus on women organizations as a constituent base to test the business registrations protocols and advocate for needed reforms.

Select Natural Resource Management and Infrastructure Experience

Gender and Water Resource Management (WRM):  The World Bank contracted dTS to produce a comprehensive report as the first effort to mainstream gender into its WRM portfolio.  dTS undertook a review of WRM projects across regions and sectors to identify opportunities for mainstreaming gender as a means to improve project effectiveness.  dTS identified recommendations to mainstream gender, knowledge products and initiatives to support gender mainstreaming in the water resources sector. 

Armenia: Program to Strengthen Energy Reform and Enhance Energy Security:  This USAID-funded project provides assistance to Armenia in consolidating energy sector reform to improve efficiency.  dTS identified social, economic, political, and cultural constraints to women’s access to appropriate energy technology and efficient management of resources.  The gender strategy included recommendations on appropriate and efficient technologies, institutional capacity building, and the impact of electricity tariffs. 

Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia Transboundary WRM : The goal of this USAID-funded project is to increase regional cooperation in the management of shared water resources that is effective and sustainable.  dTS leads the efforts to identify and respond to women and men’s specific needs for access to water resources. dTS conducted focus groups with NGOs and media organizations in all three countries, and  formulated and distributed a survey to civil society stakeholders to determine transboundary WRM issues, as well as to identify training and outreach needs and capacity. dTS is engaged in providing training and capacity building efforts with women’s NGOs to boost advocacy, leadership and conflict mitigation.

India Water Energy Nexus Activity II (WENEXA II):  WENEXA seeks to improve co-management of energy and water through enhanced power distribution and end-use efficiency, coupled with sound water management practices.  dTS conducted an assessment to ascertain men and women’s different roles surrounding irrigation and decision-making.  Information yielded recommendations on how best to build on existing community institutions and provide alternative livelihood strategies.

India Distribution, Reforms, Upgrades, and Management (DRUM):  dTS supported commercially viable electricity distribution systems that provide reliable power to consumers.  dTS incorporated issues raised by the different ways in which men and women use energy.  An initial gender assessment revealed that women rely heavily on electricity services for domestic water supply.  In addition, women have a constructive role to play in operating the “last mile” of electricity infrastructure and in maintaining collection and billing systems.

Select Democracy and Governance Experience

Mali:  Women in Governance (WING):  The objective of this USAID-funded project was to increase women’s participation in communal governance by reducing gender-based barriers and building on women’s contributions.  dTS, in cooperation with its partners, including leading NGOs across four regions in the country, conducted capacity building and training related to women and their institutions in local governance and leadership.  Some 13,317 people (about 85 percent of them women) were trained.  Forty-two female candidates, who underwent WING training, were elected to the communal council in the May 2004 elections which constituted a 91 percent increase in elected women in these communes.

Guatemala, Albania, Southern Africa: Women’s Legal Rights Initiative:  dTS served as a subcontractor on this project which supports USAID missions worldwide to advance the legal, civil, property, and human rights of women.  dTS developed a “Best Practices Report” covering the first year’s activities related to the status of women’s legal rights in Guatemala, Albania, and Southern Africa.

Peru: Women’s Empowerment: dTS provided training to Peruvian women who had been elected to municipal office and women leaders of NGOs in leadership skills to enable them to increase their political participation at all levels of society as Peru.

Jordan: Civil Society Assessment:

With the goal of conducting a civil society and sub-sector gender assessment across Jordan, dTS performed interviews, site visits, focus groups, and workshops with more than 50 organizations, including professional associations, trade unions, government ministries, and the private sector.   The scope of the project was to assess progress of women’s participation in economic, social, human rights and democracy in Jordan.  dTS made recommendations which addressed both the enabling environment and empowerment opportunities and obstacles as well as suggested that the capacity building needs for civil society organizations be explored.

Iraq: Constitutional and Gender Seminar for Iraqi Women:  dTS was invited by the National Democracy Institute (NDI) to present at a seminar for high-level Iraqi women on strategies to influence the drafting of Iraq’s constitution, particularly on issues concerning the status of women and their rights.  

Gender Violence, School and HIV Infection in USAID Assisted Countries: dTS conducted a large-scale secondary research effort to identify, annotate and synthesize research studies and projects related to school-based gender violence. The review first studied evidence of the prevalence of school-based gender violence in developing countries, and then discussed the consequences of gender-based violence for the health and educational outcomes for students.  The report also summarized programmatic and policy interventions underway to address gender violence and concluded with recommendations.