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Indicators and gender audits

Juliet HuntIWDA Symposium on Gender Indicators

15 June 2006

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What is a gender audit?

• Assesses accountability to gender mainstreaming policy commitments

• Comprehensive - has a broad agency or program scope of enquiry

• Compares agency performance against external benchmarks

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What type of methods are used?• Participatory self-assessments of agency performance – eg.

Oxfam-Australia, International Labour Organisation

• Comprehensive questionnaires eg. InterAction, CAW (USA)

• Some focus only on staff perceptions of how the agency is implementing its gender equality commitments – some also use semi-structured interviews

• Some follow this up with reviews of program and other agency documentation

• Few investigate results and outcomes in the field with beneficiaries (Oxfam-Australia gender audit is an exception)

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What type of indicators are used in gender audits?Few audits investigate gender equality results• Sarah Longwe’s categorisation of empowerment & gender equality

(used by ACCORD UK and Oxfam-Aust):– Welfare, access, conscientisation, participation, control

• Oxfam-Aust used context-specific questions during community visits in the field gender audit, around these domains:– Changes in gender relations– Decision making and leadership– Access to and control over resources and benefits– Examples of effective strategies used to promote women’s empowerment and

gender equality, and examples of how cultural issues and constraints were addressed

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Most gender audits utilise gender mainstreaming process indicators:

InterAction’s questionnaire has over 60 questions & focuses on how gender equality issues have been addressed in:

• 5 programming dimensions:– Program planning & design– Program implementation– Technical expertise– Monitoring & evaluation– Partner organisations

• 6 organisational dimensions– Gender policy– Staffing– Human resources– Advocacy, marketing and communications– Financial resources– Organisational culture

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Oxfam-Australia’s field gender audit tool had 24 questions focused on how gender equality and women’s empowerment were addressed in programs:

• Project aim/objectives/activities– Eg: Women or gender issues explicitly mentioned in the project aims, objectives or activities

• Target group – targeting of women and women’s organisations

• Gender analysis (8 questions)

• Project monitoring and evaluation

• Approach to gender equality & empowerment– Practical needs, strategic interests– Whether the main objective of the project was to promote gender equality– Decision making and leadership

• Project resources

• Overall assessment of the project’s attention to gender equality and women’s empowerment

• How the project could be strengthened to focus on women’s empowerment and gender equality

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Strengths, limitations and challengesStrengths:• Gender audits have been a useful tool for self-reflection, learning and change

– when agencies have been committed to follow-up, & when the audit process has been embedded in agency strategic planning & performance-improvement processes

• In a context where we have very little hard data on agency performance, gender audits can be used as a baseline against which to measure future performance

Limitations:• Most audits do not focus on gender equality results at program level

Challenge: • How to ensure that the learning from audits is applied to strategic planning,

management, new policy, programs, projects and procedures – it is critical to negotiate a commitment to follow-up in the planning for gender audits

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How does this compare with the use of gender sensitive indicators in donor evaluations?

DAC/OECD review of gender and evaluation:• Reviewed 85 evaluations from 1999-2002 (42 thematic

evaluations focused on gender equality and/or women’s empowerment, and 43 general evaluations)

• Only 14/85 (16%) of these evaluations explicitly reported that they had used gender sensitive indicators

• Only 10/85 (12%) were indicators that assessed gender equality results (rather than gender mainstreaming process indicators)

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Indicators that I have found to be most usefulDomains for investigation, utilising both qualitative & quantitative

methods, and comparing results for both males and females:

• Participation of women and men in program and project activities

• Access to resources – including program/project resources

• Control over resources – including program/project resources

• Direct and practical benefits for males and females

• Changes in gender relations – particularly changes in decision making at household, community or national level