Gender sensitive programming is, generally, a mandatory requirement of most international development activities, including peacebuilding. For example, USAID’s office of Conflict Management and Mitigation requires all projects demonstrate a unique gender element. More than a donor-mandated exercise in project equity, the increasing emphasis on gender is forcing peacebuilders to critically reflect on how our projects interact with local actors and context on a micro-level, and is challenging our assumptions on what it means to ‘do good peace work’.
But what does it mean to build gender into the design, monitoring and evaluation of peacebuilding projects?
Gender can easily be incorporated into the initial assessments and analyses of project design, such as the context and conflict assessments. A common donor suggestion is to examine the distinct ways in which the conflict and environment affects men and women differently.
Hot Tip!The International Labour Organization defines gender analysis asa systematic approach to examining factors related to gender. It involves a deliberate effort to identify and understand the different roles, relationships, situations, resources, benefits, constraints, needs and interests of men and women in a given socio-cultural context.1
Practically speaking, this could mean do women participate to the same extent as men in local decision making processes? Are women appropriately represented in the ongoing peace process? In what ways, if any, has the conflict increased or decreased the security of men and women?
Hot Tip!The focus of the project or program will guide you towards the right gender analysis questions.
Or, at a more basic level, how has the relationship between the sexes changed as a result of the conflict? “Has the scope of action of women and of men—in the home, community, region, at the national level—diminished or increased?”2
There are a range of tools available for such an exercise. You might adapt a traditional analytical model to specifically examine gender and there are also tools developed specific to gender analysis.
Answering these questions will help you better understand how your project might affect men and women in different and distinct ways, and allows you to plan for greater gender equity in the project cycle.
Gender sensitive indicators track gender-related changes in society over time. “Their usefulness lies in their ability to point to changes in the status and roles of women and men over time, and therefore to measure whether gender equity is being achieved.”3 It is important, as in any other project, that your indicators be multi-dimensional and focused on the clearly developed objectives and goal.
Hot Tip!Indicators may not tell you everything, particularly if you have not developed arobust systemof indicators that utilize both qualitative and quantitative measures and at the strategic levels of society in the project seeks to affect.
The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) was kind enough to develop a wholeguide to gender sensitive indicators, and many of these can be adapted to your peacebuilding projects if not immediately relevant.
But, of course, we cannot forget good principles of indicator design. First and foremost, indicators must pass tests of reliability, feasibility and utility in decision making. And second, the indicators must be measurable!
The role of gender in evaluation is a more difficult category to address. Not every project will explicitly seek to address gender or women’s dynamics—simply disaggregating certain data sets by gender is gender sensitivity, but does not necessarily mean that the project sought to address the unique ways in which women experience conflict (or whatever the ‘problem’ at hand is) differently.
If your project is specifically seeking to address the unique ways in which women experience a situation differently from men, then obviously the evaluation will examine the extent to which you were successful against the stated goal and objectives.
Posted On: 05/09/2012 at 8:00 PM
Gender sensitive programming is, generally, a mandatory requirement of most international development activities, including peacebuilding. For example, USAID’s office of Conflict Management and Mitigation requires all projects demonstrate a unique gender element. More than a donor-mandated exercise in project equity, the increasing emphasis on gender is forcing peacebuilders to critically reflect on how our projects interact with local actors and context on a micro-level, and is challenging our assumptions on what it means to ‘do good peace work’.
But what does it mean to build gender into the design, monitoring and evaluation of peacebuilding projects?
Hot Resource! Gender Mainstreaming Strategies in Decent Work Promotion: Programming Tools: GEMS Toolkit by the International Labour Organization
Design
Gender can easily be incorporated into the initial assessments and analyses of project design, such as the context and conflict assessments. A common donor suggestion is to examine the distinct ways in which the conflict and environment affects men and women differently.
Hot Tip! The International Labour Organization defines gender analysis as a systematic approach to examining factors related to gender. It involves a deliberate effort to identify and understand the different roles, relationships, situations, resources, benefits, constraints, needs and interests of men and women in a given socio-cultural context.1
Hot Resource! Gender Analysis Tools by the Canadian International Development Agency
Practically speaking, this could mean do women participate to the same extent as men in local decision making processes? Are women appropriately represented in the ongoing peace process? In what ways, if any, has the conflict increased or decreased the security of men and women?
Hot Tip! The focus of the project or program will guide you towards the right gender analysis questions.
Or, at a more basic level, how has the relationship between the sexes changed as a result of the conflict? “Has the scope of action of women and of men—in the home, community, region, at the national level—diminished or increased?”2
There are a range of tools available for such an exercise. You might adapt a traditional analytical model to specifically examine gender and there are also tools developed specific to gender analysis.
Answering these questions will help you better understand how your project might affect men and women in different and distinct ways, and allows you to plan for greater gender equity in the project cycle.
Gender Indicators in Peacebuilding
Hot Resource! Guide to Gender Sensitive Indicators by the Canadian International Development Agency
Gender sensitive indicators track gender-related changes in society over time. “Their usefulness lies in their ability to point to changes in the status and roles of women and men over time, and therefore to measure whether gender equity is being achieved.”3 It is important, as in any other project, that your indicators be multi-dimensional and focused on the clearly developed objectives and goal.
Hot Tip! Indicators may not tell you everything, particularly if you have not developed a robust system of indicators that utilize both qualitative and quantitative measures and at the strategic levels of society in the project seeks to affect.
The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) was kind enough to develop a wholeguide to gender sensitive indicators, and many of these can be adapted to your peacebuilding projects if not immediately relevant.
Hot Resource! Check out Presentation 4 in this American Evaluation Association Conference 2010 presentation by CARE on indicators for women’s empowerment disaggregated by type of human agency.
But, of course, we cannot forget good principles of indicator design. First and foremost, indicators must pass tests of reliability, feasibility and utility in decision making. And second, the indicators must be measurable!
Hot Resource! Designing for Results: Integrating Monitoring & Evaluation in Conflict Transformation Activities, Chapter 4, by Cheyanne Church and Mark Rogers
Gender in Evaluation
The role of gender in evaluation is a more difficult category to address. Not every project will explicitly seek to address gender or women’s dynamics—simply disaggregating certain data sets by gender is gender sensitivity, but does not necessarily mean that the project sought to address the unique ways in which women experience conflict (or whatever the ‘problem’ at hand is) differently.
If your project is specifically seeking to address the unique ways in which women experience a situation differently from men, then obviously the evaluation will examine the extent to which you were successful against the stated goal and objectives.