CTCN Gender Mainstreaming Tool for Response Plan Development

The following is to be viewed as an initial gender mainstreaming guideline during the development of response plans and applies to design, implementation and monitoring of technical assistance. Gender mainstreaming is the process of assessing the implications for women and men of the technical assistance when planning the activities, deliverables, outputs and intended impacts for the response plan, and throughout the whole process. It is a strategy for making women’s and men’s concerns and experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the technical assistance so that both women and men benefit and inequality is not perpetuated. Gender mainstreaming is not a goal in itself but an approach for promoting gender equality. Mainstreaming a gender perspective was globally established as a strategy for promoting gender equality through the adoption of the Platform for Action at the UN Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995.

The tool follows a 3-step approach:

1. Perform gender analysis

A gender analysis highlights the differences between and among women, men, girls and boys in terms of their relative distribution of resources, opportunities, constraints and power in a given context. A gender analysis, in itself, serves as a baseline for an intervention, but is also a point of departure for the choice of the strategy to apply.

• Consult Country Gender Profiles: These can be found at e.g. African Development Bank group, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) etc.
• Following are examples of key elements and variables to be considered in the analysis depending on the context of the technical assistance:
  • Gender roles and responsibilities
  • Productive and reproductive work
  • Access to and control over resources (e.g. land, property, education, health, communication etc.)
  • Practical and strategic needs of women
  • Roles and power within decision-making
  • Participation/consultation and representation
  • Division of labour, formal and informal (e.g. within the household, community, workplace
  • Rights- formal legislation as well as realisation of rights
  • Values and norms that affect the behaviour and opportunities within the sector.
• Combine qualitative and quantitative data: Disaggregated statistics are a must in gender analysis. A gender analysis should include a combination of statistics, descriptions, facts and analysis.
• To think about:
  • Do no harm: consider ways, if any, the technical assistance might inadvertently result in a negative impact on women. This could for example be by promoting a technology that might be sustainable from a resource use perspective but which might increase the household burden on women, or which women cannot access due to physical, social or cultural barriers.
  • Local women’s organisations may possess crucial information on gender relations, cultural values and social norms which could be useful. 

2. Develop action plan

Use the gender analysis in step 1 as basis for developing the action plan and identifying expected results

• Focus on the country or sector’s long-term goals even though the technical assistance may be focused and more short-term.
• Adopt any of the following strategies:
  • Gender integration: apply a gender perspective throughout the technical assistance with clearly formulated gender equality goals, with activities and resources linked to it. The activities should have the aim of impacting the results of the technical assistance.
  • Targeted gender activities: by targeting certain women’s issues and groups this approach can contribute to a more long-term goal of gender equality. An example of targeted gender activities is capacity building for women to participate in decision-making for climate technology. Another is training women to install solar PV’s and earn an income.
  • Furthermore, develop a plan for achieving gender parity in workshops and panels. Strive towards an equal representation of men and women as participants as well as speakers at workshops, trainings, panels and other capacity building activities.

3. Monitor and evaluate

• Define expected gender outcomes/impact
• Include appropriate gender indicators in the monitoring and evaluation process of the Response Plan. Below are some examples:

• Gender mainstreaming tool in English
• Gender mainstreaming tool in Spanish
• Gender mainstreaming tool in French

Further reading 

Leveraging co-benefits between gender equality and climate action for sustainable development (UN Women)

The Pacific gender and climate change toolkit