One Year Later: How Endorsers are Implementing the #GenderStandards

Asia Foundation staff in Bangladesh participate in an interactive session during a three-day gender training. The training aims to build staff capacity and organizational culture to advance gender equality in its programs.

More than a year after the Gender Practitioners’ Collaborative launched the minimum standards for mainstreaming gender equality, 29 organizations are now official endorsers. In order to learn more about how endorsing organizations are mainstreaming gender equality and advancing their organizations’ commitment to the minimum standards, we asked them a series of questions. A few selected answers are below.

1. What was the process for creating your organization’s Gender Equality Policy (or equivalent) and how did you build buy-in?

Helen Keller International developed a global policy for gender equality and social inclusion. An internal working group, comprising members from both programs and operations teams across each region (Asia-Pacific, Africa and US), was set up to draft the Policy. Following review and inputs from Directors, it is now pending Board Approval prior to being made official.

2. How does your organization build gender mainstreaming culture and capacity? What does it do at headquarters and the project level?

IREX created a Gender Focal Point (GFP) program in 2017 to diffuse expertise on gender integration throughout all practice areas and business units. Interested staff from HQ and field offices were invited to apply for an 8-month program of training, mentoring and applied learning opportunities. The GFP Program builds a knowledge base of foundational gender concepts that is reinforced with special attention to IREX’s technical areas. At the same time, IREX has continued to offer less formal opportunities to build skills and knowledge through monthly Gender Salons, featuring staff, partners and other external experts on gender-related topics voted upon by staff through a biannual poll.

The Asia Foundation has a Gender Smart Initiative, which works to advance gender equality both institutionally and programmatically. Through the initiative, The Asia Foundation designed an interactive training curriculum for our staff, which includes an introduction to gender, an exploration of the relationship between gender and development, and concrete steps to promote gender equality in the design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of programs. Through small group discussions and hands-on practice in applying a variety of gender analysis tools, the highly participatory training builds staff capacity to understand and respond to gender issues and norms and to take steps to improve project outcomes. To-date, more than 250 staff have participated in the training.

3. What is your organization’s approach to doing gender analyses? How does it use gender analysis to help inform project design and implementation?

International Executive Service Corps (IESC) has made a commitment to conduct a gender analysis for every proposal they submit, regardless of donor requirement. They customized a USAID gender analysis template to help them determine how women, men, boys, and girls are affected differently by project activities and design interventions that will result in positive outcomes for both women and men. The process of conducting a gender analysis at the proposal stage results in gender integration throughout project implementation and a commitment to allocate project resources for both women and men beneficiaries. Since 2017 IESC has conducted a gender analysis for 100% of proposals submitted to USAID.

MEDA conducts gender analysis in three phases of the project lifecycle. The first phase is during the initial scoping of potential projects. They conduct gender aware desk research and interview local constituents, which feeds into our planning and development of interventions. The second phase is a full gender analysis, which is conducted during our inception period. Here, we build off the initial scoping gender analysis by meeting with potential clients to understand their needs and barriers, and meet with local women’s organizations and public and private sector partners to ensure that they are committed to gender equality. From the full gender analysis, we develop our gender strategy for the project, which identifies gender-based constraints of our potential clients and their enabling environment.  The third phase of gender analysis is during any project assessment. We either try to mainstream gender into existing assessments or conduct gender-specific assessments to gauge how the project’s interventions are impacting relations and structures of our clients. From this information, we can pivot and introduce new activities to mitigate the challenges facing our male and female clients in our project.

4. What is your organization’s approach to developing, collecting, analyzing and reporting on gender equality measures or indicators?

Pact tracks indicators that go beyond just sex disaggregation, but that also measure gender equality and social inclusion. Nearly every project includes this type of measure. Having explicit metrics to track our work toward gender equality and social inclusion ensures our work does not lose sight of this goal and that all activities and outputs contribute to this outcome. We also place gender equality and social inclusion learning questions into project learning agendas that guide research and M&E under the program. Nearly all planned studies have a gender equality and social inclusion line of inquiry integrated into research and learning plans. Data from these studies are used to inform our programs so that we are able to adapt and improve our performance.

5. What is your organization’s approach to intersectionality, or to addressing both issues of gender equality AND social inclusion?

Equilo takes a comprehensive view to provide data analysis exploring intersectionality. Through our customized gender analysis framework, we apply a gender lens across population types at micro and meso levels. Our database and algorithms address gender-based violence, male engagement, disability status, age, LGBTQI status, ethnic and religious minorities, HIV status, orphan status, working and migratory status, poverty, and vulnerable populations.

6. What systems of gender equality accountability does your organization have in place?

Palladium has developed a Diversity and Inclusion Strategy to hold ourselves accountable to our diversity commitments and our organizational vision. Our progress on the implementation of the Diversity and Inclusion strategy and associated initiatives is shared with our employees on a quarterly basis and directly to the Board of Directors. Our approach and commitment to diversity and inclusion is driven by our CEO, corporate leadership team, strategic leadership team, and a Community of Practice with over 800 employees.  We hold all our people responsible for helping to create a diverse and inclusive working environment.

Thank you to all the endorsing organizations who contributed to this post! If you have a story to share about how your organization is implementing the #GenderStandards, please reach out to us on Twitter @GenderPC or via email info@genderstandards.org. This blog was compiled by  Elizabeth Romanoff Silva, Elise Young, and Lindsey Jones-Renaud. 

Gender Work Isn’t a Box-ticking Exercise

This article from Palladium was first posted on their website. Palladium is one of the newest endorsers of the #GenderStandards. Check out their work here.

Palladium’s work starts at a single point: understanding how everything is interconnected. In order to create new thinking, new approaches, and new solutions, we have to consider the broader context of any community or system. We encourage our clients and partners to think about key actors, dynamics, linkages, and gaps, including gender. Yet, what we often find is that gender is under resourced, despite being a key component of any ecosystem. Gender is one of those dynamics that affects every individual, in every aspect of life. That’s why Palladium is proud to announce our official endorsement of the Minimum Standards for Mainstreaming Gender Equality.

The Gender Standards are set out by the Gender Practitioner Collaborative, and contain eight standards every endorser strives to meet:

  • Adopt a Gender Equality Policy
  • Develop Organizational Culture and Capacity for Gender Equality
  • Conduct and Utilize Gender Analysis
  • Allocate Budget Resource for Gender Equality
  • Utilize Sex- and Age- Disaggregated Data
  • Develop Gender Equality Indicators
  • Do No Harm
  • Ensure Accountability

Business as Usual
For Palladium, it’s easy to endorse these standards, having long been a champion of health, human rights, and economic empowerment for society’s most marginalised and vulnerable people. Similarly, and as a fundamental part of how we do business, we strive to create an inclusive culture where differences are both recognised and valued wherever we operate in the world and across every part of our work. We bring together individuals from diverse backgrounds and give each individual the opportunity to contribute their skills, experience, and perspectives. Our goal is to not just assess how gender is impacted across our projects, but to also work with our clients and partners to support, understand, and even demand exemplar diversity and inclusion practices.

Gender in Health
Palladium has strong experience implementing programmes that promote gender equality and social inclusion. Within our global Health Policy Plus project we include gender in family planning, sexual reproductive health, and HIV work. For example, we designed and implemented a sensitisation curriculum and trained over 4,000 staff from the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and their implementing partners in 40 countries on gender and sexual diversity. In Pakistan, we cultivated male champions for family planning within the government, civil society, and health professionals in order to reduce barriers and expand access to family planning services and programmes for women and men.

Gender in Agriculture
In Ghana, we’re galvanizing agricultural investment opportunities by connecting  investors with opportunities and linking smallholder farmers to finance. In general, closing these critical gaps in a supply chain creates profits for investors, stable livelihoods for farmers, and reduces food insecurity, but we also look at how gender is impacted. In this particular case, forty percent of the farmers impacted are women. Our work looks at how women support their families and access finance so we can continually customise our interventions.

Gender within Palladium
As an organisation that is committed to making the world a better place, we strive to ensure that the right conditions are in place so that every person is able to achieve their full potential. We continually push ourselves to be leaders in how we approach gender; adapt our work to be as inclusive as possible; and continually look for improvements. For the past three years we have taken our approach to diversity and inclusion within our projects and ambitiously incorporated it across our organisation, reaching the highest levels of leadership. We don’t just include “gender” into a few sentences of proposals, but have our own internal working groups, a Chief Diversity Officer, and a community of practice with over 800 employees. We measure our own recruitment and pay by gender, have created a global Diversity and Inclusion training course for all employees, as well as regularly share ideas, best practices, and examples of successes. In short, at Palladium we are ‘walking the walk’ within our own organisation to incorporate a gender lens because we know it’s good for our employees, it’s good for business, and it’s good for our clients and partners.

The Only Way
Having a gender advisor isn’t enough. Putting a few gender words in our proposals isn’t enough. Ticking boxes on a list isn’t enough. We’re striving to incorporate gender into everything we do, from our senior leadership down into our work within communities, because it’s the only way to fully understand the challenges that our partners, clients, and those we work with need to solve. Endorsing the International Gender Standards is just one more way we’re holding ourselves accountable.

This article was written by Palladium’s Sara Pappa, Elisabeth Rottach, and Ryan Olson. 

EVENT: Creating Accountability for Gender Standards, Nov 15 at InterAction

From Rhetoric to Results: Creating Accountability for Gender Standards

Please join the Gender Practitioners Collaborative and InterAction for an interactive panel and discussion about one of the eight Minimum Standards for Mainstreaming Gender Equality published earlier this year by the Gender Practitioners Collaborative: establishing accountability mechanisms within organizations and programs. Hear from leaders in this field from World Vision, Catholic Relief Services, CARE, Interaction, Mercy Corps, International Refugee Commission, and others about what it takes to ensure accountability for gender mainstreaming, with a focus on gender audits and project-level gender scorecards. The panel and discussion will focus on promising and innovative approaches, lessons learned, and what’s on the horizon in the field.

Featuring Experts:

Yeva Avakyan, Gender and Social Inclusion Lead, World Vision

Kristin Kim Bart, Director of Gender Equality, International Rescue Committee

Michelle Kendall, Senior Technical Advisor, Gender & Integral Human Development, Catholic Relief Services

Hilary Mathews, Director for Strategy and Operations, Gender Justice Team, CARE USA

Elizabeth Romanoff Silva, Senior Program Officer, Women’s Empowerment Program, The Asia Foundation 

Moderator:

Julie Montgomery, Director of Innovation and Learning, Interaction

When:              12:00 – 2:00 PM, Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Where:            InterAction, 1400 16th St NW #210, Washington, DC 20036

Please RSVP by November 6. Light lunch will be provided.

To join remotely, register at https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7823819465337293313

Why CARE Endorses the #Gender Standards

By Hilary Mathews, Senior Technical Advisor for Gender Program Design, CARE

I’ll admit it: when it comes to lofty global goals, my inner skeptic can get a little loud.  Goals and standards simply don’t mean much unless they engender results.  And too often the aspirations voiced in meeting rooms in New York, Nairobi, or Paris – however well-intentioned they may be – fail to yield tangible change for the people who need it most.  I’ve thus found myself a rather cautious supporter of macro-level platforms for change.  Lately, though, my inner skeptic has been a little more subdued, if not altogether silent.  I find myself increasingly confident that the global development community can move beyond feel-good rhetoric to results; believing that we can generate the kind of supportive action that leads to measurable reductions in household violence, increases in women’s land-ownership, and greater female autonomy over reproductive decisions.  So why the change of heart?

Read on…

In mid-July, members of the Gender Practitioner’s Collaborative (GPC) hit the road to New York City to lead a discussion in conjunction with the United Nations High Level Political Forum (HLPF) on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  The goal for gender equality was one of six SDGs put forward during this year’s forum for intensive review and deliberation.  There was a lot of ground to cover, as gender equality is not only a standalone goal but also “a cross-cutting issue, without which the overarching aims of the Agenda cannot be realized.” In other words, good health, food security, and poverty reduction are integrally linked with the ability of all people to have the power and the choices to realize their full potential – especially those who are systematically marginalized on the basis of gender or other identity factors.

Members of the GPC were on hand at the HLPF to share the benefits and challenges of mainstreaming gender equality within the culture and work of INGOs.  The group recently launched the Minimum Standards for Mainstreaming Gender Equality (Gender Standards). If the mandate to address gender inequality is fundamental and far-reaching, then a broad coalition of stakeholders needs to stand in solidarity with women and girls worldwide, not in words but in action.  INGOs like CARE thus shoulder an opportunity and a responsibility to promote gender equality through the work that they do every day with people around the globe.  The GPC’s Gender Standards provides a helpful framework to support NGOs to tackle this obligation.

Long before the SDGs, many of us with humanitarian and development missions have been standing with the communities we serve to address the unequal gender and power relations that hinder social, economic, and political progress.  Yet until the Gender Standards, there has been no common reference point for the development community that defines what it should mean, at a minimum, to promote gender equality across our work.

Elvia Alexandra Sacvin Chacaj (left) and her sister Angelica (right) pose for a picture outside their home in Chuacorral Village in Santa María Chiquimula, Guatemala. Elvia is a Quach’ Umilal participant and Hain Celestial drawing contest winner. The Qach’umilal (Guiding Star) girls education and leadership program benefits 150 indigenous girls and adolescents from families in western Guatemala by supporting their primary school education.

CARE has its own organizational gender standards, which are well aligned with and, in some areas, go beyond the GPC Gender Standards.  One of the ways we hold ourselves accountable to a strong practice of gender integration is by evaluating every project we implement, in every country, with our global Gender Marker. In addition, CARE has recently released its Gender in Practice website that curates global gender statistics and transformative approaches to gender equality.  We are also passionate about our Gender and Diversity training course, which we require of all staff internally and offer to others externally.  Many organizations that endorse the work of the GPC are spearheading strong organizational practices to promote gender mainstreaming.  To name only a few, World Vision has a methodology for conducting regular gender audits based on InterAction’s gender audit handbook; Land O’Lakes requires every proposal to budget for a gender analysis; and Mercy Corps is a leader in gender equitable recruitment.

Some organizations may be at more nascent stages building out their gender practice.  For them, endorsing the Gender Standards is a public expression of their aspirations and an opportunity to learn from peers.  All of us who endorse the Gender Standards know that there is power in solidarity with our fellow organizations, holding up our collective values and aspirations, sharing our successes and setbacks, and most importantly, urging each other onward to accelerate measurable progress on gender equality.  In the coming months, the GPC looks forward to convening a series of public roundtable sessions to share good practices and enduring challenges tied to each of the eight Gender Standards. In this way, we believe that our standards will be much more than a set of aspirations, but a means to catalyze organizational and programmatic change to benefit the people we serve.

Students outside Qay Prepartory School; Beni Suef, Egypt. ©Gina Nemirofsky/10x10act.org

Whether our commitment to gender equality is grounded in a political or moral vision, a drive for technical excellence, or a bottom-line business case, the organizations who endorse the Gender Standards recognize the imperative to raise the bar on all of our work for gender equality.  We also see the value of collective action in this regard.

What are the reasons you support the Gender Standards? Share your reasons on Twitter using #GenderStandards. If we’ve learned one lesson from the recent HLPF review, it’s that gender equality is attainable, but we can’t get there without deeper and broader engagement.  So quiet your inner skeptic… and join us in supporting the changes we want to see in our organizations and in the world…

Because of their involvement in CARE’s “Journeys of Transformation” project, Ntibimenya Hassan and Mukakimonyo Hassina now have much more love in their marriage.