SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTION

• What tools and processes are gender mechanisms empowered and supported to employ?
• How effective are the processes and tools available to gender mainstreaming mechanisms?

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

A range of tools have been developed specifically for the use of parliamentary members and staff to guide gender mainstreaming efforts. Gender analysis allows a better understanding of the perspectives, interests and needs of women and men, girls and boys in order to make public policy more responsive and effective. It looks at relationships, access to opportunities, and access to and control over resources. It includes the preparation of research reports, the analysis of public policy and laws, and the scrutiny of government performance, in order to better understand the gender impact of policies, programmes, laws and initiatives.

Gender impact assessments also look at the impact of legislation and policy on women and men, girls and boys. Ex ante assessments use a systematic checklist to assess the potential impact of legislation. Ex post assessments analyse the actual impact of policy, legislation, programmes and projects to determine whether objectives were met, whether gender equality was achieved, and how gaps or discriminatory outcomes can be addressed through amendments.

Both tools work best when based on in-depth consultations with a range of stakeholders of both sexes and from a range of socio-economic backgrounds, ages and ethnicities. In addition, they require access to sex-disaggregated data, accessed either through the parliament’s own research bodies or appropriate government bodies, such as national statistical bodies

Gender budgeting tools have been developed to aid parliamentarians in analysing the budget from a gender perspective. These include gender policy appraisals (a type of gender analysis of the budget); gender-disaggregated beneficiary assessments (to collect the views and needs of women and men, girls and boys); gender-disaggregated public expenditure analysis; gender- disaggregated tax analysis (to determine the differential impact of tax systems on women and men); gender-disaggregated analysis of the impact of the budget on time-use; gender-aware medium-term economic policy framework; and gender-aware budget statements. The use of such tools can provide sex-disaggregated data to inform gender-sensitive and responsive policy making.

ACTIONS TO CONSIDER

• Properly resourcing secretariat or administrative gender bodies to support the use of gender mainstreaming tools;
• Building in-house gender research capacities, including in gender analysis and analysis of sex-disaggregated data;
• Mandating the use of gender mainstreaming tools in core parliamentary processes, such as gender analysis and/or gender impact assessments;
• Introducing and undertaking gender budgeting initiatives;
• Building the capacity of MPs and staff to apply core gender mainstreaming tools;
• Developing channels to promote representative consultation of stakeholders and beneficiaries of proposed policies, programs or laws;
• Ensuring the feedback loop between the consultation and the policymaking process.

PITFALLS TO AVOID

• Insufficient investment in strengthening capacity of all MPs and staff, including leadership, on the use and application of core gender tools;
• Limiting consultation efforts to the ‘usual suspects’ in policy review and development;
• Limited integration of sex-disaggregation in data collection processes;
• Insufficient allocation of resources to build capacity of bodies undertaking gender analysis and other gender mainstreaming tools;
• Setting expectations too high in terms of gender budgeting outcomes;
• Ignoring the findings of gender mainstreaming tools, including gender budget statements.