Good Practices Framework - Detail

Phase 3: Strategic Gender Issues

The final phase to sharpen analysis works on prioritizing and acting upon strategic gender issues identified from this analysis. This involves:

  • Prioritizing Strategic Gender Issues: Looking across each area of analysis, teams – along with partners and key stakeholders – should then prioritize key gendered barriers and strengths critical for women and men to realize empowerment.
  • Developing strategies to address barriers and constraints, include these strategies in program/ project design and implementation, and ensure that they are adequately resourced.
  • Identifying ways to monitor gender-related results or impacts: Develop and incorporate methods to track changes in gender norms/relations and track key indicators related to important gender issues.
  • Identifying capacity building needsof CARE and partner staff and develop/implement a plan to address these needs.
  • Incorporating gender considerations across the programmatic cycle: Into the program analysis, design, monitoring, assessment and learning, as well as project objectives, outcomes, activities, work plans, monitoring and reporting formats, review and evaluation guidelines and consultants TORs.
  • Engaging advocacy for broader changeto empower women, address strategic gender interests and transform gender relations.

 

Parameters

Shaping the scope and methods of any study are a number of key parameters:

  • Projects versus Programs: Is the study intended to fit with long-term programming or specific to a project/initiative? For analysis to inform a program, studies should be more detailed and comprehensive as a basis for long-term designs. Those focused specifically on a project initiative may have a narrower focus, and hone in more deeply in specific sector-related exercises.
  • Resources for analysis: The depth and breadth to which a study can focus will also be influenced by a number of other factors, including: time available, project/program budget, as well as human resources available. Analysis may want to partner with research institutions or universities for joint learning and analysis.
  • Timing of analysis: In some instances, gender analysis will be conducted after the design phase due to time constraints or other factors. Ideally though, analysis will inform the design process.
  • Emergency response: It may not be feasible to touch on all aspects of the framework in analyzing gender. In these situations, please reference the Rapid Gender Analysis Tool for a checklist of questions related to gender in humanitarian contexts.

 

Preparation

Careful preparation is absolutely essential to ensure that CARE works ethically and in line with its principles throughout this work. In designing analysis, careful consideration must be given to risk analysis and ethical considerations:
  • What may be potential risks to participants or community members linked to this study and how to ensure that we Do No Harm?
  • How can we ensure that the analysis process ensures accountability, and promotes empowerment and learning?
  • How can we ensure that we work sensitively and respectfully within communities?
  • Gender equity and diversity sensitivity: Build awareness, sensitivity and tolerance among staff and partners around gender, equity and diversity in our own lives and work, to enable critical reflection and analysis of the situations where we work.
  • Facilitation and analysis skills: Develop skills in empowering approaches that engage participants respectfully, promote and foster learning, center control with community members through participatory approaches, and engage in critical conversations that probe deeper into the topics in question.

Cross-Cutting Considerations

Across each, teams must consider:

  • Trends and changes across time
  • Socio-economic status and characteristics: caste, class, occupation, ethnicity, religion, and so on;
  • Different age groups (younger children, adolescents, adults and elderly); as well as life stages (unmarried, married, widowed, divorced)
  • The multiple roles and relationships both women and men maintain: as sexual partners, household and clan members, citizens of a broader community, economic actors, etc.).