M&E and the Gender question

Women working in a cocoa farm

Gender in equality still persists in much of the world. In poor and middle income countries, females are more likely to be poor than males while primary and secondary school enrollment is lower for girls than boys.

In developing countries, women are more likely to work as unpaid labourers than men. Frequently, women have less control over assets and decision making than men. This year's World Development Report “Gender Equality and Development” argues that greater gender equality can enhance productivity, improve development outcomes for the next generation, and make institutions more representative.

What is the role of M&E in delivering gender equality and social inclusion? A robust, effective monitoring and Evaluation system will deliver prudent management and accountability practices. In turn, these practices will lead to effective and efficient delivery of services to the benefit of all people.  The use of M&E tools to provide reliable information on which government can base its decision making is fundamental to good governance.

Without effective M&E how will we have evidence to support claims regarding gender equality? How can we hold decision makers to account for the investment decisions they make on our behalf ? Some of the challenges to implementing programmes and policies successfully relate to M&E. There is often a lack of reliable data to base these policies on. This leads to an incomplete understanding of the exact nature of what is being addressed.

This makes planning the policy difficult. Frequently, there is no Monitoring and Evaluation framework so it is not possible to understand what has worked, where and why. Resources to implement the policy and to monitor its impact are also inadequate.

One major obstacle that has consistently hampered progress towards gender equality and social inclusion is the inability to mainstream these issues in developmental activities and monitor progress over time at the national, regional and district levels. This can be addressed by integrating gender into M&E frameworks as women and men have different needs and face diverse constraints due to different social and economic roles.

Gender sensitive M&E requires that gender becomes an integral part of monitoring, evaluation and review exercises. Gender needs to be considered in the design of development processes. Fundamental to the achievement of gender equality is the use of sex-disaggregated data as well as gender analysis at all stages of programme and project life-cycles, in order to identify and address the implications of gender is sues through appropriate gender sensitive interventions. Data is critical.

More support is needed to improve the availability of gender disaggregated data and to foster more systematic evaluation of mechanisms to improve women’s access to markets, services and justice. This means that programmes and projects should ensure that there are gender sensitive indicators and baseline information/data is systematically monitored.

Data and its’ analysis should feed management decisions for political action, social and economic considerations. A partnership approach is needed to address gender equality. It should extend beyond government and development agencies to include the private sector, Civil Society Organisations and academic institutions in developing and rich countries.

Given the fact that the challenges are multifaceted, gender equality will only be achieved if there are concerted, consistent and sustainable efforts by all.