Manual for the
GENDER SELF-ASSESSMENT
GENDER & DEVELOPMENTtraining centre
The Hague/Haarlem, September 2001
Adapted: June 2003 by Annette Evertzen
Table of contents
Part 1: What is a Gender Self-Assessment?
Chapter I: Nature and Objectives of the Gender Self- Assessment
1.1 What is a Gender Self-Assessment?
1.2History of Self-Assessments as quality-management tools
1.3Why a Gender Self-Assessment within SNV?
1.4Objective of a Gender Self-Assessment
1.5Ownership
1.6Focus of the Gender Self-Assessment
1.7The methodology
1.8Methods in the Gender Self-Assessment
1.9The content of the Gender Self-Assessment
1.10Outcome of the Gender Self-Assessment
1.11The outcomes of the Gender Self-Assessment and the follow-up
Part two: The organisation of a Gender Self-Assessment
Chapter 2: Organisational issues
2.1The time and the costs?
2.3Constitution of and roles in a Gender Self-Assessment facilitation team
2.4 Preparation of Gender Self-Assessment team members
2.5Working in the Gender Self-Assessment facilitation team
2.6 Teams of participants
2.7 Preparation of Gender Self-Assessment by participants in workshops
2.8Involvement of partner organisations
2.9 Focusing on the whole program through one portfolio
2.10Gender Self-Assessment file contents
Part 3: The Methods
Chapter 3: The core elements of the Gender Self-Assessment: checklist
Chapter 4: Facilitator's guide
4.1Gender knowledge and awareness quiz
4.2Gender quality appraisal for staff of SNV programs
4.3Choice and achievement of partner organisations
4.4 Partner gender policy appreciation assessment
4.5Culture of the organisation: The “Onion of Hofstede” exercise
4.6The ideal organisation exercise
4.7Mind-mapping exercise
4.8 Venn diagrama………………………………………………………………………………… 58
4.9SWOT Analysis
4.10Historical timeline
4.11Semi- structured individual or group interviews
4.12Learning about learning
Annex 1: Tables
Annex 2: Checklist for the preparation of the assessment
Annex 3: Outline of Gender Self-Assessment report
Annex 4: Gender Self-Assessment leaflet
Annex 5: Preparatory questions for participants
Annex 6: Checklist for documentary analysis
Annex 7: Assessment of SNV organisational gender performance
Annex 8: Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………81
Foreword to the adapted manual
This is an adapted version of the original manual. The adaptations are based on the experiences with the audit during the two years after the pilot phase (2001 and 2002). By means of an inquiry sent to 10 countries, the experiences were compiled and analysed.
In general, the methodology of the participatory gender audit was appreciated. Especially, the self-evaluation, the participatory process (at all levels of SNV and partner organisations), and the learning component were highly esteemed.
Weak points were the follow-up of the audit, time investment, ownership, and the name. Besides, the text and some tools needed revision, in the light of the new strategy of SNV.
The most important changes in this adapted manual are:
The change of the name: from Participatory Gender Audit toGender Self- Assessment (GSA).
- The time investment. It was and is not necessary to execute the whole audit with all its methods. Guidelines for a shorter and lighter assessment are given.
More attention is given to the follow up. Each method is supplemented with a small table to summarise and give priorities to the discussed points.
Many thanks to all the persons, who gave their ideas by means of the inquiry, and to the Reference Group, who gave their comments on the adapted manual.
June 2003.
Part 1: What is a Gender Self-Assessment?
Part 1 will discuss the purpose and background of a Gender Self-Assessment (GSA). This includes an explanation of what such a GSA is and what it is not, its methodological foundations, the link with SNV gender policy, and its history and relationship to other instruments used by SNV.
Chapter I: Nature and Objectives of the Gender Self- Assessment
1.1 What is a Gender Self-Assessment?
A GSA is a methodology for SNV programs that focuses on improving the organisation’s performance with respect to gender equity and women’s empowerment. Its aim is to help participants learn to assess their work, their functioning, and their collaboration with others, as well as to find ways to improve and contextualise what they are doing.
This process will lead to proposals for change, thereby translating learning into action.
Unlike a regular evaluation, the GSA is based on self-assessment and not on external evaluation. Individuals employed in SNV programs or associated with SNV through partner organisations or donors are considered to be empirical experts, who are able and motivated to assess themselves and their organisations.
1.2History of Self-Assessments as quality-management tools
Audits were initially developed as methods for control in the financial world. Accountants perform audits, and with their declaration of approval certify that finances and administration are legitimate and that all the established rules and regulations have been followed correctly.
In the 1980s, quality management practices were introduced in companies to promote improvement of company performance. International standards of company performance were developed, which are assessed by audits. This type of audit can be described as an investigation of how well an organisation complies with external and internal demands. Quality audits establish whether the internal arrangements are attuned to each other, whether they are the right arrangements, and whether the internal arrangements and rules are followed. Auditing not only shows that you are doing your job right, it also allows for identification of opportunities for improvement. It can therefore help an organisation innovate and develop. A participatory gender audit belongs to this range of quality audits, which are sometimes called social audits to distinguish them from financial audits.
Quality or social audits usually start by evaluating all the elements of the organisation’s functions that are written down: policies, reports, function / task descriptions, handbooks etc. But they don’t stop there; they look further to discover whether what is written down is actually applied in reality, why tasks are performed as they are, how well they are performed and to what effect. The perceptions of those working in the organisation and of the clients are of crucial importance. This is followed by the identification by participants of potential improvements and ways of achieving them.
A participatory gender audit emphasises self-assessment and is designed to allow the participants full participation and self-reflection. In the final phase, the audit team writes a report in which the identified improvements are incorporated. The report is presented to as many participants as possible in a debriefing session. The responsible actors should then give a follow-up to the action plan.
After a pilot phase (1999-2000) with SNV’s participatory gender audit in eight countries, the instrument was used in several other countries. At the end of 2002 the experiences were analysed, and the manual and methods were adapted (June 2003). At the same time, the name was changed toGender Self-Assessment, as the wordaudit was associated with financial audits, giving the participants the idea of a control instrument and the feeling of being evaluated.
1.3Why a Gender Self-Assessment within SNV?
SNV has been trying since the mid-1980s to develop and implement organisational guidelines for the integration of women and development in all its practices. A gender and development policy was established[1] in 1993, and subsequently revised in 1998 in the Strategic Note on Gender Equality. In these documents, SNV expressed its intention to ensure that men and women benefit equally from all its programs/portfolios, and, specifically, to contribute to the empowerment of women.
SNV has been involved in a reorientation of its organisational strategy, which lead to the mission defined as: “capacity building support to meso-level organisations and local capacity builders, with the aim of improving governance and reducing poverty” (Strategy Paper, 2000). Gender equity, intercultural equity and sustainability are adapted as important values. These are quality criteria reflecting SNV’s belief in the equal rights of every human being and the recognition of our responsibility towards the living system of our planet as a whole. Specific knowledge in each of these three areas, and instruments and methods to address them in the advisory practices, are or will be developed (SNV’s advisory practices, 2002). The GSA is one of these tools.
Cost efficiency measures have also been implemented and SNV introduced in 1998 an Integrated Framework for Managing the Advisory Practices (SIFMAP), meant to “streamline internal control activities so that control systems contribute to the efforts of management”. SIFMAP uses a self-assessment method. Throughout these changes, gender equity and a gender balance of personnel have been maintained as major objectives of the organisation. The GSA and SIFMAP stem from a common source and vision of new organisational theory on organisational performance and change. Both encourage employees to take more decisions at portfolio level, in a better-informed manner and based on self-evaluation and participatory management practices.
The GSA combines new ideas on organisational development, like quality management and learning organisation principles, with gender equity in an assessment method that will help SNV country programs and SNV corporate improve the quality of its performance with respect to gender equity and women's empowerment.
1.4Objective of a Gender Self-Assessment
The GSA promotes learning and change through a process in which teams, involving both SNV and its partner organisation in a country program under consideration, assess the quality of portfolio performance in the area of one of SNV’s strategic objectives: mainstreaming of gender equity and women’s empowerment. On the basis of the assessment, these teams will formulate proposals for improvements that can be taken up in regular SNV planning processes and may – indirectly - also affect the partners planning. The GSA is an assessment method that promotes learning at the level of qualitative rather than quantitative objectives (i.e. it tries to answer how and why, rather than how many). A GSA aims to promote a sense of enthusiasm for working on gender equity and women’s empowerment in the participants' daily activities.
1.5Ownership
Country program management initiates GSAs. SNV program management decides when to conduct a GSA, and it is its responsibility to monitor the action plan. All participants are involved in the formulation of specific conclusions and action plans, and the GSA team will disseminate the final conclusions of the GSA to all the participants in the process. This promotes wider ownership and ensures that the self-assessment done by the participants is reflected in the report. It is the prerogative of program management (management team and ultimately the director) to decide on the dissemination of the results of the GSAs beyond the group of participants. The standards of good practice that are integrated in the methodology are based on SNV organisational objectives on gender mainstreaming and women’s empowerment, as formulated in the SNV Strategic Note on Gender Equality (1998). To ensure that follow-up is carried out widely in the organisation, clear communication is necessaryabout the results of the GSA and the consequences for program and advisory practices. In GSAs or in a subsequent GSA, conducted some years later, the effective implementation of these action plans and their results can be assessed.
1.6Focus of the Gender Self-Assessment
The GSA focuses on four aspects of SNV programs:
- the conditions that SNV has created to realise gender equity, women’s empowerment and gender balance
- what is actually being done to achieve these goals
- the perception of achievement of those involved in, and associated with the portfolio
- the formulation of an action plan for improvement.
As this focus demonstrates, the GSA is an organisational self-assessment and not a participatory evaluation of the outcome of projects at the level of the target group. A GSA zooms in more on management objectives than on development objectives. It is internally oriented rather than an impact assessment. In order for the organisation to self-assess, it must be examined within the context in which it operates.
1.7The methodology
The methodology[2] of the GSA rests on a combination of four pillars, which inform current thinking on gender and organisational change.
1. Gender and development
The gender and development methodology recognises that societies are organised around a ‘male’ norm, and that through reflection and action women and men can question this male norm and formulate proposals to change society and individual relations in order to achieve equality. This process is participatory and empowering. It recognises women and men as key actors in social change. It also recognises that development programs have to plan explicitly how to make a contribution to gender equity and women’s empowerment. This planning process has to include the overall objectives, how to do things, the results envisaged, and where and when the necessary positive action can be taken.
Over the years, a body of theory, and tools and instruments for the analysis of gender relations and gender-aware planning have been developed. Gender and development has developed into a professional field, through which organisational issues involved in changing gender relations have gained increased attention. It has become evident that gender and development policy implies organisational change.
This increasing awareness is also reflected in the development of policy and strategies, assignments and organisational measures within SNV.The GSA therefore examines organisational issues and looks, for example, within the organisational culture. These insights are part of the GSA's methodology and procedure.
2.Learning organisation
The learning-organisation approach recognises that learning and change in organisations takes place at three levels: at the level of the individual, the team and the organisation as a whole. Organisations set the agenda for learning through their objectives, visions and mandates. Actual learning can take place and can be linked from the individuals to the teams and from teams to organisational levels. If individuals and teams do not learn, organisations will never be able to adapt to the multiple demands that a rapidly changing environment places on them. Special attention is given to the different “teams” operational in SNV, as they are considered to be the crucial link in the learning process between individuals and the organisation as a whole. But the GSA involves assessing, learning and change at all three of these levels of "actors". The learning organisation methodology focuses both on organisational objectives and on the changes required of individuals working in the organisation. The intermediary level is the team, which transmits learning and change in both directions between the individual and organisational levels.
Another central tenet in a learning organisation approach is promotion of single, double and triple loop learning:
- Single loop learning is an effective way to approach a practical problem that needs solving. The current situation is analysed and changes are implemented accordingly.
- Double loop learning encourages individuals (and teams) to reflect on their own behaviour in order to establish how they have inadvertently contributed to the existing problem.
- Triple loop or deutero learning goes one step further and examines the implicit assumptions that individuals as well as teams and organisations have and that underlie and inform all action. It promotes examination and change of the existing mental models. Triple loop learning also involves questioning what exactly you have learned and how you learned it.
All three types of learning have a place in the GSA methodology. The emphasis, however, is on double and triple loop learning because these can lead to real change.
3.Qualitative self-assessment
A third pillar of the GSA's methodology is to focus on understanding tangible and intangible factors, facts and interpretations, allowing for objectivity and subjectivity. It asks: what made certain things happen?, why are things as they are, why do we act the way we do?, where and what are the forces of change?. The methodology recognises and seeks to bring to light differences between the way we act and the way we think we act, and the importance of points of reference for individuals, teams and the organisation. These aspects seem to be especially relevant when considering gender equity and women’s empowerment issues. The GSA is problem-oriented: a problem exists when the reality in a certain situation does not match the stated objectives for that situation. For example, when the reality of gender mainstreaming and women’s empowerment does not match the intentions of SNV's gender policy. Problem-oriented learning implies that learning takes place on the job or related to the job. This methodology allows participants to ask questions, such as: “ Are we doing things in the right way? Are we efficient and effective in what we are doing?” but also: “Are we doing the right things? Are we trying to achieve the right objectives?”[3].
In short: through a qualitative audit, an GSA helps us understand what is being done, why it is being done that way, whether it the right/ best thing to do, whether it can be improved and, if so, how. Qualitative self-assessment also implies that the methodology does not try to establish“ the objective truth”, but seeks a consensual understanding of the reality in which people are working and that they are creating together. It establishes a value-based consensus on how SNV is working towards gender equity and women’s empowerment in a specific context. It seeks to understand the reality behind the figures, data, and experiences.
The subjectivity of this methodology is made more “objective” through cross-checking of information from several sources, such as participants, the GSA file and key-informants.
4.The adult learning cycle
This methodology is based on the principle that adults learn best when the learning is based on concrete experiences in their personal and professional lives. Through reflection and exchange they are able to translate these experiences into more abstract and generalised conclusions, which can then be translated into proposals for change through experimentation.