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Lessons from evaluations of women and gender equality in development cooperation
October 2006
Norad
In 2005 Norad commissioned the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research (NIBR) and partners to carry out an evaluation of the Strategy for Women and Gender Equality in Development Cooperation (1997-2005). The evaluation showed significant weaknesses in the institutionalisation of activities, a lack of resources and deficient reporting of results in the field. Several other evaluations of efforts to promote gender equality in development
cooperation have come to similar conclusions. Consequently, this criticism does not apply to Norwegian development cooperation alone; it appears to apply to international development cooperation in general. There is therefore reason to consider the findings of these evaluations more systematically in order to find out what they say about weaknesses in efforts to empower women and promote gender equality and the explanations and recommendations
they provide.
This synthesis report is based on a review of evaluations1 by Norad, Sida, DFID, the European Commission (EC), OECD/DAC, UNDP, ILO and the World Bank2. The evaluations reviewed here were carried out in the period 2002 to 2006.
Since 2002, growing international attention has been paid to weaknesses in the strategy to integrate women and gender equality into development cooperation, and to the lack of results. I have therefore chosen to include a certain amount of more recent literature and three reports from meetings3 that address this issue. These reports have largely focused on the possibilities for strengthening gender equality activities in a situation with new aid modalities.
Footnotes:
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They comprise three multilateral evaluations; UNDP 2006 (global), ILO 2005 (global/TA), the World Bank (WB) 2005 (global) and five bilateral evaluations;
Norad 2005 (global), Sida 2002a (global) and b (Bolivia), DFID 2006 (global), the European Commission. I have also studied an organisational
analysis of UNIFEM 2004 and a review of a number of bilateral evaluations under the auspices of the DAC Working Party on Aid Evaluation
(OECD/DAC WP- EV 2003).
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The evaluations of the gender equality activities of Sida and DFID are exceptional in that they are large, comprehensive evaluations that also
include thorough country studies. Sida, DFID, EC and Norad have all published more detailed country studies, and DFID has published a number
of thematic studies as well. The UNDP evaluation (UNDP 2006) is also a comprehensive evaluation, with country reports for eight countries carried
out by local consultants and not published separately. The ILO evaluation (ILO 2005) only covers gender equality activities in technical assistance
(TA). The World Bank evaluation (WB 2005) is not really a new evaluation but is based on two previous evaluations carried out in 1994 and
1997, plus a two-stage evaluation in 2000 and 2001 by the OED of the Bank’s Gender Strategy, which was carried out in preparation for the new
Gender Strategy in 2001. The evaluation is limited to project assistance, which means that it deals with the new aid agenda to only a limited degree.
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The three international meetings are: (i) Owning Development: Promoting Gender Equality in New Aid Modalities and Partnerships, UNIFEM and EC,
9-11 November 2005, Brussels. (ii) Joint biannual meeting of the Inter-Agency Network on Women and Gender Equality (IANWGE) and the
OECD/DAC Network on Gender Equality, Nairobi, 30-31 January 2006, (iii) Annual meeting of OECD/DAC Gendernet, 5-7 July 2006, Paris, attended
by bilateral and multilateral gender advisers.
Acknowledgements: ANSA-Africa acknowledges Norad as the source of this document: http://norad.no/evaluering
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