Instructions Development Organisation Gender Audit
Instructions
Development Organisation Gender Audit
Development can only have a beneficial outcome for women when the working culture, structure, systems and procedures, and underlying values of the institutions, which shape women’s lives themselves, reflect a concern for gender equality.
Fenella Porter, Ines Smyth and Caroline Sweetman
You have been hired to assist the organisation Worldwide Gender Auditors to undertake a gender audit for a local or international non-governmental development organisation. You can choose from the following: Oxfam (you must choose one of the Oxfam member organisations or affiliates (UK, Canada, South Africa, Colombia, etc., it cannot be Oxfam international as each affiliate is an independent organisation), World Vision, Care International, Action Aid, Promundo (Brazil), Medecins Sans Frontieres, Plan, Save the Children, Plan International. You may choose another organisation, but you need to consult with me first. These have been suggested because there are sufficient resources available.
A gender audit is a tool to assess and check the institutionalisation of gender equality into organisations, including in their policies, programmes, projects and/or provision of services, structures, and budgets.
Your job with WGA is to perform the desk review portion of the gender audit of organisational documents, the website, social media, scholarly literature and other analyses of the organisation and highlight the status of gender equality within the organisation’s culture, policies, programmes and projects. Your review will identify critical gaps and challenges, as well as document good practices towards the achievement of gender equality at the organisation. Your desk review will inform the areas WGA will highlight and focus on in the interview, focus group, workshop portion of the gender audit. You CANNOT rely on the website alone. The information you find on the general website will not be in-depth enough. You can use the documents found within the website – such as annual reports, evaluations, etc. If you are uncertain, please ask me.
Using your readings for this course, as well as the GBA+ course you completed, the work you have done in other courses, and outside sources, discuss what approach (or combination of approaches) to women and/or gender and development the organisation employs, (i.e. WID, GAD, other, etc.). Explore the organisational history and ideology (how, when and why the organisation created, what is the mission/mandate of the organisation, what/whose interests are primarily represented, who are the target groups of the organisation, etc.); what are the women and/or gender and development policy and programmes/projects.
In order to complete this assignment, you need to consider the following questions. They will inform my evaluation (however, this is by no means an exhaustive list):
What is the organisational history, ideology and mandate?
Whose interests are primarily represented?
Is gender equality explicitly included in the mandate of the organisation?
What is the gender division of labour within the organisation and its programmes and projects?
How is power and decision-making distributed with the organisation and its programmes and projects (consider not only women and men, but also northerners, southerners, indigenous people, LGBTQ individuals)?
How are LBGTQ issues dealt with by the organisation (both within the organisations and its projects)
What are the gender programmes implemented and the gender-specific policies?
How are empowerment and gender equality defined?
Does the organisation focus on practical or strategic gender needs or both?
Do its policies differ from its practice? Use specific case studies/examples.
How are women and men from the global south depicted by the organisation in images and words?
What can this organisation do to improve?
Using concrete examples, back up your analysis with evidence in the form of practice, not just policy statements (i.e. concrete examples of policy in practice in projects, and internally in terms of staff training for gender equality practices, representation of all groups in decision-making positions, family friendly regulations, etc.). Are there differences between what happens in the global north and global south, if the organisation is located in both or is a northern organisation that that implements projects in the south? Good journals to find this sort of practical evaluation are Gender and Development and Development in Practice
Finally, suggest how to make the organisation more gender responsive, both within its ranks and service delivery (i.e. projects).
While you will obviously cite organisation documents, you also need to look for analyses of the organisation by outside sources, do not just rely on organisational rhetoric. Look beyond the organisation’s main webpage to reports, media accounts, etc. Also reference scholarly sources (articles and book chapters from this course are permitted, but other scholarly sources are also necessary), government documents, public policy papers, UN documents, etc.
Your analysis must cite a minimum of 8 sources, at least 4 of which must be scholarly. Proper citation (APA style) and referencing is required. The assignment must be roughly 1,750 – 2,000 words (7-8 pages).
Grading will be based on content (20/30), as well as organisation and structure (5/30) and spelling, grammar and citation (5/30).
Useful websites/documents for this assignment:
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