Hello to you dear members of Eval Forward, Gorgette’s question is indeed very interesting as a subject of debate but difficult to answer in a practical way. From my experiences, I understood that the whole difficulty of application of gender in evaluation programs, is in its transversally to different sectors but also to social subgroups. The most complicated aspect is also the capacity of the evaluator to be able to make an integrated analysis according to the objectives, the expected results and the methodology used. Therefore, gender in evaluation requires competence in evaluation but also in social gender analysis.
In fact, gender analysis is integrated and cross-cutting throughout the evaluation process, notably the analysis of the evaluation elements (relevance - effectiveness - sustainability - efficiency ...) and the indicators of the program in question. Obviously, it is more efficient to have a team of evaluators with various skills related to the objectives.
Gender is not the woman, although we try to remove social constraints that limit the development of this category. You will agree with me that these constraints are not only at the woman's level, but especially in the ways of living, the look of the other towards her, behaviors, social values, and so on. All things that give, maintain and perpetuate the power of the masculine on the feminine and which generates for her a confinement in a lower status. Social analysis is necessary to understand this system in the context of food security, in order to act to reduce this power to the benefit of the feminine. Only in this way sustainable and efficient food security can be envisaged, giving households, communities and our countries the chance to access food welfare.
We are used to having a list of gender indicators, but I think that, over time, they have proved to be ineffective because food security is a large area. The integrated analysis of the indicators during the evaluation also requires adaptation reflections depending on the program, the social context and the objectives of the evaluation.
Finally, I think that the answer to your questions will be found in the teamwork and the complementarity of the competences created for the evaluation. However, we can make it a subject of debate in order to make the experiences of each other profitable.
RE: Gender and evaluation of food security
Hello to you dear members of Eval Forward, Gorgette’s question is indeed very interesting as a subject of debate but difficult to answer in a practical way. From my experiences, I understood that the whole difficulty of application of gender in evaluation programs, is in its transversally to different sectors but also to social subgroups. The most complicated aspect is also the capacity of the evaluator to be able to make an integrated analysis according to the objectives, the expected results and the methodology used. Therefore, gender in evaluation requires competence in evaluation but also in social gender analysis.
In fact, gender analysis is integrated and cross-cutting throughout the evaluation process, notably the analysis of the evaluation elements (relevance - effectiveness - sustainability - efficiency ...) and the indicators of the program in question. Obviously, it is more efficient to have a team of evaluators with various skills related to the objectives.
Gender is not the woman, although we try to remove social constraints that limit the development of this category. You will agree with me that these constraints are not only at the woman's level, but especially in the ways of living, the look of the other towards her, behaviors, social values, and so on. All things that give, maintain and perpetuate the power of the masculine on the feminine and which generates for her a confinement in a lower status. Social analysis is necessary to understand this system in the context of food security, in order to act to reduce this power to the benefit of the feminine. Only in this way sustainable and efficient food security can be envisaged, giving households, communities and our countries the chance to access food welfare.
We are used to having a list of gender indicators, but I think that, over time, they have proved to be ineffective because food security is a large area. The integrated analysis of the indicators during the evaluation also requires adaptation reflections depending on the program, the social context and the objectives of the evaluation.
Finally, I think that the answer to your questions will be found in the teamwork and the complementarity of the competences created for the evaluation. However, we can make it a subject of debate in order to make the experiences of each other profitable.
Bintou NIMAGA
Mali