I would like to contribute to the debate on gender mainstreaming in the evaluation of development actions - I use the generic term development action to refer to a project, program or policy. I find Georgette's debate quite important and that will have to be taken out of a debate that would remain philosophical and sterile, so much the development practitioners need practical elements to make the necessary corrections to their way of doing things. It goes without saying that the "gender" dimension is very important for development but this should not lead us to use it as a "master key" to use in all development actions; we must therefore deal with this "gender" issue in a systematic and mandatory way in development actions that have an undeniable gender dimension.
Following the watermark of this debate, I have the weakness to think that we are dealing with this issue right at the time of the evaluation - it is a debate that I come across very often among practitioners of the "simple and simplified" evaluation. However, this aspect must be dealt with well in advance, in general at the time of formulation of the development action and design of its results framework, and in particular in the choice of indicators and data collection - which should be disaggregated according to the gender dimension, and in the establishment of the monitoring and evaluation system for the development action.
If a given development action is articulated on a strong gender dimension, the reading of the project document, its results framework and indicators, and its monitoring and evaluation plan, etc., must reflect this strong gender dimension, even before the activities of this development action are launched on the ground. Without such an integrative perspective of Results-Based Management, the evaluation will be totally disconnected from the rest of the activities of a development action, including monitoring-evaluation activities, and will not help us in such a situation to bring all the necessary answers to questions about gender that we might ask ourselves at the time of an evaluation.
It is on this restrictive debate on evaluation, which reduces and "chops up" a process of management of the cycle of a development action to which I wanted to make an initial contribution during my first message on this platform; it is since a few weeks that I wanted to draw the attention of all members to the danger of speaking in a restrictive way about evaluation outside of a Results-Based Management perspective.
RE: Gender and evaluation of food security
Hello everyone,
I would like to contribute to the debate on gender mainstreaming in the evaluation of development actions - I use the generic term development action to refer to a project, program or policy. I find Georgette's debate quite important and that will have to be taken out of a debate that would remain philosophical and sterile, so much the development practitioners need practical elements to make the necessary corrections to their way of doing things. It goes without saying that the "gender" dimension is very important for development but this should not lead us to use it as a "master key" to use in all development actions; we must therefore deal with this "gender" issue in a systematic and mandatory way in development actions that have an undeniable gender dimension.
Following the watermark of this debate, I have the weakness to think that we are dealing with this issue right at the time of the evaluation - it is a debate that I come across very often among practitioners of the "simple and simplified" evaluation. However, this aspect must be dealt with well in advance, in general at the time of formulation of the development action and design of its results framework, and in particular in the choice of indicators and data collection - which should be disaggregated according to the gender dimension, and in the establishment of the monitoring and evaluation system for the development action.
If a given development action is articulated on a strong gender dimension, the reading of the project document, its results framework and indicators, and its monitoring and evaluation plan, etc., must reflect this strong gender dimension, even before the activities of this development action are launched on the ground. Without such an integrative perspective of Results-Based Management, the evaluation will be totally disconnected from the rest of the activities of a development action, including monitoring-evaluation activities, and will not help us in such a situation to bring all the necessary answers to questions about gender that we might ask ourselves at the time of an evaluation.
It is on this restrictive debate on evaluation, which reduces and "chops up" a process of management of the cycle of a development action to which I wanted to make an initial contribution during my first message on this platform; it is since a few weeks that I wanted to draw the attention of all members to the danger of speaking in a restrictive way about evaluation outside of a Results-Based Management perspective.
A word to the wise!
Regards,
Mustapha