STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS

How are gender-specific data captured and reported?

• A gender analysis is required in all contexts, sometimes as part of another analysis (e.g., social analysis).

• Country gender assessments are conducted routinely (timeline varies) to inform country-specific strategies and priority-setting.

• Project-specific gender action plans are drafted and operationalized to ensure that customized reporting aligns with the institution-wide policy documents.

• Institutions have an annual reporting requirement (annual performance plan and report) per activity/project.

• Activities/projects are required to submit a report at the mid-term and at completion that applies gender indicators.

• Gender indicators are included in the project design and monitoring/results frameworks, and they are also applied and reported against institution-wide.

• Institutions provide optional process indicators vis-a-vis gender that are placed in an internal results framework.

• Institutions employ standard gender-related “Key Issues” (e.g., gender equality/women's empowerment, gender-based violence, women's economic empowerment, women peace and security) for reporting.

• Institutions instate standard measures for gender norms and girls' empowerment and continually explore other techniques to measure gender equality results.

• Institutions employ ”gender tags” that track the percentage of projects that address gender.

• One institution has adopted a new indicator that captures the number of feminist organizations supported by the bilateral institution.

• Institutions enact mandatory reporting on sex-disaggregated data (including non-binary qualifiers).

• Gender outcomes are elevated from cross-cutting process indicators to stand-alone "high level outcome" indicators (i.e., in country-level engagement).

• Institutions measure impact in humanitarian efforts via OECD's “gender markers for humanitarian projects”.

ENFORCEMENT MECHANISMS

How do institutions enforce reporting that supports the gender mandate?

• Operations departments are responsible for tracking structures to ensure gender mainstreaming across the institution (e.g., due diligence regarding gender analyses, resource mobilization, project gender designs, reporting on gender equality results at completion, etc.).

• Gender analyses are required as a stand-alone component of the project at commencement; gender analysis reports are enforced through the country office/mission point of contact (though not consistently).

• Gender analyses are required as part of an overall social analysis; the gender analysis is enforced through the reporting template.

• Institution requires mid-term and completion reports, inclusive of gender.

• Institutions require annual reporting on specific “Key Issues”, indicators, and “gender tags” (as specified in policy documents), and bureaus/departments pull these data for external reporting and documentation.

• Internal evaluations are conducted to improve “gender marking”/”gender tagging” of investments and projects; evaluations include discussions about the qualitative impact of investments vis-a-vis gender. These evaluations are enforced through an institutional requirement.

• Institutions commission independent, gender-focused evaluations of programs. Though not always required, evaluations serve as a "soft" enforcement for gender teams (i.e., a means to incentivize project growth through positive reinforcement and pointing out gaps).

• Gender targets (from “gender marker”/”gender tagged” activities or projects) are required by the institution (i.e., to be met by implementing partners/project teams). For some institutions, corporate targets (i.e., the percent investment by type of gender integration) establish the results that must be achieved.

• Gender targets are enforced by way of a financial incentive: If investments don't meet the stated gender targets, the gender departments or teams do not receive funding for continued gender equality initiatives. Contracted organizations/ implementing partners also need to spend a certain percentage of funds on specific gender indicators or they lose funding.

• Some institutions rely on "behavioral nudges" to encourage reporting on gender indicators (i.e., if they lack authority to require program teams to report on gender indicators); these nudges serve as a "soft" enforcement mechanism for reporting vis-a-vis the gender mandate.

• Annual reporting against specific indicators and/or targets are shared with the Executive Board; in some cases, reporting is enforced through a requirement.

• Technical staff use gender-related indicators and/or corporate scorecards to report results to leadership. Results are reported to the institution’s gender steering committee, an accountability mechanism to ensure minimum standards are met among country programs.

RECOMMENDATIONS

How might institutions better enforce reporting systems that support the gender mandate?

START HERE: Develop a results framework that links gender indicators to both internal (i.e., institutional operations) and external (i.e., implementation process AND transformative outcomes).

• Clarify when and how progress towards targets will be monitored and reported upon.

• For institutions without financial incentives for gender efforts, demonstrate through reporting how a gender approach improves other high priority investments.

• For institutions without a gender analysis requirement, instate a requirement to ensure gender analyses are consistently completed--whether as a stand-alone or in collaboration with other development partners.

• In addition to requiring gender analyses, instate a mechanism for improving the consistent quality (e.g., possibly through standardization) of gender analyses.

• Instate an internal review mechanism for gender analyses (i.e., requiring increased staff time), to carefully review generated data, revert to programs with suggested improvements, and recommend how to incorporate data into program use (e.g., how data might inform the workplan).

• Consider requiring “gender tags” at the beginning (entry) and end (exit) of a project.

• Report against an internal (i.e., institutional gender mainstreaming) and external (i.e., programmatic gender integration) results framework that tracks both output and outcome data, consistent with the gender mandate.

• Require sector-specific gender outcome indicators of implementing partners at the onset of a project.

• Move beyond reporting on set indicators to include qualitative elements that demonstrate why/how the project was transformative (or not) to set the standard for future gender reporting, build the body of evidence around gender investments and improve the quality of work commissioned by the institution.

• Raise the profile of reporting with institutional partners/funders (e.g., UN institutions to bilaterals, bilaterals to UN institutions), serving as a source of external pressure to improve gender-related reporting mechanisms.

• Encourage critical feedback from institutional partners (i.e., constructive peer review), serving as external pressure to improve gender-related reporting mechanisms and outcomes.

• Ensure gender is discussed in meetings with grant/investment recipients; include gender technical staff and include questions about recipient gender integration-related activities in these meetings.

• Consider recommendations in the Leadership section, as effective gender-focused reporting systems rely on sound leadership support.