Towards Gender Equality through Equity in Community-Level Evaluation
| Published date | 01 March 2015 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1035719X1501500103 |
| Date | 01 March 2015 |
| Author | John Donnelly |
| Subject Matter | Article |
R E F E R E E D A R T I C L E Evaluation Journal of Australasia Vol 15 | No 1 | 2015 | p p . 1 5 – 1 8
JOHN DONNELLY
Towards gender equality
through equity in
community-level evaluation
The calls by donors for gender equality to be an outcome of community development projects, locally
and internationally, have been a constant for many years. While gender equality is not normally an
explicit requirement of community-level evaluations, it should be. However, entrenched social and
religious mores and economic systems have most often proved too difficult to change and gender
equality remains a challenge.
When it comes to the evaluation of community development projects, most donors and practitioners
call for participatory evaluations to ensure that real input into evaluation findings is obtained from those
most affected by the development intervention. However, gender equality in evaluation is faced with the
same barriers as in development—the gendered barriers to participation.
Gender equality means equal access, equal value, equal numbers and equal rights in participation in the
activities. But the barriers to participation are most often the result of the gendered nature of society.
These barriers include literacy, time availability, the timing of an activity, public standing and access.
Common participatory practices, such as surveys, focus group discussions and positivist approaches, do
not break down these barriers. While this situation is very often the case in developing countries, it is also
seen as an issue in Australia’s multicultural society, in particular among recent refugee groups.
This article highlights that participation, together with gender equity (as distinct from equality),
in the design, implementation and monitoring of an evaluation is also a requirement for ensuring
gender equality in the outputs of evaluations. The article focuses on the importance of the informants’
understanding of what is being evaluated, and minimising the impact of barriers in ensuring gender
equity (that is, fairness of treatment for women and men, according to their respective needs), so that all
voices are heard. Tools and approaches that bring fairness and justice to participatory evaluation can help
to ensure gender equality in the findings, conclusions and resultant recommendations of community-
level evaluations.
D o n n e l l y —To w a r d s g e n d e r e q u a l i t y t h r o u g h e q u i t y i n c o m m u n i t y - l e v e l e v a l u a t i o n
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R E F E R E E D A R T I C L E
Participation
Participation in evaluation ensures that local wisdom
and knowledge of the environment relating to what is
being evaluated is the main source of evaluation data.
To achieve this, participants, that is, the key informants
in an evaluation, need to have an understanding of the
‘… internal dynamics of their project, its successes and
failures, and in proposing solutions for overcoming
obstacles’ (UNDP 1997). Understanding the dynamics
of the project will enable informants to contribute
meaningfully to the evaluation, providing they can
participate in the evaluation process.
To enable the participation of informants in an
evaluation, barriers such as time required, timing of
participatory activity, literacy and other local and cultural
barriers to participation need to be minimised (Donnelly
John Donnelly is a freelance consultant with Donnelly
2010; World Bank 1996). As many of the barriers to
Consultants...
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