How to implement a gender mainstreaming approach in regional development policies
Dr Anne-Marie McGauran,
Previously Head of the NDP (National Development Plan) Gender Equality Unit, Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Ireland
Contact details: am.mcgauran@nesf.ie
Website: www.ndpgenderequality.ie
Overview
First of all, I will outline what gender mainstreaming is, and how beneficial it is to regional development. I will also summarise the key
things we need to do to gender mainstream policies.
The second part of this presentation will look at the gender mainstreaming experience in Ireland. It will outline what was required for
gender mainstreaming in regional development policies in the Irish Structural Funds. It will show the supports put in place for gender
mainstreaming to happen in these policies, and the results of these actions.
Finally I will outline a few things ‘to do’ and ‘not to do’ to support implementation of gender mainstreaming.
Introduction
So - what is gender mainstreaming? Gender mainstreaming (GMS) means putting gender equality into mainstream policies. And why
should we do this? One reason is that very often mainstream policies support ways of life for women and men which no longer exist.
Thirty years ago many less women were at work outside the home than now, and so women spent more time caring for children and
older people. But in many countries social policies have not caught up with this change, and so there is a lack of carers for children
and older people. Equally, in the past girls had less education than boys. But now in many countries boys have less qualifications than
girls, and policies need to adapt to find ways to keep boys motivated to stay in school, or for men to return to education when they are
older.
GMS is a way for policies to adapt to, and support, the new roles which women and men play in society. And this benefits the lives of
individuals, as well as contributing to the well-being of society. In terms of regional development, it can mean supporting more women
to set up businesses, and to sustain these. It may mean encouraging more older unemployed men back into education. It can mean
providing better supports for carers for older people and children.
How can we implement GMS in policy?
How can we implement GMS in policies? By analysing the mainstream policies to see how women and men benefit from them; and then
if necessary, adapting the policies so that there are clear benefits for both women and men.
So what do we need, to do this analysis?
A few new things are needed in policy.
 First – we need gender dis-aggregated data. This means collecting data on how women and men benefit from various
policies and programmes.
 Secondly, we need gender impact assessment of policies. To do this, we need the data which is broken down by gender; as
well as advice on gender equality issues in policies. Based on this information, we would then alter policies where
necessary, to promote gender equality.
 Thirdly, we need specific commitments to promote gender equality in policies.
 Fourthly, it is necessary to monitor and evaluate how these commitments are being met.
 Fifthly, we need changes in decision-making, including more women in decision-making positions (and sometimes more men,
for example in the area of childcare); and also the use of equality criteria in selecting projects for funding.
Many of these requirements are included in the ESF.
The supports for GMS in Irish regional policy development
I’m going to outline now the supports which were put in place in Ireland to help GMS policies funded by the Structural Funds. In
Ireland, the Structural Funds monies were included in the National Development Plan (NDP), which is a larger plan for regional
development. The Structural Funds made up about 7% of the total funding of 51 billion euro in the NDP. The NDP ran from 2000 to
2006.
In the NDP there are commitments to:
 collect gender disaggregated indicators,
 include equality in project selection criteria,
 look at gender equality in evaluations,
 increase the proportion of women in decision-making, and
 complete gender impact assessment forms.
These commitments allow us to analyse policies for their gender impact, and also to alter the focus of policies in certain ways to
promote gender equality.
The NDP also contains a number of supports in the policy making and implementation process, for GMS. These supports are:
 setting up units to monitor and advise policy makers on GMS;
 having a representative for equal opportunities on all monitoring (decision-making) committees; and
 establishing a committee to co-ordinate and promote equal opportunities across the NDP.
There were two units to monitor and advise on GMS. I will talk about the NDP Gender Equality Unit set up in the Department of Justice,
Equality and Law Reform, as this unit advised on GMS in the regional development programmes of the NDP.
The key supports which this unit provided were:
 gender disaggregated statistics and advice on how to collect these;
 research on key gender equality issues in different policy areas;
 training for policy makers on how to GMS the policies on which they were working;
 advice on how to increase the proportion of women in decision-making;
 advice on how to incorporate gender equality into evaluations; and
 advice on how to include gender equality in project selection criteria.
The Unit staff also sat on all monitoring committees under the NDP and monitored how the commitments on gender mainstreaming
were being met.
The Unit had five staff, including two gender equality experts and a statistician. I would advise, if you are setting up such a Unit, that
you would have more staff – one for each key area of work, e.g. one trainer, one researcher, one statistician, one monitoring person
etc.
At first the Unit provided general advice, on the main gender equality issues in broad policy areas. But we realized that policy makers
found it most useful if we worked one-to-one with them on the gender equality issues in their particular measure or project, so we
changed the focus to that.
Results
I will now outline some of the key results on the GMS commitments in the NDP.
 On gender disaggregated indicators – 44% of the 171 measures in the NDP collected these.
 On project selection criteria – 37% of 171 measures included gender equality as a criterion.
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On gender impact assessment – this was done for most NDP measures. However policy makers were more likely to provide
gender disaggregated statistics and analysis of reasons for gender equalities, than actions to promote gender equality. In
fact only 23% of gender impact assessment forms had actions to promote gender equality.
On increasing women in decision-making – one monitoring committee out of 6 reached the 40% women target.
So it’s a mixed picture. There was some progress, but this was always in less than half of the NDP measures, and sometimes in less
than a quarter. And we can also see that the more change that was required, the less progress there was! For example there was
more data collection than change in the criteria for allocating funding. This means less change in where the money goes and who it
supports, and so less gender mainstreaming.
A few problems
So why were there fewer concrete outcomes for GMS? There are many reasons and I’m going to outline a few things here which you
could consider in your policy development, if you are going to do this type of work.
 At the moment, GMS requirements in the ESF do not include specific time-bound targets. If you want change, set realistic
targets and make sure they are met.
 Accountability for meeting any targets needs to rest with individuals. At the moment accountability for GMS often rests with
something very diffuse, such as the organization managing a Structural Funds programme. So it can become everybody’s
job but no-one’s responsibility. Specific individual responsibility for gender mainstreaming is important.
 Sanctions and incentives can play a key role. At the moment neither is provided in the ESF. But incentives could reward
policies or programmes which have made progress on GMS; and sanctions can be used for those which have not. The
Structural Funds include a performance reserve which is allocated at Mid Term Review stage to programmes which have
performed well. This could be used to reward those which have performed well on gender equality.
Targets, accountability and sanctions or incentives will help provide concrete outcomes for gender mainstreaming. But in terms of
policy-making, there are also a few other things which are important to include.
 It is very important to tie GMS to budget allocation. This means analyzing projects for gender equality issues BEFORE the
budget is allocated. So then you can include a budget for childcare or transport, for example. If you don’t do this before the
budget is allocated it is very hard to do it afterwards, because no-one wants money taken off them to put into something
else!
 Try and develop an evaluation culture which focuses on how people benefit from policies. You need an evaluation stage in
policy development and implementation because this will give you a space in which you can include evaluation from a gender
perspective.
 It is also important that the impacts of policies on people are analysed. Quite often policies don’t look at this. Instead they
look at number of buses bought, kilometers of rail track laid, and number of sports facilities built, for example. To do a
gender analysis you need to consider how people will use all of these.