6. GENDER ELEMENTS FOR CCA PROPOSALS

6.3 Gender-Related Data Needs and Tools

A proposal writer may or may not have social and gender data from primary sources (i.e. consultations or surveys conducted for national climate plans and strategies or the project being elaborated in the funding proposal) or secondary sources (e.g., national statistics or existing gender reports). Below are various dimensions to consider when collecting gender-sensitive data. Box 6 lists additional literature sources on gender-sensitive data collection methodologies.

During project design, gender data are used to:

  • Identify the gender-related barriers and opportunities relevant to project success
  • Predict potential impacts of the project design on gender relations and gender equality
  • Modify project objectives, strategies, and indicators to promote more gender-balanced participation and benefit distribution and identify ways to advance gender equality
  • Supply baseline data for gender-related indicators
  • Determine the level of financial resources required for gender sensitive/responsive design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation activities.

Gender analysis typically relies on a combination of primary and secondary data, both qualitative and quantitative data:

  • Primary data methodologies include focus groups, workshops, key informant interviews, and formal surveys.
  • Secondary data include formal national statistics and existing gender reports, including journal articles, project reports, and the like.

Gender-related data can be collected via:

  • Dedicated gender analysis tools and methodologies (e.g., gender division of labor, gender budgeting, gender audit, social mapping)
  • Adapted sectoral tools (e.g., gender-sensitive climate vulnerability assessments, institutional analyses, value chain analyses) or tools that span multiple sectors
  • Adjustments to stakeholder analyses and participatory consultations conducted for project design, such as including more women in consultative processes;holding sex-segregated consultations;and tailoring questions to identify gender differences in climate change perceptions, needs and interests, barriers, opportunities, and priorities.

A gender-sensitive approach to stakeholder analysis (see Section 10) identifies differences in knowledge, interests, priorities, and power among:

  • Key stakeholder groups, including gender advocates and women’s organizations, as well as representatives from the ministries for gender/women’s affairs
  • Gender differences within stakeholder groups
  • Differences of interest between women and men
  • Differences of interest among women and among men.

A gender-sensitive approach to institutional analysis focuses both on staffing and programming capacity issues:

  • For staffing, these analyses help to identify critical gender imbalances of staffing at various levels (e.g., too few women field staff or top managers)
  • For program implementation, these analyses identify the existing gender mainstreaming capacity of staff to carry out projects in a gender-sensitive manner, needs for capacity-building and external gender expertise, and other barriers to gender-sensitive programming such as high-level commitment.

A gender-sensitive approach to stakeholder consultation includes:

  • Gender-balanced invitations to consultation, as well as ensuring inclusion of legitimate representatives of women’s organizations
  • Attention to logistical issues to ensure timings and locations that are convenient to women and facilitation conducive to women’s full participation
  • Fact-finding from men and women via direct observation, group and individual interviews, needs assessments, mapping, and formal surveys.

There are advantages and disadvantages of doing sex-segregated consultations and working with women-only groups. These decisions depend on local cultural preferences. In some settings, women-only groups encourage women to participate more fully and inspire greater ownership by women over the outcomes of the decision-making process. Disadvantages may include a less diverse knowledge base among group participants and lower priority for the recommendations of women.

Box 6. Further reading about gender-sensitive data collection methodologies