Kamran Rashid Khan (Ex-Director General)
While every intervention is planned and carried out, occasionally more pressing duties take precedence over the goal for gender equality and inclusivity. Later, it is more difficult to integrate inclusion into the structures. Therefore, conducting a gender and inclusion audit at the outset can aid in identifying gaps that can be filled. Furthermore, it must be clearly stated that where the main goal is process easing, the standards may vary depending on gender. There is strong evidence to support the idea that incorporating inclusion and gender practises when the organisation is building its hard and soft infrastructure and culture is more straightforward and long-lasting than doing so after the institution has reached maturity.
Policies that exclude women neither eliminate pre-existing biases nor address gender inequities and inequality. Economic policies that support women's entry and integration into the workforce as a pro-women policy are an example of a genderblind policy. These laws, however, do not take into account the supply of childcare, correctives for unequal salaries, or the preexisting biases against women in the labour field 1
For the processes and policies intended to achieve gender equality to be implemented successfully, auditors and entities must have a thorough understanding of the idea of gender equality. The hardest part of performing a gender audit is getting people to understand gender issues. The path to achieving gender equality takes time. Before designing and implementing its system and policies on the ground, the first audit finding might be to instill an understanding of the gender paradox.
Any organization doing a gender audit must have a thorough understanding of terms like gender equity and equality. The integration of Sustainable Development Goal 5 - Gender Equality with the other SDGs must be clear to the auditors. For the sake of everyone's collective growth, the gender audit process informs and assesses the level of equality between men and women in all socio- economic aspects of life.
The history of gender audit dates back to 1984 in Australia where the government itself conducted first such audit called Women’s Budget Statement. Similarly, it was then repeated in South Africa, Canada, France and England etc.2
Five sections make up the article in light of this setting. Section One provides a brief explanation of how gender equality is outlined and addressed in the 2015 United Nations SDGs. The definitions of gender equality and gender equity are briefly explained in Section 2. In the third section, numerous gender audit ideas are defined, along with various methods of conducting the audit. The article's conclusion is included in section five after section four reviews the various processes of the gender audit.
1 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) & Gender Equality
SDGs were established by the UN in 2015 as a worldwide call to action for everyone's development. By 2030, the SDGs want to guarantee that everyone can live in peace and prosperity. Countries have agreed to give those who are falling behind the most priority while making progress. Of the 17 SDGs, SDG 5 — Gender Equality — is the fifth. "Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls" is the goal stated in SDG 5. In addition to being a fundamental human right, gender equality is also a precondition for a world that is stable, affluent, and sustainable. While there has been progress over the past few decades, it is apparent that we are not on schedule to reach gender equality by the year 2030.
The SDGs acknowledge the interconnectedness of social, political, economic, and environmental sustainability and the need for development to strike a balance between these four pillars. Gender equality can only be attained by ensuring equality with regard to all other relevant goals, to which SDG 5 is specifically included. To achieve equality for women and men in various fields, for instance, SDG 4 on quality education and SDG 8 on decent work and economic growth. The foundation for a peaceful, successful, and sustainable society must include gender equality in addition to being a fundamental human right.
The promotion of laws, policies, budgets, and institutions that advance gender equality is one way to speed up development. Bold action and commitment are also required. Since less than half of the data needed to track Goal 5 are now available, there needs to be more investment in gender statistics.
Focusing on four strategic priorities, equal involvement of men and women in all spheres of life includes:
- In governance systems, men and women lead, take part in, and profit equally.
- Men and women enjoy equal economic freedom, respectable employment, and financial stability.
- Both men and women lead lives free from alltypes of violence.
- Humanitarian aid, natural disaster preparedness, and peacebuilding efforts benefit both men and women equally, with women having a stronger impact on these efforts and contributing more to their overall success.
Gender equality is a fundamental human right. Gender equality that is balanced has significant socioeconomic effects. However, there are still significant gender disparities in every community. The dominant difficulties are a lack of access to adequate job, occupational segregation, gender wage inequalities, and gender-specific problems. Gender equality is also required for access to fundamental services like healthcare and education. There must be no discrimination or violence towards either gender. They must each have an equal voice in political and economic decision-making.
2 Gender Equality and Gender EquityDespite the fact that gender equality is a crucial element of development, Pakistan is now ranked as the second least equitable nation in the world by the Global Gender Gap Index. Although Pakistan's Vision 2025 3 clearly demonstrates attempts to advance gender equality, much more needs to be done to enhance the lives of women and girls throughout the nation.
Through important agreements like the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the United Nations has made tremendous strides in advancing gender equality over a number of decades.
"Gender equality" refers to outcomes that are the same for men, women, and persons of all genders. The method used to promote gender equality is known as "gender equity." Gender equity acknowledges that women and people of colour do not share the same “starting position” as men. This is because of historical and social disadvantages.
Now that we have a fundamental grasp of gender equality, auditors are expected to be ready to undertake a gender equity audit of any organization, from a corporate organization to a government agency and the entire nation. The following would serve as a bare-bones toolkit for the gender audit procedure for the auditors.
3 Gender Audit & Gender Integration FrameworksA qualitative, social audit, gender audits are distinct from financial audits. It serves as a tool to evaluate and monitor how institutionalized gender equality is within organizations, including in their policies, initiatives, projects, and/or service delivery, structures, procedures, and budgets.4
Gender audits give businesses the chance to "put their own houses in order and change organizational culture elements that discriminate against staff based on gender." An organization's gender equality is examined, and the primary gender biases are recognized, through the assessment process known as a "gender audit." An organization's organizational culture and processes, as well as, the staff's perceptions, understanding, and behaviours towards the issue, are all taken into account while conducting a gender audit. Other concerns taken into consideration include the status of gender equality in these areas as well as organizational culture and processes.
By recognizing and comprehending gender trends in an organization's composition, structures, processes, culture, management of human resources, and creation & implementation of policies and services, gender audits help mainstream genders in the workplace. Additionally, they aid in evaluating the effect that organizational performance and management have on gender equality inside the organization. Gender audits highlight significant gender disparities and difficulties and suggest ways to close them through improvements and innovations. They also set a baseline against which progress may be monitored over time.
Although there is no set method for conducting a gender audit, international organizations mostly employ the gender inclusion framework and participatory gender audit.
a The Participatory Gender Audit (PGA)Organizations can reflect on and examine their own gender capabilities, problems, and best practices using the Participatory Gender Audit (PGA) which in itself is a guided self-assessment tool. It is as well a process that promotes organizational learning on gender equality and gender mainstreaming through a participative methodology.
- Participatory research to catalogue the difficulties faced by women.
- An action-based mapping to determine how violations and service deficiencies have impeded the protection of women.
- Analysis and suggestions based on the information presented above to improve knowledge of these concerns.
In order to take gender norms into account and make up for gender-based inequities, procedures called "gender integration" are used in programme assessment, design, implementation, and evaluation. Two dimensions are often present in a gender audit.
- Internal gender audit refers to how a company promotes gender equality within its own structures for management, internal work, and results. The internal gender audit tracks and evaluates the relative progress made in gender mainstreaming, supports organizational learning on gender, builds organizational capacity, and fosters collective organizational responsibility for projects related to gender equality.
- External gender audit evaluates an organization's gender mainstreaming in terms of content, delivery. The assessment is evaluated by an external audit of its policies, programmes, initiatives, and services. External gender audits gauges how well gender integration promotes the participation of and advantages for both men and women who are involved in or impacted by the organization's policies, programmes, initiatives, or services offered.
The next step in a gender audit is to examine how gender is mainstreamed during the project, programme, or policy's implementation phase. In conclusion, a gender audit of the monitoring and evaluation phase looks into whether the targets and indicators take a gender perspective into account in terms of sex-disaggregated data as well as advancements made in the direction of gender equality. This in turn offers reliable information for making decisions that take gender into consideration.
4 Steps of Gender AuditThe gender audit evaluates the impact of gender equality policies and procedures on organizational management and policy changes. A gender audit, therefore, involves a number of procedures.
a Review the organizational readiness to a gender audit.The first stage is to secure the support of top management and the organization as a whole for the principles of gender equality, as well as their technical expertise and competency in gender equality and gender mainstreaming. This could involve getting a basic awareness of gender issues by working with a training module on them, reading up on the relevant literature, and learning about UN initiatives surrounding them. This would also entail enhancing one's ability to comprehend societal difficulties related to gender-sensitive topics.
b Conceptual and methodological framework of the gender auditAdopting a participatory approach is advised to ensure that all pertinent actors' concerns regarding gender-specific issues are taken into account and to get their support for the conduct of the audit. The conceptual framework will be determined by the audit's level and focus (for instance, whether it examines policy and organizations as a whole or just one of them), as well as by the organizational or policy goals for gender equality that are being evaluated. In order to assess the organization's progress towards gender equality and gender mainstreaming and to track the results of internal and/or external efforts the organization has undertaken, the conceptual framework should also include a set of gender indicators. Gender-neutral terminology must be utilized throughout the audit, and it's crucial that the auditors' views and opinions are unbiassed against women.
c Carrying out the audit.Following procedures are used to gather, analyse, and formulate the audit's results during the implementation phase.
i Desk audit and analysis of the organization’s key documents.This could involve data collection about the policy guiding the decisions regarding gender- sensitive issues and the corresponding data that could support the audit findings; consultation through interviews, focus group discussions, self-assessments, surveys, and other channels of consultation. The purpose of consultations will be to gather more evidence and supplement the data gathered during the desk review and analysis.
In order to gather the essential data and actively include internal stakeholders, the gender audit must be meticulously organised. A committed Team that has a solid awareness of gender issues, is impartial towards gender-sensitive topics, and may have a comprehensive understanding of the policies controlling these issues must design and carry out the Gender Audit.
The questions are all-inclusive and are designed to gauge the organization's procedures, policies, plans, and levels of knowledge in relation to gender equality, as well as how well they are understood and implemented.
Before presenting the final report, sharing and debating the key results with the women and men who conducted, performed, and took part in the audit as well as the organization's managers.
After a thorough analysis of the current crucial issues relating to decision-making participation, gender equality processes and practises in recruitment, selection, and career advancement, as well as in research content and study curricula, the qualitative and quantitative audit checklists will be developed.
ii Primary Duties of Gender Audit TeamThese are the primary duties of the Gender Audit Team:
To carry out the gender audit in the capacity of Auditors and to be ready for this particular work by receiving brief training on how to conduct this novel Audit and conduct interviews or lead focus groups. To lead this process within the organisation, it is strongly advised to have some technical support.
To establish a network of Delegates—people chosen by each Department to assist the team members in carrying out the Gender Audit—a clear structure that can facilitate communication and connections with the various Departments regarding the management of the Audit.
Data on gender equality in the organization, both quantitative and qualitative, will be included in the gender audit. Understanding some quantitative data requires the use of qualitative information. At the start of the project, checklists for both quantitative and qualitative audits are created, and as they are used, they are modified.
Data on gender equality in the organization, both quantitative and qualitative, will be included in the gender audit. Understanding some quantitative data requires the use of qualitative information. At the start of the project, checklists for both quantitative and qualitative audits are created, and as they are used, they are modified.
iii Key areasKey areas include
- 1. The political leaders, influential parties, and decision-makers.
- 2. Hiring, career advancement, and retention.
- 3. Integration of personal and professional lives.
- 4. Sexism, gender equality, and perspective on gender.
- 5. Awareness of policies that exclude women
- 6. Information gathering on gender-neutral policy
- 7. utlining the shortcomings of discriminating laws and norms.
- 8. Defining women's collective and individual rights and analysing them.
- 9. Establishing connections between social and economic security that are distinctive to gender; and last but not least
- 10. Government focus on budget and expenditure (Gender Responsive Budget)
Some of the important documents that may serve as guiding principle towards gender auditing in Pakistan include about 90 5 national and provincial laws, including amendments in these or other laws to bring them in conformity with the gender sensitivities and protection of the rights of the women folk in Pakistan at home, workplaces and in provision of livelihood and safety to life and decision making. Similarly, some milestones in gender specific interventions have enabled several visible results and progress made at policy and implementation levels. This includes but is not restricted to the Women's Political Participation Project and reservation of seats for women at local government, Parliamentary and Senate levels, the establishment of a National Commission on the Status of Women, a National Policy for Development and Empowerment of Women, Pakistan's Population Policy, the National Health Policy 2001, Family Protection Project, the Gender Reform Action Plan and the Beijing Plus Twenty-five.
5 ConclusionGender audits can be conducted through a participatory process by ensuring compliance with the Gender Equality and Justice for Life, Resources and Opportunity processes based on the equality of all. It is also emphasized that gender auditing proves to be an innovation that helps us understand the issues surrounding the general environment of gender mainstreaming. This also helps decision makers understand aspects of the issue that are generally outside the political perspective. This could be the beginning of broader implementation of the SDGs. Detailed research is needed that can attempt to document these challenges, with the aim of unlocking opportunities and improving the overall status of implementation and performance for global improvements in gender mainstreaming.
At the planning level, gender audits analyze whether there are gender-specific goals or whether gender is embedded in overall policy objectives to close the gender gap and ensure that women and men are treated equally or warrants that it will be treated accordingly. Gender-specific needs and non-persistence of inequalities. When applied to a strategy, programme, project or service, gender audits begin by examining the extent to which gender equality is embedded in overarching policy goals and priorities, and further by examining the extent to which policy intentions are actually specific. Evaluate how well it translates into initiatives. The ultimate goal of programs, projects and services.
1 A Policy Framework for Women's Equal Rights
2 Swirski, Barbara, what is gender audit
3 https://pakistan.unfpa.org/en/topics/gender-equality-14
4 https://eige.europa.eu/gender-mainstreaming/methods-tools/gender-audit
5 National Commission on the Status of Women (ncsw.gov.pk)