Framework for Conducting Gender Responsive Analysis

A methodology developed by the IUCN GGO to help implement a gender-responsive analysis for a wide range of partner institutions. Key questions are provided to uncover gender gaps and issues at local, institutional and national levels, as well as gendered differences in the distribution of benefits, risks and opportunities.

A gender-based analysis team must:

• Be aware of the fact that gender construction, and thus, the relations established between women and men, have a historical-cultural character, and are specified through processes associated to particular territories, such as the systems related to production and symbolic and daily appropriation of nature and the environment.

• Conduct the analysis with a clear understanding and expectation of working from a gender perspective from a strategic, collective, and individual point of view. This implies visualization about existing differences between women and men regarding the access, information, control, and distribution of the benefits derived from the resources, based on their own perceptions and assessments about prevailing differences and inequalities. It also implies making visible and recognizing, within a given community, who does what type of work, the levels of participation, existing social systems, the patterns about the use of time, and power relations.

• Obtain accurate information about the social, cultural, environmental, and productive conditions. This information should be acquired through participatory observation techniques, to learn about the working context. The ideal participants would be people with working experience in the region.

• Ensure the adequate time and space needed to conduct the analysis. It is extremely hard to become acquainted with a community’s realities in a short period of time. Moreover, the availability and pace of the participating women and men should also be identified and considered.