The Gender Lens: A Necessary Shift in Perspective for Development and Evaluation

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Dugan Fraser

[00:00:32]

My name is Dugan Fraser. I'm the Program Manager of the Global Evaluation Initiative, and I'm delighted to have this conversation with Elena. Elena. Correct. And before we go any further, I just want to introduce the, I just want to explain the title of the session a little bit.

As I think most of you know, the Global Evaluation Initiative is concerned with strengthening country-level monitoring and evaluation systems. And we think of this as future-proofing these systems. And we want to be very mindful of what the demands of these systems are going to be in the future and how they need to deliver information that is useful, reliable, and accurate. And we want to make the argument that focusing on gender is one of the best ways of doing this. And so we're going to have a discussion. We're going to have this discussion, and hopefully we'll convince you.

And so to get into it, Elena, you've done a lot of evaluations at the IEG or participated in many. Why do you think it's important to focus on gender when we're talking about sustainable development? What does using a gender lens offer if you're trying to understand how well we're doing as we work towards achieving sustainable development?

Elena Bardasi

[00:01:57]

Thank you, Dugan, and thank you for hosting this important conversation. Well, you know, we always say, you know, gender is a cross-cutting issue. We want to treat it as a cross-cutting issue. And indeed, it is a cross-cutting issue. But when you start thinking about gender, in my mind, you immediately realize and you are immediately forced to take the perspective of the beneficiaries, not of the intervention.

And this is very important in every sector. It's important everywhere. It's inevitable. This means that we need really to push ourselves to asking the question of whose needs are we fulfilling? And we need to recognize that the systemic differences based on gender, which arise from imbalances of power, arises from, imbalances in you know, in power and the symmetries and roles and in cultural norms and we need to consider all this so immediately it's a very challenging enterprise.

We also need to consider other inequalities that intersect with gender, what we call intersectionality, and appreciating this perspective immediately tells us why this is a central question because if we don't understand all this it's very, very hard to do even sectoral intervention that are really effective in fulfilling the roles of those.

Sometimes these interventions cause also unintended impacts, like it was the case of for example, the Uganda transport project,¹ the famous one that forces the institution of putting in place a policy on the social exploitation and sexual harassment, which is now part of our safeguards, right? Uh, so that's uh, that's definitely something that, if one can anticipate, this type of perspective can actually be much more effective in obtaining results at the on the ground.

But I'm also interested in your opinion, you know why do you think it's important coming from where you come from?

Dugan Fraser

[00:04:21]

I think that when you work in monitoring and evaluation, there's a real temptation to start to operate in an abstracted realm. A theoretical zone where you talk about things detached from their real-life experience, and when you talk about gender as you say, I think you're forced to reposition yourself in the system and you start, you're forced to really grapple with what's really going on.

And when you integrate gender into an actual monitoring and evaluation system, I think it forces the practitioners, and the stakeholders, and the participants to start understanding what real-life is like, and what does it mean to be talking about things as you say, through the eye of the program participant, the people who are actually involved in the program.

And I, for me and the people on the who work on the Global Evaluation Initiative, taking a gender lens is a way of ensuring that monitoring and evaluation systems are real, that they talk to genuine concerns and don't allow themselves to just drift off into that results-based management discourse of indicators and outcomes, and talking about causal pathways. And I think that it's also a way of bringing a dynamism and an energy into these conversations, which otherwise can seem really dull.

But when you involve struggle and people's efforts to improve their lives, and women have done that so incredibly successfully. Understanding that it's back and forth, but we get a real energy you know, we get so much from involving gender in the way we understand our work when you're bouncing back to me now, uh, shamelessly.

When you think about the evaluations that you see being done at the IEG and you've done many, you've been involved in many, either as an evaluator yourself or as somebody who's been involved in this work what have you concluded about what the bank is doing well in its gender programming and where do you think it needs to improve?

Elena Bardasi

[00:06:38]

Yeah, I mean, I must say, I've been doing gender at the bank for a long time I might try 15 years perhaps maybe. Even more comes and goes, yes, so I've seen a tremendous amount of work done at the bank and increase in attention um over time, so definitely this is uh very reassuring. It happens much more frequently, nobody has to explain why it's important.

I think that this is this has been this is important that's a major game-changer necessary first right the awareness that therefore is very much increased and this is a point that also midterm review of the gender strategy that I did in 2021 stressed right there has been a clearly an increase in the uh uptake of this as a start. It's definitely a strategic concern yes absolutely.

And also the instrument the training the skills are much more diffused within the institution we also have this conversation with staff and we notice that in the various global practices there are really uh different practices that are really different in the global practices there are really different practices that are really different practices people that are not only committed but they also know and put a lot of efforts in their own especially in advancing the discussion on gender.

The project designs also have improved and this is something that we have noticed in the recent gender in FCD evaluation, that we've done, we saw that there are more and more transformational elements that get integrated into the design, meaning we saw that there are more and more transformational elements that get integrated into the design, meaning of really looking deeper at some of the root causes of gender inequality that needs to be explicitly addressed.

So, there are examples to work with men who are boys, to work with religious leaders, and we see this happening, more and more, which is quite new. I mean, it didn't happen earlier. The areas that I would say, remain problematic is, of course, what happens in the implementation. This sometimes break breaks down, we don't have a good system in really knowing what happens in implementation in a very systematic way.

The results of course are also problematic. We observe you were talking about indicators yes it's not only about indicators but it's also about indicators for monitoring and for evaluation and we always struggle in you know discerning what is the evidence that is there in order to suggest what the results are.

This is a big question: what are we achieving? And this is something that we are actually trying to do in this evaluation, that it's ongoing, on evaluating how the bank is doing delivering on this so a lot of this you know shadow but light as well to I like also the positive of course.

But you know one thing that is interesting you were talking about the country system before and you know we use data from very different sources in some case uh project data or it could be more administrative data sometimes, so I was wondering you know if you look at systematic systematically at the country system levels, do you see some gaps or what are the type of gaps you're talking about and what are some of the gaps there? What are some that you think or your clients pointed to in this framework of the company system?

Dugan Fraser

[00:10:32]

I think with so many of these special areas, these strategic cross-cutting but highly important topics, as you say, over the last 10 or so years, there has become a focus on gathering data and there's been a greater awareness of the importance of having these conversations.

But I think the general critique, which came up in our conversation yesterday about environmental and sustainability questions, is there's not enough use made of this data. And I think that while data availability and data quality could all be improved, more important, I think, is the fact that we need a strong, clear policy agenda that makes it explicit how we're going to use this data and how gender equality is going to be achieved and what role evaluative evidence plays in making those policies more implementable.

And these, of course, are essentially political questions. And these are essentially questions around our political parties and people who play a role in governance authentically committed to change. And so this question of transformation is really a key one because it comes up in the climate, it comes up in the climate conversation, it comes up in gender, and it means that we have to start really getting our heads around change on a really fundamental basis. And I don't know if we're really ready.

I know for myself, I'm daunted by change. It's very scary, it's very tiring, and it's something I think we have to really wrap our heads around. But I want to go a bit deeper in one of the things you asked about, which relates to the banks, gender strategy. And when we talk about it outside of the World Bank Group, one of the big critiques that gets leveled is that the bank doesn't name patriarchy. It doesn't name a number of the things that are underlying the situation that needs to be addressed and that the bank doesn't speak of feminism.

Do you think that naming patriarchy and putting feminism more clearly in the bank's strategic frame would be valuable?

Elena Bardasi

[00:12:59]

Yeah, I mean, this is a very big question. And I believe that, I mean, you're correct. You don't find much discussion about these topics. You know, patriarchy, feminism, this language is a little bit absent, is absent.

We're a bank. Yes, yes, yes, we are a bank. At the same time though, I kind of, I don't know. I have realized that the bank has made de facto steps in some interesting directions. For example, we talk about GBV in the bank. This was not the case, let's say, eight years ago, perhaps 10 years ago.

We have introduced, and it's going to be reflected in the new strategy, the sexual orientation and gender identity agenda that is going to be integrated. This is also relatively recent. And I remember the discussion during the WDR 2012. So we are 10 years ago. There was at some point a question, should we talk about gender identity? And it was, no, no, no, no, no.

It was really very, very difficult and making people uncomfortable at that time. So I recognized that the bank de facto is trying to do steps in this direction. Does it mean, you know, do you want to avoid sexism? Name it feminism? Does it name it patriarchy? Does it have an explicit framework? No, for sure. But perhaps our clients are also the ones that are very eager to hear more of the, you know, why is it good for them and for their economy, for their society? So maybe there is also playing this other angle a little bit more safe. Interesting.

But I know that you have in GEI Canada as a learner that is actually pushing for a feminist angle approach to evaluation kind of a system. So what do you think about it? How do you deal with it?

Dugan Fraser

[00:15:03]

Yeah. So, the Global Affairs Canada is an investor in the Global Evaluation Initiative. And through our relationship with them, we are prioritizing work. We're calling it feminist innovations in monitoring and evaluation. My understanding is that from the Canadian  perspective, they think that, you know, there's a lot of work that needs to be done to make sure that the world is safe, that one of the most effective ways of building a prosperous, safe, inclusive world is to focus on empowering girls and women, and to be essentially working for gender equality.

And I think there's a beautiful logic that we can really get behind around that. And some of the things we're doing as part of this project is to very explicitly focus on exactly what's happening.

We are kicking off with some research. We're doing a lot of research into what current practices are around gender, and how it gets treated in national monitoring and evaluation systems, and efforts to strengthen them.

So we'll be doing an exercise talking to our partners about what are you doing about gender? How are you integrating it into your work? And then based on that understanding, we'll be in a better position to be suggesting ways to them of making gender a bigger component of their work.

But it's definitely a lot of work. It's definitely a journey. And it's definitely one we're looking for co-travelers on. And we are very pleased that we've got the relationship with the gender practitioners in the IEG. And we're looking forward to making this something other people can get behind and get on board with.

When you think about what the GEI should be doing, and you think about how we'll be going about building the capacity in countries to do this work better, what do you think are priorities that we should be bearing in mind?

Elena Bardasi

[00:17:00]

Yeah, very quickly. You touched upon something like that before, when you said we need to promote the use of data. I would argue that even in terms of availability of data, even sex disaggregated data, there is work to do, because these data are not always available.

I was reading in a recent report that is very interesting and recommended by Data2x, which is a CSO working on the quality and availability to improve the quality and availability of gender data in general, that many SDGs don't have sex disaggregated data, even if gender is essentially integrated in all the SDGs. And in some cases, the indicators are totally absent. One in one third of the cases. Right. This is absent. So there is a lot of work to do at that level.

And then, of course, at the level of use, you are correct. And we saw in the recent pandemic how important it is to have this system updated in real-time and ready to understand the situation in health, in education, in the labor market, in GBV, in care. So a lot of important areas that we need to keep running.

So I think there's really a lot of good work that you can be doing. But there is demand. Do you think that the countries have this demand and this awareness of the importance of this data?

Dugan Fraser

[00:18:34]

I think they do. I think it's growing. I think, as you say, it's been I think it's been a remarkable achievement over the last 15 years of the global evaluation and development community to really take up gender. I mean, I think sometimes it gets taken up. I think it's a topic that everybody can support and that's not seen as too disruptive.

But I think that sometimes one can take advantage of that energy and use it as a way of initiating things that are deeply transformative.

 

¹ In December 2015, the World Bank announced the cancellation of funding to the Uganda Transport Sector Development Project (TSDP) due to contractual breaches related to workers' issues, social and environmental concerns, poor project performance, and serious allegations of sexual misconduct and abuse by contractors.