The objective of this toolkit is to provide practical guidance to CDD practitioners in East Asia and the Pacific (EAP) on how to measure the gendered impact of CDD operations. CDD program reviews have found that gender indicators are not widely used. Second, several governments in the EAP Region have identified gender as an important pillar in poverty alleviation strategies, in the light of evidence suggesting that societies promoting more equal opportunities for men and women have higher growth, lower poverty, and better development outcomes.
This toolkit aims to demonstrate that it is straightforward to add gender indicators to a results framework. It involves disaggregating some of the indicators that will already be in the results framework by gender, as well as adding a limited number of specific gender indicators.
The toolkit lists the necessary steps to identify where to track gender in the results framework, as well as suggesting possible indicators. It is organised in three sections:
- Why gender matters for CDD M&E.
- An introduction (and pointers to further reading) on M&E topics that the nonspecialist will find useful when constructing gender indicators. This includes a generic CDD results framework structure that provides convenient categories for incorporating gender M&E indicators.
- Examples of indicators (and other evidence) from the EAP region and illustrates how gender M&E can be added to CDD program results frameworks.
CDD programs tend to face similar issues of whether priority projects are, in fact, priorities for both menand women. This applies if the sector focus is improved services, economic activities, or empowerment. Henceprocess indicators are likely to be common across sectors (although the wording will need to reflect local institutional and political context). In contrast, program output and outcome indicators are more sector-specific.
The intention is to illustrate the types of indicators that can be used. In some cases, program teams will be able to use example indicators directly in their results frameworks; in others, indicators will need to be modified for the specific sector as well as local context. It sets out examples of gender indicators by type of indicator (process, output, and outcome) and sector.
Qualitative research (often associated with focus group discussions) plays an important role in measuring the gendered impact of CDD operations. Rather than producing indicators, its value lies in providing the essential context required to interpret numerical indicators: to explain why values are high or low and how changes have occurred. The combination of quantitative indicators and qualitative, contextual research will produce the most reliable findings.
