Evidence, tools, and learning materials for institutions working to strengthen gender equality, social inclusion, feminist MEL, and implementation.
What to Know about Gender Marker
Gender markers allow institutions to evaluate the extent to which gender equality is integrated into policies, programs, or investments.
This guide details the aspects measured by gender markers, distinctions among scoring systems, the types of evidence needed for credible ratings, and why gender markers are not substitutes for monitoring, evaluation, or accountability.
Why Gender Matters in Policy
Gender influences the formulation of policy problems, the selection of policy options, and the resulting outcomes.
Policies have differential impacts across populations. Gender affects individuals’ access to resources, public services, decision-making processes, safety, and economic opportunities. When policymakers fail to consider these differences, ostensibly neutral policies may perpetuate existing inequalities.
This resource explains the importance of gender analysis, identifies key areas for policymakers to examine, and demonstrates how gender-related evidence can enhance policy design, financing, implementation, and accountability.
What Multi-Country Research Teaches Us
Key lessons from field research
Conducting research across multiple countries requires more than replicating methodologies in different locations. Research questions must remain comparable while also adapting to variations in language, institutional structures, power dynamics, safeguarding risks, and local contexts.
Based on ThrivBold’s field experience, this note examines how leveraging local expertise, employing adaptable research protocols, maintaining continuous quality assurance, and conducting cross-country analysis can generate evidence that is both comparable and contextually credible.
This approach produces insights that are meaningful, actionable, and responsive to diverse contexts, thereby supporting more effective and inclusive policy interventions.
Guidance on Participatory Approaches
Advancing Participation from Consultation to Influence
Participatory approaches acknowledge that individuals affected by a policy, program, or research process possess essential knowledge regarding the practical operation of systems. However, participation is not inherently meaningful solely because individuals were consulted.
This guidance outlines strategies for institutional involvement of participants in defining research questions, generating evidence, interpreting findings, and shaping recommendations. It further addresses issues of representation, safeguarding, compensation, knowledge ownership, and the capacity to influence final decisions.
