‘Toward Gender Equality in Europe and Eurasia: A Toolkit for Analysis’, has been prepared to provide USAID Mission staff working in the E&E region with a resource for conducting gender analysis in the context of project design. It is intended as a tool to assist in implementing USAID policy on promoting gender equality and female empowerment. The Toolkit provides an overview of the relevance of gender analysis to USAID development goals and uses the Six Domains Framework as a sample gender analysis methodology. The general introduction is followed by 16 guidance notes that provide detailed information about gender in a variety of sectors in the fields of democracy and governance, economic growth, social transition, health, energy, and the environment in the E&E region as well as information on vulnerable groups such as children living outside of parental care, people with disabilities, and victims of human trafficking.
Toolkit Purpose
- This Toolkit has been prepared to provide USAID Mission staff working in the E&E region with a resource for conducting gender analysis in the context of project design. The Toolkit builds upon and supplements earlier initiatives, and provides concrete guidance and recommendations to assist in meeting USAID gender integration requirements. It is intended as a tool for USAID Mission and USAID/ Washington personnel, particularly Gender Advisors/points of contact and project design team members, to assist in implementing USAID policy on promoting gender equality and female empowerment.
- The creation of this Toolkit was motivated by a desire to respond to a very real need observed among USAID Mission staff and USAID/ Washington personnel—the need for concrete tools and resources that can be used to translate Agency policy on gender integration into the nuts and bolts of day-to-day development work. While conducting country-level gender analyses in the context of USAID Mission strategic planning in 2010–12, the E&E Bureau’s Gender Advisor met with Mission staff in numerous Missions and identified a common concern. Although there is widespread awareness in the E&E region of gender analysis requirements and a willingness to carry them out, a great many staff members also expressed doubts that they had the necessary knowledge, skills, and capacity to conduct this analysis.
Sections
The Toolkit is divided into four sections.
- Section 1 presents a brief overview of gender issues in the E&E region and the purpose of the Toolkit.
- Section 2 reviews USAID requirements on gender integration and gender analysis and discusses why gender analysis is relevant to USAID’s development goals.
- Section 3 explains the purposes of gender analysis and introduces a theoretical framework for conducting gender analysis.
- Section 4 is the heart of the Toolkit and presents a practical approach and concrete tools for integrating gender at the project level. As described above, this section includes the guidance notes on how to conduct gender analysis in the areas that are currently most relevant to USAID activities in the E&E region. Each of the 16 guidance notes can also serve as a stand-alone resource.