Thoughts about gender-responsive evaluation and ecofeminism

[María Alejandra Lucero Manzano]

Dear collegues,

Hope you are all very well. For those who do not me, I am a YEE from Argentina. I am about to finish my Master in Cooperation for Development and my thesis is about the contributions that the ecofeminist approch could do in gender-responsive evaluation considering the importance of sustainability and environment in the Development Agenda.

The past days I participated in the Global Evaluation Week in Kathmandu and I'm analyzing what has been shared by EvalGender+ but it would be great for my work to count with your opinion!

Below, you will find a series of questions divided in two groups: gener-responsive evaluation and ecofeminsm. The frist part is mainly focused in the opportunities, limitations and challegues that has gender-responsive evaluation. As I told you, this point I have it quite advanced from analysing documents and what has been discussed and shared by EvalGender+. Nevertheless, I would really appreciate your personal opinions about it and just in case I might be missing something important.
The second part, ecofeminism, points to identify those principles that might add a plus to evaluation, especially taking into account the role that sustainability has in the Development Agenda. Even if you do not know about this perspective, it would be great to have preliminary thoughts about the integration of ideas from ecology to gender-responsive evaluations.

Your answers could be in English, Spanish or Portuguese. I will receive your opinions until December 24th

Thanks for your support and please feel free to ask anything or make suggestions!!

Gender in evaluations:

1. In your opinion, which are the 3 most important contributions that the gender approach bring to evaluation?

2. Which are the main three limitations?

3. Which challenges does it face nowadays?

4. Which role EvalGender+ has in the actual context of opportunities, limitations and challenges?

Ecofeminist approach:

1. From the main principles of ecofeminism, which ones do you believe that could make an improvement in the quality and use of evaluations? Which aspects/principles/ideas/considerations would you take in an evaluation proposal?

2. There are different visions inside the ecofeminist approach regarding the role of women in society and within their relationship with environment, how do you this could be applied in evaluation, especially considering equality principles?

3. Which could be the obstacles that ecofeminism could face in the evaluation field?

[Ranjani K.Murthy]

Dear Maria 

Gender-approach (transformative one) brings the issue of equity, justice, and inter-generational sustainability to the center of evaluation.  At times gender responsive evaluations are not transformative, and may just see impact in terms of access (not control), drudgery reduction (not sharing) or representation (not decision making). Women may be in evaluation team in tokenist manner.  Several governments and donors are yet to integrate gender transformative evaluations. 

Ecofeminists have a larger picture of development paradigms that do not harm nature and environment, and see exploitation of marginalised women and nature as interconnected. A development paradigm that looks at sustainable development for women and next generation is central to eco feminists. In principle, gender transformative evaluations and eco feminist evaluation go hand in hand.  However, in reality most evaluations are not concerned with development paradigms. Neo liberal development and unfettered markets are taken as given.

You have hit on the heart of the matter: development and gender-transformative evaluations have to be located within a eco-feminist paradigm which puts marginalised people, women and producer/worker led development (neither state nor markets) at the center.  Evaluations should strengthen equitable producer companies, cooperatives, trade unions, and development of viable alternative development paradigm.  They should not be an end to themselves.

Best

ranjani 

[Rukmini Panda]

Dear Maria

Gender approach in evaluation brings important contributions in terms of recognizing the agency of women, recognizing the power structure and questioning these powers. It is embedded  with equity and justice. 

The challenges in integrating gender approach may be the lack of acceptance to it at all spaces.

When talking about eco-feminism, it would be good to highlight the role of women as home based small producers.

Thanks & Regards,

Rukmini