Posted from Evaluating gender mainstreaming vs. evaluating gender-transformative change (comminit.com)

Gender mainstreaming means integrating a gender equality perspective at all stages and levels of policies, programmes, and projects. Women and men have different needs and living conditions and circumstances, including unequal access to and control over…

Since the popularity emergence of gender and development approach in the late 1980s, there have been debates on where and how to locate gender equality in evaluations.

At one end, most multi-lateral development banks do not have a separate evaluation criterion on gender equality. The focus is on relevance, effectiveness,…

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/looking-back-ahead-reflections-three-decades-gender-ranjani-k-murthy-ca3xc

Looking back and looking ahead: Reflections on three decades of gender and development…

The CGIAR's Reach Benefit Empowerment and Transformation (RBET) distinguishes between approaches "that reach women participants, such as by including them in program activities; those that benefit women, by improving their circumstances in some way; those…

Increasingly there is focus on "women" and "men" as analytical categories in gender transformative evaluations. This is necessary, but is it adequate?  The answer is "No" 

Women are far from uniform. One woman may progress at the expense of the other, like in the case of women from small farming household receiving support for mechanized harvesters which displace women form households without land. 

While the project may be with regard to agriculture, unless she has access to…

Cross posted (1) A fine balance: Balancing what is possible vs what we want achieved | LinkedIn…

Universal Progress Reviews, BRICS and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights | by Ranjani K Murthy | Dec, 2022 | Medium…

Addressing%20intersectionality%20in%20evaluations.pptx

This presentation of Ranjani K Murthy with Children Believe India in Evaluation Conclave 2022 argues that intersectionality needs to move beyond being a buzz word in evaluations; and be…

Since the 1990s, development is measured not just by economic growth, but also human development index, gender development index, gender empowerment measure, gender inequality index, global gender gap index and so on. However discrimination in its various forms continues, and apart from economic and gender discrimination few measure of other forms of…

Ranjani K Murthy

Examining the SDG 5 tracker (https://sdg-tracker.org/gender-equality#targets) after a field visit and interviews with women/girls and men/boys from economically and socially discriminated groups in the states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, India, I felt the urgent need for strengthening monitoring mechanisms for tracking SDG 5 from a gender and intersectionality lens- without which it…

In an earlier blog (https://gendereval.ning.com/profiles/blogs/from-gender-and-development-to-gender-intersectionality-rights), I argued the need to shift from gender and development (GAD) to gender, intersectionality, rights and development (GIRD) approach if SDG5 are to be achieved by 2030, and if the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against…

The prelude: Gender and development approach

Gender and Development emerged as an approach to examine and address women’s development in the late 1980s.  In her seminal article Gender Planning in the Third World, Caroline Moser[1] argued that the Gender and Development approach (GAD) approach conceptualised that women were not the problem, but the socially constructed…

Gender transformative evaluations: Negotiating power, intersectionalities, contexts, and accountability

Ranjani K Murthy, Anweshaa Ghosh and Ayesha Dutta, 2021

Abstract

Development evaluations take place within social hierarchies and can both reflect and challenge these hierarchies. In this discussion paper the authors reflect on their experiences in facilitating gender transformative…

Ranjani K Murthy, Vasantha R., Assumpta P., Gilbert Rodrigo and monitoring team, 2021

The grassroots NGO Gandhian Unit for Integrated Development Education (GUIDE)- a women’s rights organisation with vision of empowering women- received support from Women Fund Asia for facilitating a study on monitoring progress on Beijing+25 in two southern states Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. The monitoring process was both desk/statistics based and based on marginalised women’s monitoring of progress…

During COVID-19 I was involved in three evaluations, one in South India (face to face) and one additionally covering parts of north- west India (online).   The evaluations were of projects/programs on livelihood development and women's economic empowerment. These were carried out in the first phase of COVID-19 which was not so severe. 

The lessons on challenges posed by gender and diversity in face to face interactions during evaluations during COVID-19 were the…

• Ranjani K Murthy with Arogya Agam

Photo credit: Arogya Agam

This case study from an evaluation with highlights the complexity of women's empowerment. Researchers distinguish between individual (power to), interpersonal, collective agency (power with) and attitudinal change (power within) towards structural…

1.0 Context:   Dalit women are discriminated against by intersections of caste, class and gender. Amongst Dalit women in Tamil Nadu, Arunthathiyars (AR) are the most exploited and steeped in poverty. Arunthathiyar women and men have no agriculture land, own limited livestock, are typically underemployed, and…

Recently I was asked whether I would evaluation a programme in multiple states of India which was framed in pre COVID 19 times.  The criteria suggested was the DAC criteria - relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and others (includes gender equality, sustainability, innovation).

To me it seemed important to add another criterion- resilience.  How far had the programme strengthened resilience to such medical disasters and its consequences for migrants and informal sector?  To me…