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Appraisal of the project plan

  Checklist of gender equality questions for project plan appraisers

  
     
     
AIM:  You learn to check gender perspective in project plans that have been drawn up.

BASIC CONCEPTS: Gender roles, indicators

Appraisal of the plan helps to check also  the gender perspective

An important stage in the project cycle is the appraisal of the project plan before its implementation. Appraising the project plan help you to examine the project’s feasibility and the risks that are involved. If the plans have to be changed it is still easy to do so at the appraisal stage. With regard to gender perspective in plan appraisal, it is important to remember that it is not enough to just look at technical feasibility or measure cost-benefit ratios: the appraisal must also deal with the project’s social and strategic effects and implications. How can the project help to reduce the inequalities between women and men? How can it improve the lower status of women? Appraising project plans also enables you to make changes in those projects whose implementation would have negative effects on the lives of women or men in the community. 

Very often the project plans of NGOs are not assessed by outside appraisal teams because of lack of resources. Some NGOs nevertheless arrange for their plans to be appraised by another organisation or someone with specialist knowledge. Think about whether your own organisation knows another organisation with similar interests, or an organisation in the South with knowledge about your project area and/or themes, or any other organisation that could appraise the project plan you have drawn up. One possibility with regard to gender perspective could be to recruit a representative of one of the local women’s organisations in your project who knows about gender equality issues to help in appraising the plan. Women’s organisations often possess wide experience and understanding of gender equality issues in their countries. Or could there be somebody who knows about gender equality matters in the local university who would be able to help? 

Of course you can also appraise the project plan yourself. You can audit the inclusion of gender equality issues and aspects in the project plan with the help of the following checklist:

Checklist of gender equality questions for project plan appraisers 

What gender perspectives are there in the contents of the project? Have they been taken into account in the project plan? Are they clearly written down in the project plan? 

Has the participation of the main groups of people that will be affected by the project been ensured? Has attention been paid to gender roles? 

Are the situations of men and women clearly and separately specified in the background information and justification of the project? 

Are women and men clearly and separately specified as beneficiaries and participants in the project?

Have both women and men been considered in determining the objective and results of the project? 

Will both women and men participate in the project aims and activities? Has particular attention been paid to the participation of women? In some cases, for example in health and reproductive health projects, it may also be necessary to take extra care that men participate.) 

Have gender-disaggregated indicators been drawn up for use in monitoring and evaluation such that they can be used to follow the participation of women and men in the project and its results? 

Are the objective and expected results of the project clearly linked with cost budgets? Have separate resources been reserved and earmarked for the participation of women? 

Has attention been paid to gender equality issues in the job descriptions and remunerations of project workers, outside consultants and appraisers?

>>> Project finance

23.04.2004