Evaluation of Gender Mainstreaming

Abstract

The new policy strategy of ‘gender mainstreaming’ poses particular challenges for the evaluation of public gender-equality policies. To elaborate on this issue, a first step is to analyse the evaluation of those public gender-equality policies that have formally adopted the gender mainstreaming strategy. In this article, results are summarized from a meta-evaluation of 11 evaluation processes of gender-equality plans implemented between 1995 and 1999, both at regional and national levels in Spain. This meta-evaluation focused on analysing the evaluation processes rather than the outcomes of those evaluations. First, the different types of evaluation carried out in the 11 studies are discussed. Second, some contextual factors are identified as influencing elements in the evaluations. Third, some conclusions and lessons learnt are presented, using the framework provided by the meta-evaluation criteria previously established. Finally, taking into account those lessons, a discussion of the evaluation of gender mainstreaming is presented, elaborating on the ways in which gender mainstreaming strategies and gender perspective can be evaluated and which should be used to conduct useful evaluations.