Mainstream/IntegrationPo-tay-to/Po-tah-to

Maryce Ramsey, Senior Gender Advisor, FHI 360

June 16, 2014

Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)

“Process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies or programmes, in all areas and at all levels. It is a strategy for making women's as well as men's concerns and experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres so that women and men benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated. The ultimate goal is to achieve gender equality.”

InterAction’s Gender Integration Framework “…transformation can only occur when four organizational dimensions are ready for gender integration. These four elements are political will, technical capacity, accountability, and organizational culture…”

Interagency Gender Working Group (IGWG)

– Gender Integration refers to strategies applied in programmatic design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation to take gender considerations into account and to compensate for gender-based inequalities.

– Gender Mainstreaming is the process of incorporating a gender perspective into organizational policies, strategies, and administrative functions, as well as into the institutional culture of an organization. This process at the organizational level ideally results in meaningful gender integration as outlined above.

What Mainstreaming and Integration Definitions Have in Common:

• A programmatic dimension which in externally focused. It includes an organization’s tools, programs, approaches. What we do out there. The answer to the question of what do we do?

• An organizational dimension which is internally focused. It includes an organization’s structure, policies, administrative functions like HR and finance. And answers questions like “Who are we?” “Why do we do what we do?” “What do we value?” or we can sum it up in “Do we walk the walk?”

Mainstreaming’s Affect on Integration: Gender Analysis Examples

• Political will

• Accountability

• Organizational culture

• Gender expertise

• HR policies

• Financing