Gender Mainstreaming Assessment

Gender mainstreaming assessment, operationalised most concretely as gender impact assessment (GIA), is the method used to put into practice the strategy of gender mainstreaming defined by the UN Economic and Social Council in 1997: assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action — legislation, policies, or programmes — in all areas and at all levels, so that gender equality becomes an integral dimension of policy design rather than an afterthought. As a method it screens a proposed policy for gender relevance, gathers sex-disaggregated evidence, evaluates how the policy will affect women and men differently, and recommends adjustments, with monitoring built in.