Fazilat Matchanova
This essay serves as an introduction to the special issue on gender in management and impact evaluation. We highlight the consequences for effectively addressing gender relations, the rights of women, and LGBTQI+ individuals as well as the lack of gender-responsive techniques in conventional impact assessment practice and management. We also introduce the special issue, which highlights impact assessment's shortcomings while also showing that doable ways to further integrate gender-responsive techniques exist. Collectively, a key claim made in the contributions is that gender-neutral methods of impact assessment and management may actually worsen existing gender discrimination or even create new forms of it. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and international human rights law, which are based on the core values of non-discrimination, substantive equality, and gender equality, and ‘leaving no one behind’. Four themes for more gender-responsive impact assessment and management are highlighted: (1) gender-responsive context analysis; (2) gender-responsive engagement and increased participation of women and LGBTQI+ people; (3) adaptation of tools, methods, and skills for enhanced gender responsiveness; and (4) embedding gender-responsive approaches from the project level to the governance sphere. Without presuming transferability across contexts, the contributions show that such strategies are necessary and possible in diverse global settings.
