Towards a Gender-Transformative Organisation: Toolkit for an assessment of organisational gender policies and practices
We all have a role to play in working towards reaching gender equality and justice, which are fundamental to achieving a just and ecological future for all. By addressing and challenging the root causes of gender inequalities, we collectively take action to build more inclusive, sustainable, and fair societies. By adopting a gender-transformative approach, i.e. an approach which seeks to tackle structural and historical barriers to gender equality, organisations are better able to understand, and address these barriers in order to strengthen their work and to seek gender justice.
This toolkit was developed to support organisations of any type (including for-profits), step-by-step, in their journey towards gender transformation.
It contains a participatory gender self-assessment in 3 stages designed to assess your commitments and practices. It supports the process of self-reflection about how gender-transformative approaches are realised and practised within your own structures and networks. Last, it provides guidelines to take affirmative action through an Organisational Gender Action Plan (OGAP) which can be implemented and measured over time.
On the right hand side, you will find the toolkit in English, Dutch, French and Spanish, as well as their respective annexes, namely Annex 3 (self-assessment survey template) and Annex 4 (OGAP template).
- Annex 3 is a self-assessment survey template you can use to make a written record of the answers. The questions should ideally be answered by a diverse group of staff from the organisation. It deals with issues such as governance, programming, workplace attitudes and practices. These answers can be consulted by a wider group of staff and form the starting point for discussions during the Team Reflection Meeting.
- Annex 4 is a template featuring areas that we think are important to include in an OGAP – for example, organisational policies, HR/staff, and programming – but we emphasise that not all of the areas might be applicable to all organisations. We encourage you to think of the template only as a guideline – please adapt it to suit you. The most important thing is to ensure that it will really be a living and practical document, not one that is consigned to the archives!
