1. Gender Equality in Your Own Backyard
CARE Canada’s experience with gender audits

2. Warm up questions What is a gender audit? Why do a gender audit?
What is actually audited?
Why do a gender audit?
Ask yourself and your team these questions before beginning a gender audit.

3. CARE Canada’s rationale for a gender audit
Sustainable development results.
A baseline to report progress against the CARE International gender policy.
Organizations that are more gender equal tend to make greater profits and are better able to capture desired market share.
Vision 2020 places gender equality at the heart of CARE’s work.
Donors increasingly require gender equal organizational practices as a funding requirement.  
Value add and niche in a competitive market.
There were six strong reasons to embark on a gender audit at CARE Canada. The can be summed up as follows.
Studies show that the more gender equal an international development organization is in its internal structures and systems, the more sustainable its gender equality results will be in its programs and projects.
CARE Canada is committed to reaching the goals of the CARE International gender policy, and needed a baseline from which to measure progress towards those goals.
Performing an audit provides CARE Canada with the information it needs to articulate its current capacity in this area, in order to demonstrate capacity to donors.

4. Scope of CARE Canada’s audit
Short, participatory, cost effective, internal.
Measures our work against the gender policy.
Internal to CARE Canada and what is in its control.
Did not look at COs, CI or programming.
No benchmarking.
The audit was meant to be a very tight, quick and participatory study looking only at CARE Canada’s internal organizational culture. Why?
This forces CARE Canada to look at gender gaps that are directly within its control (rather than getting caught up in gender gaps created through CARE Canada’s relationships with CARE International, country offices or other parties). With this focus, CARE Canada must take responsibility for its own strengths and weaknesses.
This was the fastest and most cost effective method to generate baseline information against the gender policy.
The audit method was meant to be highly participatory and generate buy in because, at the time, most CARE staff had not had a lot of exposure to gender equality as a general topic.

5. Survey method used
Step 1: Develop and administer a quantitative and qualitative, anonymous, online structured survey. Step 2: Hold one- to two-hour focus group discussions (FGDs) with unit staff, divided by gender and job position as relevant. Guide discussions through structured and semi-structured questionnaires, depending on the unit and the topic. Step 3: Hold one-on-one sessions with senior leaders and with remote staff. Guide these sessions with structured and semi-structured questionnaires, depending on the staff member and the topic. Step 4: Administer competency testing to key technical staff in International Programs (IP). Step 5: Undertake a text analysis of a random selection of CARE Canada media. Step 6: Develop an analytical framework, triangulate and analyse data, and draft the results report. Step 7: Present Health Check findings to the senior management team (SMT) and the CCGC. Broad base the findings among all staff. Step 8: Use participatory processes with this group and with staff at large to formulate final recommendations for the report and to update CARE Canada’s gender action plan.
This method allowed for:
A high degree of participation. Over 65% of staff participated in the online survey and 83% of women and 100% of men participated in the focus group discussions.
Triangulation. Quantitative data and qualitative data supported each other.
Ownership of the final findings by the executive office.

6. Gender integration framework
organizational culture
accountability
technical capacity
The CARE Canada gender audit used three analytical frameworks to draw conclusions from its findings. Some findings were analyzed using more than one framework. Each framework was applied to multiple topics. The decision on which framework to use at which time depended on the types of trends and relations present in the data and on the gender equality knowledge of the audience of particular sections.
The three frameworks were:
The Gender Integration Framework from Action Aid (shown above).
The Gender at Work framework, and
The Gender Continuum.
The gender integration framework was modified from its original form based on the experiences that multiple Canadian international cooperation organizations have had using this framework. This framework was used to organize the findings, structure the report and demonstrate broad systematic trends at CARE Canada.
political will

7. Women and Men’s Consciousness Internal Culture and Deep Structure
Four quadrants model
Individual Change
Systemic Change
Informal
Formal
Women and Men’s Consciousness
Staff knowledge of and commitment to gender equality
Commitment of the leadership
Capacity for dialogue and conflict management
Formal Rules, Policies
Mission includes gender equality
Policies for anti-harassment, work and family arrangements, fair employment, etc.
Accountability mechanisms that hold the organization accountable to women clients
Internal Culture and Deep Structure
Acceptance of women’s leadership
Organizational ownership of gender issues
Acceptance of needed work-family adjustments
Women’s issues firmly on the agenda
Access to Resources
Budget and other resources devoted to projects to advance equality
Number of women in leadership positions
Freedom from fear of harassment or violence
Gender At Work’s four quadrants model is a powerful analytic tool because it allows sometimes invisible gender relations and biases that are deeply embedded in our cultures to be surfaced and articulated clearly. This framework was used to demonstrate how sometimes unconscious gender biases or gendered actions create inequalities in the workplace.

8. Gender continuum
The gender continuum was used to evaluate the strength of CARE Canada’s policies and media, among other content.

9. If we did it again, we’d…
Do it the same
Do it differently
Provide a variety of means for all staff to have a say.
Keep it simple.
Engage the ELT at key stages.
Use a variety of methods to triangulate and test data against standard international frameworks.
Present the findings within a broader context.  
Use an external consultant for some pieces of work.
Engage a wider variety of advisors, and more male advisors, from the start.
Engage the board of directors more directly.
Designate a secondary reader and editor with gender equality expertise to assist with publication.
There were advantages to conducting a short, participatory audit. Staff evinced a high level of buy-in, and senior management took the recommendations of the audit on board using CARE’s pre-existing governance system.
At the same time, a second audit may want to use external assistance and to include a broader variety of internal stakeholders in advisory positions in order to:
Be able to speak more openly and objectively about hidden biases or risky biases at the senior management and executive levels.
Ensure that men’s participation is equal to women’s.
Engage the board from the beginning.

10. What action has CARE Canada taken after the audit?
SMT accepted audit.
Plan created to disseminate messages about audit to staff and to engage Board.
83% of audit recommendations incorporated into FY 14 AOPs for different units.
EO now taking the lead for implementing the recommendations and taking the work forward.
The senior management team accepted the audit in January, The executive office took on responsibility for next dissemination steps and for ensuring that audit recommendations are integrated into FY 2014 planning and budgets. Staff has yet to be brought into the conversation about next steps, but plans are underway for this in the EO.

11. Thank You!
July 21, 2019