Performance Goal Statement: By September 30, 2017, as a part of implementing the Gender Equality and Female Empowerment Policy, at least 60 percent of USAID's operating units will measure and report their gender integration results, and USAID will reduce the gap between male and female participation across 60 percent of food security programming areas.
Performance Goal Overview
The Presidential Memorandum “Coordination of Policies and Programs to Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women and Girls Globally,” issued on January 30, 2013, states that “Promoting gender equality and advancing the status of all women and girls around the world remains one of the greatest unmet challenges of our time, and one that is vital to achieving our overall foreign policy objectives. Ensuring that women and girls, including those most marginalized, are able to participate fully in public life, are free from violence, and have equal access to education, economic opportunity, and health care increases broader economic prosperity, as well as political stability and security.”
The overarching policy framework that guides U.S. efforts to empower women and girls, reduce gender inequalities, and combat gender-based violence around the world include:
• Secretary Clinton’s Policy Guidance on Promoting Gender Equality to Achieve our National Security and Foreign Policy Objectives
• USAID’s Gender Equality and Female Empowerment Policy
• United States National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security, to strengthen conflict resolution and peace processes through the inclusion of women
• U.S. Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Gender-based Violence Globally
• Ending Child Marriage & Meeting the Needs of Married Children: The USAID Vision for Action
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U.S. efforts to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment cut across many sectors. The U.S. seeks to:
reduce gender disparities in access to, control over and benefit from resources, wealth, opportunities and services; reduce gender-based violence and mitigate its harmful effects on individuals in all sectors; and increase the capability of women and girls to realize their rights, determine their life outcomes, and influence decision-making in households, communities, and societies.
In addition to reducing gender gaps, U.S. activities seek to promote women’s and men’s leadership and participation. The United States supports the integration of gender equality and female empowerment
considerations in economic growth, agriculture and food security, education, conflict mitigation and resolution, civil society and the media, and climate change. For example, the United States supports a range of activities that strengthen and promote women’s participation and leadership in peace building, civil society, and political processes in order to address and mitigate challenges impacting women’s ability to participate meaningfully in important decisions and processes that affect them, their families, and their communities and nations.
These activities include efforts to mobilize men as allies in support of gender equality, women's participation in political and civil decision-making at all levels, and in combating gender-based violence. The United States will work to ensure that issues impacting women and girls are fully integrated in the formulation and
implementation of U.S. foreign policy.
To assist in planning and reporting, USAID operating units report on nine Washington-designated, standard cross-cutting performance indicators that cover gender equality; women’s empowerment; gender-based violence; and Women, Peace, and Security. The indicator “Number of operating units using at least one Gender Empowerment and Female Equality indicator in their Performance Plan Reports” will capture the expansion of programming, as well as the performance monitoring and reporting achievements of operating units integrating gender considerations in their work.
Movement toward gender equality is essential to the FTF objective of “Inclusive Agricultural Growth.” Strong and stable growth cannot be achieved unless both men and women are engaged in that growth. Women play a critical and potentially transformative role in agricultural growth in developing countries, but they face
persistent obstacles and economic constraints limiting further inclusion in agriculture.
For that reason, FTF has emphasized the engagement of both men and women in its multi-year strategies and across all food security activities to promote the empowerment of women and greater gender equality. While efforts in this area are often constrained by socio-cultural norms around gender roles, FTF programs are seeking innovative ways to engage men and women across diverse activities.
To measure progress in this effort, USAID’s Bureau for Food Security (BFS) annually tracks the "Number of sex-disaggregated indicators where reporting indicates improvements toward gender integration for food security programming." BFS has also been a leader in measuring and learning about women’s empowerment with the Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI). The WEAI is the first comprehensive and standardized measure to directly capture women’s empowerment and inclusion in the agriculture sector. BFS also developed the Gender Integration Framework (GIF), an interactive tool to advance evidence-based program design and promote FTF objectives of inclusive agricultural sector growth and women’s economic empowerment. In FY
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2015, BFS staff continued to conduct trainings, workshops, and webinars to ensure that learning from the WEAI and the accompanying GIF are applied to all aspects of FTF. As a result, the WEAI and GIF have been used to inform program planning and implementation eleven times. For example, a primary component of research by the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Soybean Value Chain Research focuses on assessing issues of gender equity and the role of women within sustainable soybean systems in Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, and Senegal.
In Bangladesh, the Strengthening Partnerships, Results, and Innovations in Nutrition Globally project used the WEAI to structure a qualitative study on home gardens and decision making. In addition, BFS held a webinar with partners in September 2015 to discuss the evolution of the WEAI and outline next stages for WEAI
development, including the abbreviated WEAI and the project-level WEAI. These new tools were developed to reduce the time required to administer the survey and improve WEAI modules that were difficult to administer in the field.
Performance Goal Progress Update
Key Indicator: Percentage of operating units using at least one Gender Empowerment and Female Equality indicator in their Foreign Assistance Performance Plan and Report (PPR)
FY 2014 FY 2015 FY 2016 FY 2017
Target 30% 40% 50% 60%
Result 45% 53%
Indicator Analysis
The results on this indicator for FY 2015 significantly exceeded the target. There are several factors likely to have influenced this outcome. The Standard Foreign Assistance Gender Indicators are designed to be cross-cutting. This gives USAID Bureaus, Missions and Offices the flexibility to apply these indicators to measuring the gender equality and female empowerment results in multiple sectors. Since the Standard Foreign Assistance Gender Indicators were first developed in 2011-2012, USAID’s Gender Advisors, Gender Points of Contact and Gender Champions have reached out to help Operating Units (OU) adopt these indicators through advocacy, training and technical assistance. Online training courses, such as, Gender 102: Putting ADS 205 Into Action and Gender 103: The Roles and Responsibilities of Gender Advisors and POCs give guidance on how to use the Standard Foreign Assistance Indicators and integrate gender into performance measurement. The five-day in-person staff trainings on ADS Chapter 205: Integrating Gender Equality and Female Empowerment in USAID’s Program Cycle helped OUs to learn the procedures for reporting on the Foreign Assistance Gender Indicators in FY 2015. Further, collaborative processes for engaging Washington offices and field offices in program cycle activities, for example, to prepare country/regional development cooperation strategies (CDCS/RDCS) and project appraisal documents, have presented opportunities to encourage uptake of these indicators. The efforts to better socialize the indicators will continue over the coming years to expand USAID-wide reporting on the Standard Foreign Assistance Gender Indicators.
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Indicator Methodology
Data Source: The data for this indicator are taken from the performance reports submitted by Department of State and USAID Operating Units through the PPR in the Foreign Assistance Coordination and Tracking System.
Data Quality: Each Mission that collects data against any of the standard indicators must complete the standard Data Quality Assessment (DQA). There are some possible sources of error in these data. First, missions may enter data incorrectly. Examination of the data this year during the PPR review window did not reveal many apparent errors. Second, there may be errors of omission in that OUs that could report on the indicators are not doing so. One of the main goals of the continued socialization of the indicators in FY 2016 will be to ensure that OUs that could report on one or more of the indicators are doing so.
Key Indicator: Number of sex-disaggregated indicators where reporting demonstrating improvements toward equality in gender integration for food security programming
FY 2013
Baseline FY 2014 FY 2015 FY 2016 FY 2017
Target N/A 8 9 5 5
Result 8 7 8
Indicator Analysis
FY 2015 results are slightly below the target, but demonstrate a continued positive trend in improved gender equity in food security programs. Improvements may be attributed to USAID’s ongoing efforts to improve female participation and gender equity in food security programming, as well as better reporting as more food security agriculture programs are able to collect sex-disaggregated data.
USAID has reduced out year targets, as certain indicators already demonstrate good gender parity between female and male participants. Given the variance in programs each year, it is unlikely these indicators will show continued improvements, when compared to the previous year, despite maintaining overall gender parity for participants. In addition, some food security programs aim to address underlying causes of female
disempowerment by actively targeting female participants, which would not promote gender parity in the number of participants. For example, the Feed the Future Bangladesh Women’s Empowerment Activity will enhance women’s leadership, income, assets, and decision-making by training members of women’s groups in entrepreneurial literacy life skills, leadership, and knowledge of rights and available resources, to encourage women to pursue shared goals of savings, credit for productive use, or market access.
USAID will continue to focus efforts to improve gender parity for indicators that have the largest differences in the proportion of female and male participants.
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Indicator Methodology
Data source: FY 2015 Performance Reports for Bangladesh, Brazil, Burma, Cambodia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Georgia, Ghana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Kyrgyz Republic, Lebanon, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nepal, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, USAID Bureau For Food Security, USAID Central America Regional, USAID East Africa Regional, USAID Regional Development Mission-Asia, USAID Sahel Regional, USAID Southern Africa Regional, and USAID West Africa Regional, as reported in the FTF Monitoring System. This system is used to collect results data for FTF initiative-funded activities.
Data quality: Performance data, verified using Data Quality Assessments (DQAs), must meet standards of validity, integrity, precision, reliability, and timeliness. Each Operating Unit must document the methodology used to conduct the DQAs. DQA and data source records are maintained in the Performance Management Plans.
(For details, refer to USAID's Automated Directive System [ADS] Chapter 203.3.11, http://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1870/203.pdf).