Hi, I am Awuor Ponge, an Independent M&E Consultant; Associate Research Fellow in a Think Tank and Adjunct Faculty in a Public University in Kenya. I’m passionate about Participatory Approaches and Tools in Gender and Development. This prompts interest in Outcome Harvesting (OH) as a Participatory Evaluation approach, and the desire to make the process gender-responsive and equity-focused. Yesterday I shared some methodological considerations; today I’ll share additional considerations.
In OH, proper gender analysis is necessary. This is a tool that surfaces gender disparities of a core problem, and especially how this is addressed by the outcomes, here talking about the change in behaviour of the target beneficiaries. Gender analysis helps ensure equitable participation of women and men in development processes and projects, and these are likely to be reflected in the outcomes.
There is a linkage between inequalities at different societal levels; and the levels of participation and involvement of women and men in community decision-making, and use and control over natural resources. These should be reflected in the Outcome Harvest, specifically in outcome descriptions, and linked to project activities.
There are different experiences of specific development challenges. There are different outcomes from the same intervention, (e.g., education, health services, land titling) insofar as these impact men and women, boys and girls, as well as persons with disabilities and those from marginalised categories. The OH process should be able to demonstrate the breaking of barriers and constraints to full participation by different groups in decision-making in project implementation as well as in the OH process.
Lesson Learned: Extra-Methodological Considerations
Beyond Ricardo Wilson-Grau’s methodological considerations, there are other factors to be considered to make OH gender-responsive and equity-focused:
- Integration of gender in the Outcome Harvest Process: A genuine integration of gender and participation needs to be done at each stage.
- Disaggregation of Data: Collecting sex disaggregated data and conducting gender analysis. The Harvester should ensure that views of women as well as men are obtained in the consultation processes.
- Evaluation Team Composition: Ensure that the expert team includes members with explicit gender analysis experience. Central to any mainstreaming of gender and participatory processes is the question of who controls the process of information gathering and analysis, and the search for solutions.
- Being aware of gender roles and power relations: If there is no critical analysis of gender dynamics, there is a danger that men and women will be represented as isolated from the web of social relationships that affect their wellbeing.
- Feminist Research and Transformational Change: Through knowledge of feminist research and transformational change. It is concerned with construction of new knowledge about social reality and how this social change is brought about through the OH process.
Lesson Learned: Integrating gender in the OH process ensures that power dynamics as well as transformational change anticipated in the outcomes are clearly captured in “Outcome Descriptions” and contribution of each of the actors linked appropriately.
Hot Tip: Each of the six iterative steps of Outcome Harvesting must be critically interrogated to see how to integrate gender in each, ensuring we leave no one behind in the design of the Outcome Harvest.
Rad Resources:
Better Evaluation – Outcome Harvesting
Outcome Harvesting Forum Discussions
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