Gender-responsive evaluation needs more than sex-disaggregated data
By NCS Team
Sex-disaggregated indicators are important, but gender-responsive evaluation also has to examine power, safety, access, and institutional behaviour.
Gender-responsive evaluation starts with better questions. Who has access to services, information, assets, and decision-making spaces? Who faces additional risk when a programme changes incentives or expectations? Which formal and informal institutions reinforce exclusion?
NCS designs gender analysis and evaluation tools to capture both participation and lived experience. That can include separate focus groups, safe facilitation protocols, disability-inclusive sampling, staff and partner interviews, and review of programme systems.
The final product should help teams act. A strong gender evaluation produces practical recommendations, risk mitigation actions, and accountability points that can be integrated into workplans, partner engagement, monitoring systems, and management responses.