What is a Participatory Gender Audit:

A participatory gender audit is one aspect of gender mainstreaming which encompasses assessing public policy, including legislation, regulations, allocations, taxation and social projects, from a gender point of view. The goal of participatory gender audits is to contribute concrete, customized, evidence-based recommendations to improve gender mainstreaming efforts. The basic assumption of gender audits is that policy impacts are different on men and women. The purpose of gender audits is to lead to changes in policy that contribute to an increase in gender equality.[1]

The benefits of Participatory Gender Audit:

Participatory gender audits allow organizations ‘to set their own houses in order, and change aspects of the organizational culture which discriminate against women staff and women “beneficiaries”[2]. As a method for gender mainstreaming, participatory gender audits help organizations identify and understand gender patterns within their composition, structures, processes, organizational culture and management of human resources, and in the design and delivery of policies and services. Participatory gender audits also help assess the impact of organizational performance and its management on gender equality within the organization.

Participatory gender audits establish a baseline against which progress can be measured over time, identifying critical gender gaps and challenges, and making recommendations of how they can be addressed through improvements and innovations[3].

According to the ILO participatory gender audits have the benefit of initiating the conversation on substantive and operational concerns that are “beyond gender”. Such as the organizational culture, the ‘bead curtain syndrome’, and the lack of proactive structures for sharing, learning and adapting.

Literature on Participatory Gender Audit:

The participatory gender audits were seeded by the International Labor Organization (ILO) in 2001. It was initially developed to fulfill the internal ILO Gender Mainstreaming Policy. In October 2001, the ILO launched the first series of groundbreaking participatory gender audits in accordance with the ILO Gender Mainstreaming Policy. This was the first exercise of its kind to be introduced in the United Nations system. The objective of these gender audits was to promote organizational learning on how to implement gender mainstreaming effectively in the policies, programmers and structures of the institution and to assess the progress made in achieving gender equality.

Participatory Gender Audit in Palestine:

According to the UN women “Understanding Masculinities in Palestine 2017 Survey” which includes quantitative and qualitative research with men and women aged 18 to 59 in Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, and Palestine. In Palestine Inequitable gender attitudes remain common in Palestine, although women hold more equitable views than men do. More notably 75% of men and 87% of Women agree with the statement, “We as Palestinians need to do more work to promote the equality of women and men”[4]. That being said a Participatory Gender Audit would set a stepping stone and a baseline for each participating organization to contribute to doing more to promote equality for women and men.
The outcomes of a Participatory Gender Audit includes a list of recommendations and actions to lead the organization to identify and understand gender patterns within its composition, structures, processes, organizational culture and management of human resources, and responded to deficiencies identified. The Participatory Gender Audit will also help assess the impact of organizational performance and its management on gender equality within the organization.

A brief review of available data it was noted that only one publicly listed company – The National Bank ( TNB )  – conducts a Participatory gender audit and includes it in its annual reports a clear indicator that the concept of Participatory Gender Audit has yet to gain traction in Palestine.