Page 58 - Pocket Guide to Gender Equality under the UNFCCC

Gender audits are institutional gender analysis and assessment tools that help to scan the extent to which gender equality has been integrated into institutions, policies, or programmes. There are a wide variety of gender auditing tools that address different issues, including fnancial audits, general organisational assessments, and international policy analysis. The overarching aim of most auditing tools is to hold institutions and governments to account regarding gender integration. Gender balance is commonly used in reference to human resources and the equal participation of women and men in all areas of work, projects or programmes. Women and men are expected to participate in proportion to their shares in the population. In many areas, however, women participate less than what would be expected according to the sex distribution in the population (under-representation of women) while men participate more than expected (over-representation of men). Gender blindness is the failure to recognise that the roles and responsibilities of men/boys and women/girls are given to them in specifc social, cultural, economic and political contexts and backgrounds. Projects, programmes, policies and attitudes which are gender blind do not take into account these different roles and diverse needs, maintain the status quo and will not help transform the unequal structure of gender relations. Gender budgeting focuses on the analysis of public expenditure and revenue from a gender perspective, identifying the implications for women compared to men. The ultimate goal is to reprioritise both expenditures and revenue raising methods in order to promote equality.