In this module we're going to look at Step three of the GIA, your options analysis.
The aim here is to develop a range of options and potential solutions and weigh up the various costs and benefits associated with each. So here we need to use the information that you gathered in steps one and two, all of that brainstorming and all of the evidence and data that you've gathered and develop an option or a couple of options for your proposed policy, program or service to take through to recommendation, and then on to implementation. It's here that we consider the gendered benefits and costs, all those ‘pros and cons’, and we also have to think about the overall gender impact of the options. The objective being we want to take through to recommendation and implementation the option with the greatest or most positive gender impact because it keeps us in line with the objectives of The Gender Equality Act 2020.
Template three supports this step and you may want to download that now from the Commission's website and go through that as we go through this module. So here we need to think about what are the potential policy options and what gendered impact might they have?
We want to ask ourselves some questions around will some people benefit more because they have greater access? Or does this policy, program or service do everything it can to ensure resources are distributed and used equally? Will it contribute to transforming gender norms in a positive way? And does your policy, program or service potentially have negative unintended consequences for certain groups of people that will outweigh any benefits? This step is divided into a few parts.
The first part, Part A, is where you describe your policy options. So, to develop your options to address your policy, program or service based on the evidence you've collected, you want to think about a description that really helps you identify and describe the proposed policy solution or the design of the program or service that you're working on. That description could include the overall objective of what you're trying to achieve, who you have identified as the target audience, their proposed strategies, activities or service design elements, and how will they meet the needs and create benefit for the target audience. It's really recommended that you record as much detail as you can in template three at this stage, because there's where you can use evidence and draw on that evidence for your GIA process and what it is that you've done, where you've conducted GIAs and your thinking for your progress reports to meet your obligations under The Gender Equality Act 2020.
Part B is where we describe the gendered benefits and costs. So those gendered benefits, or what we would think of as the ‘pros’ of a pros and cons list. Will this help some people more? Will it contribute to transforming gender norms in a positive way? You can also afford to get really specific for example, will it make women and girls safer in public or private spaces, or in regards to our hypothetical, will it make transport safer for women and girls and gender diverse people? The costs we like to think of as those sort of ‘cons’ or the negative, the negative aspects. So, thinking really carefully about who is likely to be negatively impacted by this. How are the most vulnerable groups likely to be impacted? Will this reduce certain groups’ access to economic resources or opportunities, and if so, are they already widely disadvantaged in our communities? Does this reinforce harmful gender stereotypes? You can also afford to look at the economic costs here but think more broadly about social and health costs as well.
Part C is where we want to determine the overall gender impact. So, we want to think really carefully about whether the benefits outweigh the costs. Does your policy, program or service potentially have negative unintended consequences for certain groups of people that will outweigh any benefits? But I’ll just take a moment to also suggest that even if you do identify some negative unintended consequences, that it doesn't mean that you can't adopt one of your options. You may just want to think about some mitigating factors, how you will mitigate that risk and insert that into your options analysis as well.
So, arriving at the overall gender impact we want to think about either negative or neutral gender impacts and positive gender impacts. Those negative or neutral gender impacts are those that we want to try and avoid. Those are the ones that perpetuate gender inequality by reinforcing unbalanced norms, roles and relations. They privilege men over women and gender diverse people, or vice versa depending on the context. They ignore differences in opportunities and resource allocation for people of different genders, and they do not take into account issues of intersectionality.
On the flip side, we want to look for those more positive gender impacts, so positive gender impact is that which considers the gender norms, roles and relations of people of different genders and how they affect access to and control over resources. They promote the elimination of existing gender gaps, or at least significantly reduce them. It addresses the causes of gender-based health inequities, including the prevention of violence against women, girls and gender diverse people, and it includes ways to transform harmful gender norms, roles and relations, and it also considers intersectionality.
So that's step three. And remember you can keep the step scaled to the size of your GIA, so if you're doing a fairly discrete policy, a GIA on a fairly discrete service, you might do just one option and that's totally fine. If you're doing quite a large-scale GIA, it might be appropriate to do two or three options and really sift through a lot of different options, benefits and costs to understand what's the best way forward for you. It's also worth noting that if we were doing a review of a policy, program or service, it is perfectly fine to leave as option one, “policy remains unchanged” and to conduct a cost/benefit analysis on the policy as if it were to remain unchanged. Then you might weigh up against a second option to determine which is better for you.
In any case, by weighing up these gendered benefits, costs, and arriving at an overall gender impact, whether it be positive or negative, or neutral, we can arrive at a preferred policy option to take through to recommendation, which we will cover now in the next module, Step four, Recommendations.
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