Gender equality and empowerment measurement tool Part 3: Reporting guide

On this page

• Instructions for Completing the Project Report
• Project Report Template
• Instructions for completing the synthesis report
• Synthesis Report Template
• Sharing results with participants
• Creating outputs from feminist research

In this guide, you will find information on why communicating the results of your data collection is important and instructions to help you analyze, synthesize and report your findings using two templates that are provided: a project report template and a synthesis report template. We also explain the significance and potential outputs and knowledge mobilization strategies that can be used as a result of the reporting process. Once you complete your data collection activities (i.e., focus group discussions and any interviews with project partners), you should have all the information you need to prepare your final reports.

As discussed in Part 1: Training Guide and Part 2: Facilitator’s Guide, feminist methodology uses participatory and inclusive data collection methods to capture the rich and contextualized details of participants’ experiences. This qualitative information can help to understand whether and how a project was successful in achieving gender equality and empowerment outcomes from the perspective of the project participants. Information collected through the GEM Tool can be useful for a wide range of outputs and knowledge mobilization activities from social media engagement to case studies and vignettes. The findings can also provide opportunities for project participants to reflect more deeply on their experiences, and to learn with and from each other during the focus groups.

As you begin to prepare your final reports, be sure to think about how this information can be shared most effectively with project participants and partner communities. The reporting process outlined below allows you to summarize data from individual focus groups, or across multiple focus groups and projects, in order to provide a broader overview and analysis of gender equality and empowerment results.

Instructions for Completing the Project Report

Guidelines for summarizing and analyzing focus group data

• Review all written notes, photos of visual boards and sticky notes from the focus groups and interviews, keeping an eye out for good quotes and examples to use in preparing the project report.
• Complete your project report as soon as data collection is complete to optimize recall of the information and to not confuse the participants’ comments from other sessions.
• Summarize the findings for each of the different empowerment categories (i.e., economic, knowledge, physical security, self-confidence, social, and any others identified by participants).
• Consider what themes or ideas stand out and whether they reflect what you heard during data collection. Try to rank the themes from most common to least common wherever possible and include numbers if you can.
  • For example: “5 out of 15 focus group participants rated the project as having a ‘negative gender impact’ in terms of their physical security, specifically in relation to gender-based violence.”

• Your project report should include both raw data (i.e., quotes, ratings, and the frequency of responses) from the focus groups and any partner interviews, as well as your analysis of how those findings link to broader barriers or supports in the project environment.
  • For example: “13 out of 18 focus group participants rated the project as having a ‘positive gender impact’ in terms of their economic empowerment. As one woman noted: (here you can provide a quote or example of why this project was so important to economic empowerment). However, the other 5 participants rated the project as having a ‘mixed gender impact’ in this category, and a few commented that while their production increased they continued to lack access to critical markets in order to sell their goods. This was especially common for participants living in rural areas, with less access to public transportation, highlighting this as a barrier that needs to be addressed.”
• Present only the key data and findings from the data collection process that are pertinent to gender equality and empowerment outcomes. Information describing the project, for example, is not necessary in the reports.
• Reflect on the data in relation to the concepts outlined in Part 1: Training Guide, particularly, examples that speak to changes in gender relations and empowerment.
• Take care to incorporate intersectional analysis by including examples that illustrate the impact of the project for different groups (i.e., based on gender, age, ethnicity, disability, and so forth).
  • For example: “In total, 6 out of 10 women in the focus groups shared examples of barriers to empowerment such as unsupportive family members. Younger women (women under age 20), were more likely to face these challenges than older women: 5 out of 6 women who said they had unsupportive family members were 20 years of age or younger”.
• State your observations succinctly and offer as much evidence as possible in the space provided in the project report. Where possible, provide a quote, example or story to support and illustrate your findings.
• The project report template and suggested word counts are provided as a guideline, and can help you ensure that your reporting is concise and focused on the most important information relevant to gender equality and empowerment results.
• Use the Project Report Template below.

Project Report Template

Date of report:
Name of project:
Location (country, region):
Implementing partner(s):
Number of focus group participants (broken down by gender):
Number of project partner interviews (broken down by gender):

Brief project description (75 words maximum):

1. Defining gender equality and empowerment (250 words maximum)

Describe how participants defined gender equality and empowerment, focusing on what were the common examples or definitions. Offer any analysis or description of the tone of the conversation, any debates that took place, or any relevant information about the local context and how this informed participants’ understanding and definitions.

2. Gender impacts by category (500 words maximum, or approximately 100 words per category)

Tally the gender impact ratings for each category and indicate the total number of participant responses in brackets next to each rating option (i.e., no gender impacts, negative gender impacts, mixed gender impacts, and positive gender impacts). Elaborate on the quantitative ratings by providing specific examples from the focus group discussion.

Economic
No gender impacts (#)
Negative gender impacts (#)
Mixed gender impacts (#)
Positive gender impacts (#)

Elaborate with specific examples from the discussion.

Knowledge
No gender impacts (#)
Negative gender impacts (#)
Mixed gender impacts (#)
Positive gender impacts (#)

Elaborate with specific examples from the discussion.

Physical Security
No gender impacts (#)
Negative gender impacts (#)
Mixed gender impacts (#)
Positive gender impacts (#)

Elaborate with specific examples from the discussion.

Self-Confidence
No gender impacts (#)
Negative gender impacts (#)
Mixed gender impacts (#)
Positive gender impacts (#)

Elaborate with specific examples from the discussion:

Social
No gender impacts (#)
Negative gender impacts (#)
Mixed gender impacts (#)
Positive gender impacts (#)

Elaborate with specific examples from the discussion:

Insert any other categories identified by participants
No gender impacts (#)
Negative gender impacts (#)
Mixed gender impacts (#)
Positive gender impacts (#)

Elaborate with specific examples from the discussion:

3. Support for gender equality and women’s empowerment (250 words maximum)

What are 2 or 3 themes that emerged around support for gender equality and women’s empowerment in the project environment? Provide 1-2 quotes, examples or stories that represent each theme. You may want to organize this into themes that emerged specific to individual, household, community and or structural supports.

4. Barriers for gender equality and women’s empowerment (250 words maximum)

What are 2 or 3 themes that emerged around barriers to gender equality and women’s empowerment in the project environment? Provide 1-2 quotes, examples or stories that represent each theme. You may want to organize this into themes that emerged specific to individual, household, community and or structural barriers.

5. Recommendations (250 words maximum)

Based on your discussions with participants and project partners, identify 2 or 3 key recommendations for improving the project’s gender equality and empowerment outcomes. These recommendations can include examples of ways to improve project success through an intersectional lens, or in terms of addressing broader social challenges or improving support structures.

Include an appendix for each of the following:

• A copy of any notes (anonymized) and data collection materials (focus groups and interviews) including any photos of completed materials used for data collection during the focus group discussion (i.e., the GEMT tool, poster or flipcharts, post-its, etc.)
• Any key photos that the implementing partner may give you of the project itself that demonstrate gender equality and empowerment results. Ensure these photos were taken with consent and that you have permission from the participants to include these photos in any reports.
• A list of email addresses for participants that would like to be sent the final evaluation report (for internal use only).

Instructions for completing the synthesis report

If you collected data for more than one project using the GEM Tool, you might wish to prepare a synthesis report to summarize and aggregate your findings across several projects and data collection activities. A synthesis report can provide an important overview and analysis of gender equality and empowerment experiences and results at the local, regional or country level.

Guidelines for synthesizing data collected for multiple projects:

• Begin by reviewing all the project-level reports that you have prepared looking for themes across the project reports.
  • Which categories of empowerment were most commonly rated as having negative gender impacts? What were some common examples provided by participants in these categories?
  • Which categories of empowerment were most commonly rated as having positive gender impacts? What were some common examples provided by participants in these categories?
• Wherever possible, include information that counts and ranks participants’ responses and also provides quotes or examples to illustrate specific points. For example:
  • “Across all 5 projects evaluated and a total of 75 focus group participants, the most commonly noted positive gender impacts were in the category of self-confidence: 45 out of 75 total focus group participants rated their projects as having a ‘positive gender impact’ in terms of their self-confidence. Some common examples and experiences shared by participants across the projects included…”
  • “Negative gender impacts were predominantly reported in two categories: economic and social. For example, several participants reported experiencing... Explanations provided for these findings included…”
  • “One woman shared a compelling story about how the project elevated her social status in her community, stating.... Across the five focus groups, 10 out of 75 participants shared similar stories or examples.”
• Ensure that you include examples shared by participants belonging to marginalized groups (i.e., younger or older women, women with disabilities, widowed women, etc.) even if their experiences were less common. These examples can highlight important barriers to empowerment in the project environment for diverse Refer back to Box 3.1 for more information on this.
• The synthesis report template and suggested word counts are provided as a guideline, and can help you ensure that your reporting is concise and focused on the most important information relevant to gender equality and empowerment results.

Synthesis Report Template

Country:
Total number of projects evaluated:
Total number of focus group participants (broken down by gender):
Total number of project partner interviews (broken down by gender):
Data collection time period: ddmmyyyy – ddmmyyyy

1. Defining gender equality and empowerment (250 words maximum)

Summarize how participants defined gender equality and empowerment across the different projects and focus groups, focusing on what were the common examples or definitions. Offer any relevant information about the local context and how this informed participants’ understanding and definitions.

2. Gender impacts by category (500 words maximum, or approximately 100 words per category)

Tally the total gender impact ratings for each category across all projects, and indicate the total number of participant responses in brackets next to each rating option (i.e. no gender impacts, negative gender impacts, mixed gender impacts, and positive gender impacts). Elaborate on the quantitative ratings by providing common themes and examples shared by participants across the projects.

Economic
No gender impacts (#)
Negative gender impacts (#)
Mixed gender impacts (#)
Positive gender impacts (#)
Elaborate with common themes and examples from the discussion.

Knowledge
No gender impacts (#)
Negative gender impacts (#)
Mixed gender impacts (#)
Positive gender impacts (#)

Elaborate with common themes and examples from the discussion.

Physical Security
No gender impacts (#)
Negative gender impacts (#)
Mixed gender impacts (#)
Positive gender impacts (#)

Elaborate with common themes and examples from the discussion.

Self-Confidence
No gender impacts (#)
Negative gender impacts (#)
Mixed gender impacts (#)
Positive gender impacts (#)

Elaborate with common themes and examples from the discussion.

Social
No gender impacts (#)
Negative gender impacts (#)
Mixed gender impacts (#)
Positive gender impacts (#)

Elaborate with common themes and examples from the discussion.

Insert any other categories identified by participants
No gender impacts (#)
Negative gender impacts (#)
Mixed gender impacts (#)
Positive gender impacts (#)

Elaborate with specific examples from the discussion.

3. Support for gender equality and women’s empowerment (250 words maximum)

What were some of the common supports for gender equality and empowerment highlighted across the projects? Identify and summarize common themes, as well as any unique supports highlighted by members of marginalized groups. You may want to organize this into themes that emerged specific to individual, household, community and or structural supports.

4. Barriers to gender equality and women’s empowerment (250 words maximum)

What were some of the common barriers for gender equality and empowerment highlighted across the projects? Identify and summarize common themes here, as well as any unique barriers highlighted by members of marginalized groups. You may want to organize this into themes that emerged specific to individual, household, community and or structural barriers.

5. Considerations for future gender equality and empowerment programming in this region (125 words maximum)

Based on the data collected with all project participants and partner staff across projects, share suggestions for improving gender equality programming and or the promotion of empowerment in this region.

Sharing results with participants

As outlined in Part 1: Training Guide, feminist research is not extractive; it is committed to knowledge sharing and reciprocity. In order to ensure accountability to participants, feminist research must strive to benefit the community. Therefore, an important step in the GEM Tool is to share the results of your research with any focus group participants and project partners who participated in the data collection process. This can be done in a number of ways and the ideal method will depend on the local context and community in question. For example, you could share an electronic or printed copy of the final report, but this will not be useful for participants with low literacy or who do not have internet access. Another option is to facilitate a group or community feedback session, to share the findings of the report and the results of the data collection. It is important to always be mindful of language and translation of any materials.

There are many innovative and creative ways to share results with participants. The key consideration is to think through what information would be most valuable and useful for participants, and what is the best way to deliver that information in the local context. Work with the local project partners to arrange for the dissemination of the evaluation results to participants and community members.

Creating outputs from feminist research

In addition to sharing the results of the research with project participants, the findings from data collected using the GEM Tool can also be used for broader knowledge mobilization. The qualitative data generated from feminist research provide rich stories and examples that can be used in the creation of different outputs such as vignettes, blog posts, short films, comic strips, digital campaigns, etc. and can be shared widely on social media, within and between organizations, and with funding agencies.

The information and findings arising from the GEM Tool can provide compelling insights into the ways that gender and power operate in partner communities, and inspiring examples of the strategies used by project participants to overcome marginalization and discrimination resulting from patriarchy and other systems of oppression. It can be used to capture diverse stories, examples and experiences that complement more quantitative information and reporting, and ensure that people (project participants and partner communities) remain at the center of our priorities in research and data collection.

Related Links

• Gender equality and empowerment measurement tool
• Gender equality and empowerment measurement tool part 1: Training guide
• Gender equality and empowerment measurement tool Part 2: Facilitator’s guide