Step 3: To follow up and evaluate the organisation

3.1 Follow-up

In your follow-up, it is the core function that should be in focus. You need to ask yourself questions such as: Do we deliver a function that works equally well for women's and men's needs and conditions? What does the development look like in relation to the gender equality goals that we are working to achieve? Does our authority contribute to gender equality outside of its own operations, that is, in society? In this way, you can also ensure efficiency, quality and equality and develop the organisation.

In order for you to be able to make use of the results that the follow-up shows, you need to create the conditions for organisational learning. Follow-ups and evaluations need to be the basis for continuous learning and reflection, which in turn can become a driving force for change. In this way, follow-up and evaluation can become part of a development spiral where experiences and lessons learned from gender equality work contribute to the development of the organisation, which in turn better contributes to gender equality.

Follow-up and evaluation, what is the difference?

Follow-up is the collection and processing of data about something to find out if this something turned out as intended.

Evaluation is a careful retrospective assessment of an activity and its results.

(ESV Forum, Glossary)

3.2 There are various requirements linked to monitoring gender equality

Authorities and educational institutions need to be able to report the results of their work with gender equality. Requirements for the work to be followed up can be found in laws, ordinances and regulations. The management of the authority or educational institutions can also set their own requirements that the gender equality work must be followed up.

Assignments to work with gender mainstreaming also require follow-up. Working with the gender mainstream strategy means that an equality perspective is integrated into all parts of an operation and thus also the follow-up.

What are the requirements for follow-up?

• The Riksdag has decided on equality policy goals to which public activities must contribute. Information and assignments on gender mainstreaming are given in instructions for authorities, in regulatory letters or through special government assignments. Authorities tasked with working with gender mainstreaming in public authorities (JiM) and higher education institutions tasked with working with gender mainstreaming in colleges and universities (JiHU) are responsible for contributing to the gender equality policy goals and reporting back the results of their work to the government. There are often requirements for re-reporting as part of regular follow-up. Sometimes the client requests reporting in a special order.
• The regulation for annual reports and budget documents states that individual-based statistics included in the results report must be divided according to gender (4:1 FÅB). The regulation also states that the sex-disaggregated statistics, when relevant, must be analysed and assessed.
• In addition to the above, authorities and universities set their own requirements for what should be followed up and evaluated in gender equality work.

Who needs to know what, about what?

In order for the follow-up to be a driving force in the change work, it is important to think about how results and lessons learned will be used. Therefore, it is good to ask yourself concrete questions about who needs to know what, about what, and when:

• Evidence from authorities and educational institutions is important for the government to be able to develop policy. What does the government, the gender equality unit and your authority administrator at the Government Office need to know before, for example, an authority dialogue?
• What does the management at the authority or university need to know to be able to follow the development in relation to the goals you set for the work?
• What does the management at the authority or the institution of higher learning need as a basis for the long-term development of the authority's gender equality work?
• What does each activity within the authority or educational institution need to know in order to be able to develop their particular part of the core activity so that it contributes to gender equality?

3.3 Gender equality needs to be followed up within ordinary systems

The starting point for the follow-up is how your organisation is conducted based on a gender equality perspective. You need to be able to find out whether your organisation has conducted its activities on an equal footing through your regular follow-up of the organisation. To do that, you need access to data such as gender-disaggregated statistics, user and employee surveys, quality follow-ups of processing, course evaluations, evaluations of report projects and more. All ongoing follow-up needs, where relevant, to be designed so that any differences based on gender can be made visible.

You may also need to analyse norms in the organisation and whether these norms create unequal or equal conditions and opportunities for women, girls, men and boys. In order to increase the accuracy of the follow-up, you also need access to statistics and surveys that make visible how the organisation responds to the conditions and opportunities of different women, girls, men and boys.

It may involve investigating how the order of power gender relates to other orders of power such as age, function and socioeconomics. If there is no documentation in your existing systems, you need to develop these, or alternatively find other ways to acquire the documentation you need. One way could be to take in knowledge from employees or the authority's target groups and then ensure that different target groups are heard.

The goals (gender mainstreamed goals and/or specific gender equality goals) that you set for the work are followed up in the business's regular follow-up. Most often this is done within the regular systematic follow-up, for example quarterly and annual follow-ups or quality follow-ups. This is done by repeatedly following up the statistics and or observations that showed a gender equality problem, with the goal of determining whether the measures taken contribute to change.

Sometimes special, in-depth investigations or evaluations may be needed to be able to demonstrate the results of the operations in relation to set goals. Even if a specific follow-up or evaluation is carried out, it is important to make the results visible in the regular follow-up.

SLU integrates gender equality in the follow-up

The University Chancellor's Office (UKÄ) reviewed the quality assurance work at the Swedish University of Agriculture (SLU) in 2019. Equality was then one of six assessment areas in the quality reviews of the higher education institutions. SLU's work in this assessment area was considered satisfactory, as in the other five, and SLU was the first university to receive the overall assessment of "approved quality assurance work".

The review shows that the gender equality perspective at SLU forms an integrated part of the institution's regular decision-making, preparation, management and follow-up processes. The institution ensures, through routines and processes, systematic work to take into account gender equality in the content, design and implementation of the courses. In SLU's quality assurance process, a questionnaire is used as an analysis and dialogue tool to take into account various aspects of the education's content and implementation in a structured manner, where gender equality is one.

As a basis for following up how gender equality is taken into account in education, student social surveys, doctoral surveys and course evaluations are also carried out. In cases where deficiencies are identified, the education committee (UN) and the council for postgraduate education (FUR) make decisions on improvement measures, who is responsible and how it should be carried out. UN and FUR are also responsible for following up the decided development measures. Read more about SLU's work on SLU's website, UKÄ's website and in the Swedish Gender Equality Agency's report Continued integration of gender equality in academia.

Gender mainstreaming is a long-term process of change, and it may take time before you can demonstrate the results and effects of the work for the organisation's target group and on a societal level. Because you want to know if you are on the right track, you therefore also need to follow up on your performance, that is, how the actual work with gender mainstreaming is going. It may be about following up on whether you have completed the activities you set up, for example, if the authority has integrated an equality perspective in its supervisory documents or if the university has designed student questionnaires that can capture the students' experiences of how the gender equality perspective is taken into account in teaching.

Ordinary functions need to be involved

Support and coordination functions for follow-up are often found among staff or similar, while the responsibility for following up the activity is in line with the organisation. In addition, there is often a supporting or coordinating function for gender equality. A success factor is that there is cooperation between the organisation's line, the staff and the coordinating function for gender equality.

Experience also shows that it makes it easier if the functions that are responsible for and work with follow-up have competence in gender equality and that the organisation has the capacity to carry out gender equality analyses.

At higher education institutions, there is both line management and collegial management

At higher education institutions, the management is to some extent similar to state authorities through line management. However, educational institutions also differ from other authorities in that they also have different forms of collegial governance. It is possible, for example, that extensive decisions concerning the core activities, i.e., teaching and research, are prepared collegially by teachers and researchers.

Line management and collegiality are forms of management that can complement each other and should do so also in relation to gender mainstreaming work. In order to create the conditions for this, management needs to clarify which bodies and managers are responsible for gender equality work. It is also important that it is clear who is responsible for the follow-up within different forms of governance.

At some institutions of higher education, a decentralised governance is applied where faculties and departments have been given decision-making powers delegated to them from the top management. It enables a follow-up close to the activity itself that makes visible how gender equality or inequality is expressed in the actual research and educational environments.

That the follow-up is done close to the organisation can also contribute to the results being used in continued development and change work. In order for it to be possible to follow up the work in a decentralised organisation, however, it is necessary that functions at different levels have competence in follow-up based on an equality perspective and that the results of the work are requested by all managers. Top management also needs to ensure that there are systems for re-reporting the results in order to gain an overall picture of the gender equality work at higher education institutions.

3.4 How can monitoring of gender equality and related tasks be coordinated?

Authorities and educational institutions also have requirements to work with and follow up work in other areas of rights, such as, for example, disability or LBTQI. These assignments can be coordinated with gender mainstreaming to provide synergies and increased legitimacy for the work. When you work with several assignments in a coordinated manner, the follow-up can also be coordinated.

By doing intersectional analyses in your follow-up, you can make visible how your business responds to the conditions, prerequisites and needs of different groups of women, men, girls and boys. Intersectional analyses involve examining how multiple power structures such as gender, age and functional ability interact and create inequality and inequality.

When tasks are coordinated, it is important that it is done in such a way that they reinforce each other, instead of the opposite, namely that certain perspectives or groups are made invisible. Keep in mind that in your follow-up you need to be able to make results visible in relation to assignments and goals within the respective area of ​​rights.

3.5 Gender equality beyond gender distribution – using qualitative methods

The mission of gender mainstreaming aims at sustainable change by fundamentally challenging and changing the norms, structures and values ​​that create and recreate existing inequality. For this, it is necessary, but rarely sufficient, to start from quantitative data concerning, for example, gender distribution. Follow-ups and evaluations also need to be able to capture more qualitative aspects.

In order to gain a greater understanding of a problem or a situation and make visible the distribution of power and influence, quantitative follow-up may need to be supplemented with qualitative investigations. This can be done by having a dialogue with the relevant target group, through interviews or surveys or by making observations and document reviews.

Another example is hiring an accompanying researcher to do a qualitative follow-up or evaluation. Not least, it may be relevant to make intersectional analyses, i.e., to investigate how multiple power systems interact with gender.

3.6 Reflection questions - To follow up and evaluate the organisation

Gender equality in regular follow-up

• Can we read out any differences in outcomes or goal achievement, for women and men, girls and boys, from our regular follow-up?
• To what extent can we deduce any differences in outcomes or goal fulfilment, for different groups of women and men? (Based on age, background, geography, etc?)
• Do we continuously follow up on planned initiatives for increased gender equality?
• Do we continuously follow up on whether we reach our goals at work and whether we contribute to the gender equality policy goals?
• Is there a functioning collaboration between support functions such as controllers, management functions in the line and gender equality functions in terms of follow-up?
• How is it ensured that those who follow up the work with gender equality have competence in the field?
• For higher education institutions: How is equality work followed up within different forms of governance and how is the responsibility for follow-up distributed?
• How are our results used in the change work going forward?

Requirements to follow up on gender equality and related tasks

• Do you have an overall picture of what requirements are placed on monitoring gender equality at the authority or the institution of higher learning?
• Do you have an overall picture of what requirements are placed on monitoring gender equality within related assignments?
• Can the follow-up of equality work and assignments in other areas of rights be coordinated? In what ways?
• If you coordinate the work with gender equality and other areas of rights, how do you ensure that the equality perspective does not disappear?

Quantitative and qualitative follow-up

• Are all our individual-based statistics gendered? We present it in both numbers and proportions
• Do we make selections in the gender-disaggregated statistics based on our equality problems (equality statistics)?
• Do we analyse the statistics?
• Do we perform analyses based on classification grounds besides gender, for example, age or background?
• Do we conduct qualitative follow-ups?
• Can follow-up be developed by combining qualitative and quantitative analyses?