The central question of gender impact assessment is: does a legislative act, policy or program reduce, support or increase gender inequality?
The European Commission defines gender impact assessment as a process of comparison and assessment in accordance with gender criteria, the current situation and trends with the expected developments as a result of the implementation of the proposed policy.
The assessment provides a two-way approach: an analysis of the current gender-based situation/policy position and the projected impact on women and men as soon as the policy is implemented.
The ultimate goal of gender impact assessment is to improve policy development and planning in order to prevent its negative impacts on gender equality, as well as to strengthen gender equality through legislation and policies that are better developed and have transformative effects.
Gender impact assessment is the process of determining the direct or indirect impact (positive, negative or neutral), short- and long-term consequences of the implementation of state policy on the position of different groups of boys and girls, women and men, which enables to eliminate disparities and gender inequality in a timely manner.
On April 14, 2020, by Order of the Ministry of Social Policy No. 257 Methodological recommendations for use by specialists of central executive authorities during the gender impact assessment of sectoral reforms were approved.
The purpose of the gender impact assessment is to determine the direct or indirect positive or negative impact of the short-term (up to 1 year) and long-term (from 1 year) consequences of implementation on the position of various groups of women and men in order to timely eliminate the identified disparities and gender inequality.
In this context, the NACS, together with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine, with the support of the UN Women project “Gender Equality at the Center of Reforms, Peace and Security” (funded by the Government of Sweden), launched a training course “School of Trainers for Conducting Gender and Legal Expertise” in 2019.
Within the framework of the above-mentioned course, 3 advanced training programs were developed for civil servants, who hold civil service positions of categories “A”, “B” and “C”, as well as for heads and specialists of legal services, on the implementation of the state gender policy, which were agreed by the NACS and approved by the Ukrainian School of Government.
NACS recommended regional training centers to use the mentioned programs when conducting appropriate training of civil servants and officials of local self-government.
Also, together with the UN Women project “Gender Equality at the Center of Reforms, Peace and Security” and the project “Support to Ukraine’s Reforms for Governance” (SURGe) a general short-term training program “Integration of Gender Approach in the Development of Legal Normative Documents” for civil servants of central executive authorities, who hold civil service positions of categories “B” and “C” (order of the NACS as of July 27, 2020 No. 133/20) was developed in 2020. According to the above-mentioned program, 350 civil servants were trained.
In 2021 was published “Manual on Tools of Implementation Gender Approach in Civil Service”, developed by experts of the Project “Support to Ukraine’s reforms for Governance” (SURGe), which is funded by the Government of Canada and implemented by Alinea International Company in cooperation with the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine and the National Agency of Ukraine on Civil Service.
The manual is prepared for civil servants and local self-government officials as a practical tool for the integration of a gender approach in the development of policies and programs at both the national and local levels, as well as to ensure the principle of equal rights and opportunities for women and men in all spheres of public administration, and is available at the link: http://www.center.gov.ua/biblioteka
