FBB Poverty beneficiary applauds USAID’s increased focus on gender in aid evaluations

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wtwOur current Poverty beneficiary Women Thrive Worldwide applauded the new policy released last month by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which focuses increased attention on women and girls as recipients and beneficiaries of US foreign assistance — increasingly recognized as a best practice for humanitarian and developmental assistance.

“Up to now, USAID has not consistently used gender-sensitive indicators and collected sex-disaggregated baseline data as part of its evaluation procedures,” said Anu Palan, Vice President of Communications for Women Thrive. The new evaluation policy “rejuvenates past evaluation excellence at USAID by incorporating attention to gender across all relevant areas of evaluation, increasing USAID’s accountability to and its effectiveness in reaching both women and men living in poverty.”

“It is crucial for all U.S. assistance programs to take the needs and voices of women and girls into account, especially since women are the majority of the world’s poorest citizens,” said WTW President Ritu Sharma. “We welcome the fact that USAID is taking this approach to ensure that women truly benefit from all its efforts.”

Women Thrive and its partners in the Gender, Policy and Foreign Assistance Working Group (GPFA) “understand that the true test of these good intentions lies in implementation,” said Palan. “GPFA will work to ensure that these reforms result in a meaningful improvement in the lives of women, men, girls and boys living in poverty around the world.”