Gender-sensitive Parliaments

Examples of other assessment approaches you can use

You can develop your own assessment approach (tailored to your unique needs), or utilise other existing approaches and tools to assess the gender-sensitivity of your parliament.

• In 2012, the IPU developed a plan of action for gender-sensitive parliaments and in 2016 published a self-assessment toolkit, allowing parliaments to assess the gendered composition and organisational culture of their institution across seven thematic areas.
• In 2018, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published a toolkit for mainstreaming and implementing gender equality which contains a dedicated section on parliaments to help assess whether they adequately mainstream gender into their internal and external activities and whether they promote gender balance at all levels of the institution.
• In 2020, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) published gender sensitising parliaments guidelines. The document includes a checklist to assess gender equality in institutional leadership, the collection of sex-disaggregated data, gender expertise in parliaments, and women’s roles in parliamentary bodies.
• In 2021, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s (OSCE) Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) published the resource ‘Realizing Gender Equality in Parliament: A Guide for Parliaments in the OSCE Region’. In 2022, the organisation also published a step-by-step guidance document on conducting participatory gender audits for parliaments.

Examples of gender equality assessments conducted in parliaments

The UK Parliament carried out a gender-sensitive audit of the institution in 2018^[1]. The commissions of the upper and lower houses established an audit panel to conduct the audit internally, which was comprised of representatives from both houses and senior parliamentary staff. The audit was facilitated by the IPU and was informed by the IPU’s self-assessment toolkit. At the beginning of the process, the panel:

• gathered and analysed qualitative data from the databases of representatives and the administrations and HR departments of the two houses;
• conducted a review of relevant policies and previous research studies;
• carried out a focus group with members of a workplace equality network within the institution.

The audit was the first comprehensive assessment of the state of gender equality in the UK Parliament. The report identified the strengths and weaknesses of the institution and provided recommendations for addressing barriers to gender equality in the institution. It also highlighted the importance of intersectionality, exploring how a person’s age, race, sexual orientation, disability, and socioeconomic status can create additional barriers to their entry to parliament.

As part of the preparation for their 2020–2023 gender equality plan, the regional Parliament of Catalonia in Spain, hired a team of external gender consultants to conduct a gender audit^[2]. The group collected qualitative and quantitative data on the state of gender equality within the parliament under the supervision of a newly established Gender Equality Working Group comprising representatives from the Board of the Parliament, all parliamentary groups and subgroups, the Staff Council, the General Secretary, and the Office of the Presidency. The findings from the audit fed into the draft action plan produced by the Gender Equity Working Group, which was then approved by the Board of the Parliament of Catalonia.

Using EIGE’s framework for gender-sensitive parliaments, the Assembly of the Republic of North Macedonia, with the support of the OSCE Mission to Skopje and the National Democratic Institute in North Macedonia, conducted the gender-sensitive parliaments self-assessment, delivered a report with identified strengths and weaknesses and adopted an action plan for enhancing the gender-sensitivity of the Parliament in 2020–2021^[3].