Since 2016, all UNIDO projects/programmes are required to integrate gender considerations by: i) identifying the economic and social inequalities and disparities at the local and regional levels affecting women; ii) outlining the means and ways these are to be addressed to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of women; iii) collecting and analyzing relevant sex-disaggregated data and key indicators aimed at guiding the design and implementation of gender-responsive projects. These efforts are supported by a dedicated Office for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women and gender focal points placed throughout the Organization.

UNIDO introduced a gender equality marker in 2014 as a gender categorization tool to rate the expected contributions of UNIDO’s technical cooperation projects to gender equality and the empowerment of women within the context of inclusive and sustainable industrial development.   It has since undergone several updates, most recently in 2021, which extended the coverage of the gender equality marker to UNIDO programmes and projects of a normative and convening nature, as well as Programmes for Country Partnerships (PCPs) and country programmes (CPs).

Aligned with the UNDG standard, the UNIDO gender equality marker is based on a four-point scale (see Table 1). Initially applied to project outputs, its application has been moved to the overall project level in 2019.  At UNIDO, gender marker scores 2A and 2B are considered equally desirable outcomes and good practice.    UNIDO highly discourages projects with a gender marker score of 0.  

Table 1: Gender Equality Marker Scale and Minimum Project/Programme Criteria

In addition, to strengthening the gender-responsiveness of UNIDO interventions at the planning and approval stage, the gender marker also monitors resource allocations to gender equality and the empowerment of women. It is applied to all UNIDO programmatic (non-core) allocations, including associated operational, gender-related human resources and service project costs and is integrated into UNIDO’s enterprise resource planning system [SAP]. In calculating the percentage of resources allocated for gender equality, UNIDO also factors in the human resource costs associated with its gender architecture. While the full costs of the Office for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women are included, gender focal points, who are embedded in every department and office, including field offices, are costed in line with UN-SWAP requirements and the UNIDO Policy on Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women that stipulate that 20% of their time be dedicated to issues of gender equality and women’s empowerment. 

UNIDO gender focal points work closely with project teams to strengthen the integration of gender equality considerations in programmes and projects throughout the project cycle. As part of the program/project appraisal and approval process, project managers are required to fill in UNIDO’s Gender Compliance and Marker Form, which provides a qualitative set of minimum criteria to aid in the determination of a gender marker score.  As a minimum requirement, all projects and programmes must include data disaggregated by gender as well as incorporate the findings of a mandatory gender analysis in the design as a precondition for avoiding a gender marker score of 0. In this regard, the gender equality marker has been a valuable tool and process for building UNIDO staff capacity on gender mainstreaming.  

Following the project manager’s assessment, the department’s gender focal point conducts an initial screening and appraisal of projects based on the criteria of UNIDO’s Gender Compliance and Marker Form and makes a recommendation for clearance to the Office for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women. The Office’s clearance is a prerequisite for obtaining internal, organizational approval of the project or programme and forms part of the mandatory compliance and quality assurance process.

UNIDO, in its Strategy for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (2020 – 2023), committed to increasing the annual ratio of newly approved projects that at least significantly contribute to gender equality and the empowerment of women to 45 per cent by 2023; this is inclusive of projects assigned a Gender Marker score of 2A or 2B.  In 2021, 46 per cent of approved UNIDO projects had fulfilled this criterion; thereby meeting and exceeding the target ahead of the deadline. 

The Office for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women produces guidance, templates and tools to support accuracy and consistency in gender marker coding. In 2021, the Office for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women developed the UNIDO Guide to Gender Analysis and Gender Mainstreaming the Project Cycle to support the implementation of the corporate Gender Strategy’s commitments and to strengthen gender equality results across all projects and programmes.  It also updated the UNIDO Gender Compliance and Marker Form to capture the different nature of technical cooperation (TC) projects, CPs and PCPs as well as projects of a normative and convening nature to gender equality and the empowerment of women more accurately. The inclusion of SMART indicators in the Form has led to assigning more accurate gender equality marker scores to projects and programmes.

The Office for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women has also strengthened the capacities of project teams to integrate gender considerations throughout the design and implementation of technical activities, including through gender analysis and use of the gender equality marker. Trainings were carried out in 2019, 2020 and 2021. To support self-paced training, it plans to make available online training courses on tools and entry points to mainstream gender equality issues across all stages of the project/programme cycle. It has also produced two video guides for UNIDO staff: one on how to assign a gender marker to UNIDO projects, programmes, and strategic documents; the other on the gender project/programme review and clearance process. 

The centralized mandatory gender equality marker review system has enabled UNIDO to enhance the quality of gender mainstreaming at the project approval stage. UNIDO has also taken concrete steps to further promote gender-responsive evaluations to ensure that terminal project evaluations of approved projects (after 2015) consistently assess whether the project’s gender marker at entry is reflected in project implementation as well as in the project’s results framework.

In UNIDO’s Annual Report, UNIDO shares gender marker data on three dimensions:

1. The percentage of projects cleared by the gender office (in calendar year) under each gender marker category.
2. Ongoing (entire portfolio) percentage of projects under each gender marker category.
3. Percentage of programmes/projects with gender-informed design; percentage of total budget of ongoing projects allocated under each gender marker category. 

Table 2: Snapshot 2021
Percentage of overall number of UNIDO programme/projects by gender marker category, 2021

Table 2 shows that in 2021, a total of 46 per cent of approved UNIDO projects had achieved either a gender marker score of 2A (44.4%) or 2B (1.6%); and therefore, exceeded the target of 45% of newly approved projects meeting this criterion (as stated previously). This also represented a noteworthy increase from 34.6% in 2020 and 19.1% in 2019 of approved projects which at a minimum significantly contributed to gender equality and the empowerment of women.

Other key trends highlighted in Table 2 include the decreasing proportion of Gender Marker 1 projects as a share of UNIDO’s active, overall programme/project portfolio and the concomitant increase in the proportion of Gender Marker 2 programmes/projects. Equally important, none of the projects approved in 2021 were assessed as a Gender Marker 0. It also shows that in 2021 that the gender marker was applied to all approved projects and all projects were evaluated for their gender-responsiveness.   

UNIDO also reports every two years on gender marker data as part of the Report of the Director General on “UNIDO, gender equality and the empowerment of women” to the UNIDO General Conference, the organization’s main governing body, as part of progress reporting on the implementation of General Conference resolutions on gender and the UNIDO Gender Strategy (2020 – 2023). 

The gender marker data is also publicly available in real-time on UNIDO’s Open Data Platform, which, in addition to displaying financial information on all ongoing programmes and projects, shares the financial allocations of UNIDO’s programme/project portfolio to gender equality and the empowerment of women by gender marker codes. As Figure 1 indicates, the vast majority of UNIDO’s projects are expected to have a “limited” and “significant" contribution to gender equality, with the share of projects expected to have a “significant” contribution to gender equality (Gender Marker 2A) continuing to increase in proportion since the adoption of the current UNIDO Gender Strategy. 

Figure 1: Total Budget of Ongoing Projects by Contribution to Gender Equality

UNIDO’s comprehensive and well-resourced gender architecture – which includes the Office for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women and a network of Gender Focal Points placed throughout the organisation - has been vital for driving institutional progress on meeting and, in some cases, exceeding targets on high level gender equality objectives; including increasing the annual ratio of projects that at a minimum significantly contribute to gender equality and the empowerment of women. 

While resource-intensive, having a centralized and mandatory gender equality marker review system has resulted in a more consistent and accurate use of the gender equality marker and ensured the quality of gender data. In particular, the interactive nature of the review by the Office for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women and the Gender Focal Points has created important entry points for further integrating and strengthening gender equality considerations in project/programme design and formulation and for increasing financial allocations for gender equality.  

To link the intended gender equality contributions of projects/programmes – as scored by the gender equality marker – to results, UNIDO has made further investments to improve M&E systems by ensuring the inclusion of gender-responsive outputs and gender-disaggregated indicators on individuals and firms. As a practical measure, UNIDO has revised narrative reporting templates to include a section on the implementation of the gender marker commitments as well as on gender-related results, challenges, and good practices. Efforts are also being made to further promote gender-responsive evaluations to systematically review the implementation of gender marker commitments – programmatic and financial.