Considering Gender in Social Impact Assessment

Аннотация

This essay serves as an introduction to the special issue on gender in management and impact evaluation. We highlight the consequences for effectively addressing gender relations, the rights of women, and LGBTQI+ individuals as well as the lack of gender-responsive techniques in conventional impact assessment practice and management. We also introduce the special issue, which highlights impact assessment's shortcomings while also showing that doable ways to further integrate gender-responsive techniques exist. Collectively, a key claim made in the contributions is that gender-neutral methods of impact assessment and management may actually worsen existing gender discrimination or even create new forms of it. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and international human rights law, which are based on the core values of non- discrimination, substantive equality, and gender equality, and ‘leaving no one behind’. Four themes for more gender-responsive impact assessment and management are highlighted: (1) gender-responsive context analysis; (2) gender-responsive engagement and increased participation of women and LGBTQI+ people; (3) adaptation of tools, methods, and skills for enhanced gender responsiveness; and (4) embedding gender- responsive approaches from the project level to the governance sphere. Without presuming transferability across contexts, the contributions show that such strategies are necessary and possible in diverse global settings. 1 INTRODUCTION This essay serves as an introduction to the special projects, and infrastructure development, and are less issue on gender in management and impact likely to share in the benefits, this recognition has not evaluation. The lack of gender-responsive techniques consistently translated into gender responsiveness in in traditional impact assessment practice and impact assessment and management. The management is noted in the opening paragraphs, "conventional" impact assessment practice, such as along with the consequences for creating impact regulatory or other impact assessments that are not assessment procedures that truly address the rights of specifically focused on gender, tends to remain women and LGBTQI+ persons. We also introduce the gender neutral, which has the effect of missing or contributions to the special issue, which highlight incorrectly conceptualizing the experiences of specific instances of impact assessment and women and LGBTQI+ people as well as the gender management practices that fall short of fully relations within families and communities. As a integrating a gender perspective and show how result, incomplete impact evaluations are created and workable, gender-responsive solutions can be implemented, which leads to inadequate management developed to address these oversights. plans. the contributions to this special demonstrate Even though it has been acknowledged that issue, gender-neutral impact assessment risks women and LGBTQI+ people frequently bear a perpetuating and exacerbating systemic gender disproportionate burden of the negative effects discrimination in societies, or even creating new associated with business activities, particularly forms of discrimination. This contributes to industrial activities, large-scale resource extraction detrimental effects for those people adversely impacted by business activities but also demonstrates projects, and regulators; and (2) to highlight and a failure of government actors to uphold their duties examine some of the useful strategies, tools, and to respect, protect, and fulfil human rights, and of frameworks that stakeholders in impact assessment business actors to respect these rights. and management can use to incorporate more gender- While women and LGBTQI+ people are responsive approaches, which could also serve as the occasionally addressed in impact assessment and basis for future research. Collectively, a major theme management, this typically takes the form of emerging from the contributions is that gender- predetermined categorization as members of neutral approaches to impact assessment and "vulnerable groups," or by demonstrating that there management run the risk of sustaining, reproducing, have been some women-only meetings or that some or adversely transforming social patterns of exclusion sex-disaggregated data has been collected; rather than and discrimination, particularly those experienced by taking a comprehensive gender-responsive approach women and LGBTQI+ people. that seeks to understand gendered roles, structures, The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and power dynamics, and associated privileging an and international human rights law, which are oppressed group, these approaches are typically more founded on the fundamental principles of non- narrowly focused. Instead of incorporating a gender discrimination, substantive gender equality, and perspective throughout, there may be a "gender" "leaving no one behind," respectively, establish segment in