Global development is now recognised by the 2030 Agenda as being characterised by multiple interconnected and indivisible realities as expressed in the 17 SDGs. Successful implementation of the ambitious global agenda calls for new approaches and methodologies to understand and evaluate these interlinkages between global challenges, their integrated nature, and their complexities.
The UN Women Independent Evaluation Servicehas released a guide on the Inclusive Systemic Evaluation for Gender equality, Environments and Marginalized voices (ISE4GEMs) approach. It is an approach for the SDG era, a part of a larger response to shift the way development actors (from donors, multilateral organizations, bilateral agencies, non-governmental organizations [NGOs] and the participants themselves) view the process of economic or social development, as well as humanitarian action.
Study views”sustainability as a property of a web of relationships means that in order to understand it properly we need to shift our focus to the whole and learn how to think in terms of relationships, in terms of interconnections, patterns and context” (Evitts, 2010). It promotes transdisciplinary evaluation methods, rethinks systemic evaluation methodology, and introduces the Gender equality, Environments and Marginalized voices (GEMs) framework. ISE4GEMs uses the GEMs dimensions as a focal lens to refine analysis on issues of power and oppression that matter to the stakeholders and participants impacted by an intervention.
The ISE4GEMs approach is grounded in both systems thinking and complexity and differs profoundly from many conventional approaches to intervention design and evaluation practice.
