Case Studies>>Participatory gender and rights audit of DanChurchAid


First published: 2010-02-05

In the autumn of 2009, SDDirect's Alice Kerr-Wilson and Francis Watkins, with rights specialist, Clare Ferguson and communications specialist, Gayatri Persad, conducted a Participatory Gender and Rights Audit of DanChurchAid to examine the extent to which gender and rights had been considered and integrated into the organisation's internal systems and processes.

Established in 1922, DanChurchAid is one of Denmark's largest NGOs, working in Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and Central America.

The SDDirect team worked closely with members of the DanChurchAid audit team to design the methodology. This involved:

  • Reviews of key documents including communications, HR, fundraising policies and strategies, mission plans and budgets.
  • Design of a questionnaire which was sent to a sample of selected staff at headquarters in Copenhagen and to three country offices: Kyrgyzstan, Cambodia and Zambia.
  • Face-to-face interviews and discussions with staff at headquarters in Copenhagen.
  • Phone interviews with senior managers and staff in the three country offices.

We found that across the organisation, the rights-based approach was more consistently integrated into DanChurchAid's work than gender equality.

Key achievements included:

  1. Strong staff commitment to using a gender and rights-based approach in their work.
  2. Policies and procedures were in place to ensure that staff are treated equally, without discrimination.
  3. Strong belief among staff that the organisation was sensitive and respectful towards them and promoted equality in the workplace.
  4. Strong connections to external gender and rights networks had been established.
  5. Policies and procedures were in place to ensure corruption-free practice and to uphold human rights.

However, there were were some challenges which needed to be addressed.

  1. Mission documents did not consistently reflect DanChurchAid's commitment to gender equality and rights-based development nor was this reflected in organisational plans and budgets.
  2. Gender and rights expertise were not always reflected in priorities for staff recruitment and competencies.
  3. Statistics collected on staff recruitment, advancement or retention were not disaggregated by sex, ethnicity or other variables, which made it hard for the organisation to monitor its diversity commitment.
  4. Communications and advocacy strategies did not outline rights and gender approaches in key objectives and success indicators.
  5. There were no formal mechanisms through which rights-holders could participate in and influence DanChurchAid strategies.

As a result of these findings, SDDirect recommended that DanChurchAid develop a framework of commitments on gender equality and rights. This could include programme and departmental self-assessments to establish a baseline, more systematic analysis of issues of discrimination and inequality within the workplace and better policy connection to formal mechanisms of the international human rights framework.

Alongside this it was also recommended that the organisation develop a corresponding implementation plan with clear commitments and indicators on gender equality and rights for all of its departments and programmes.