International Labour Organization
SEAPAT
South-East Asia and the Pacific Multidisciplinary Advisory Team

Unit 1: A conceptual framework for gender analysis and planning

Some gender planning approaches and strategies

The Harvard Analytical Framework 

The Harvard Analytical Framework is also called the Gender Roles Framework or Gender Analysis Framework. Developed by the Harvard Institute for International development in collaboration with the WID office of USAID, and based on the WID efficiency approach, it is one of the earliest gender analysis and planning frameworks.

Aims of the Harvard framework:

• To demonstrate that there is an economic rationale for investing in women as well as men.
• To assist planners design more efficient projects and improve overall productivity.
• To emphasise the importance of better information as the basis for meeting the efficiency/equity goal.
• To map the work of men and women in the community and highlight the key differences.

The Harvard framework is originally outlined in Overholt, Anderson, Cloud and Austin, Gender Roles in Development Projects: A Case Book, 1984, Kumarian Press: Connecticut.

The framework consists of a matrix for collecting data at the micro (community and household) level. It has four interrelated components:

• the activity profile, which answers the question, "who does what?", including gender, age, time spent and location of the activity
• the access and control profile, which identifies the resources used to carry out the work identified in the activity profile, and access to and control over their use, by gender
• the analysis of influencing factors, which charts factors that influence gender differences in the above two profiles
• the project cycle analysis, which examines a project or intervention in light of gender-disaggregated information

CHECKLIST 1: Women’s dimension in project identification

1. What needs and opportunities exist for increasing women’s productivity and/or production?
1. What needs and opportunities exist for increasing women’s access to and control of resources?
1. What needs and opportunities exist for increasing women’s access to and control of benefits?
1. How do these needs and opportunities relate to the country’s other general and sectoral development needs and opportunities?
1. Have women been directly consulted in identifying such needs and opportunities?

1. Are project objectives explicitly related to women’s needs?
1. Do these objectives adequately reflect women’s needs?
1. have women participated in setting those objectives?
1. Have their been any earlier efforts?
1. How has the present proposal built on earlier activity?

1. Might the project reduce women’s access to or control of resources and benefits?
1. Might it adversely affect women’s situation in some other way?
1. What will be the effects on women in the short and longer term?

1. Which of these activities (Production, reproduction and maintenance, socio-political) does the project affect?
1. Is the planned component consistent with the current gender denomination for the activity?
1. If it is planned to change the women’s performance of that activity, i.e., locus of activity, remunerative mode, technology, mode of activity) is this feasible, and what positive or negative effects would there be on women?
1. If it does not change, is this a missed opportunity for women’s roles in the development process?
1. How can the project design be adjusted to increase the above-mentioned positive effects, and reduce or eliminate the negative ones?

1. How will each of the project components affect women’s access to and control of the resources and benefits engaged in and stemming from the production of goods and services?
1. How will each of the project components affect women’s access to and control of the resources and benefits engaged in and stemming from the reproduction and maintenance of the human resources?
1. How will each of the project components affect women’s access to and control of the resources and benefits engaged in and stemming from the socio-political functions?
1. What forces have been set into motion to induce further exploration of constraints and possible improvements?
1. How can the project design be adjusted to increase women’s access to and control of resources and benefits?

1. Are project personnel aware of and sympathetic to women’s needs?
1. Are women used to deliver the goods and services to women beneficiaries?
1. Do personnel have the necessary skills to provide any special inputs required by women?
1. What training techniques will be used to develop delivery systems?
1. Are there appropriate opportunities for women to participate in project management positions?

1. Does the organisational form enhance women’s access to resources?
1. Does the organisation have adequate power to obtain resources needed by women from other organisations?
1. Does the organisation have the institutional capability to support and protect women during the change process?

1. Are the organisation’s delivery channels accessible to women in terms of personnel, location and timing?
1. Do control procedures exist to ensure dependable delivery of the goods and services?
1. Are there mechanisms to ensure that the project resources or benefits are not usurped by males?

1. Do funding mechanisms exist to ensure programme continuity?
1. Are funding levels adequate for proposed tasks?
1. Is preferential access to resources by males avoided?
1. Is it possible tot race funds for women from allocation to delivery with a fair deal of accuracy?

1. Does the project have a management information system which will allow it to detect the effects of the operation on women?
1. Does the organisation have enough flexibility to adapt its structures and operations to meet the changing or new-found situations of women?

1. Does the project’s monitoring and evaluation system explicitly measure the project’s effects on women?
1. Does it also collect data to update the Activity Analysis and the Women’s Access and Control Analysis?
1. Are women involved in designing the data requirements?

1. Are the data collected with sufficient frequency so that necessary project adjustments could be made during the project?
1. Are the data fed back to project personnel and beneficiaries in an understandable form and on a timely basis to allow project adjustments?
1. Are women involved in the collection and interpretation of data?
1. Are data analysed so as to provide guidance to the design of other projects?
1. Are key areas of WID research identified?

Uses of the framework:

• Best suited for project planning, rather than programme or policy planning
• As a gender-neutral entry point when raising gender issues with constituents resistant to considering gender relations and power dynamics
• For baseline data collection
• In conjunction with Moser’s framework, to draw in the idea of strategic gender needs

• It is practical and hands-on.
• Once the data have been collected, it gives a clear picture of who does what, when and with what resources. It makes women’s role and work visible.
• It distinguishes between access to and control over resources.
• It can be easily adapted to a variety of settings and situations.
• It is relatively non-threatening, because it relies on "facts" only.

• Based on WID (efficiency) rationale, which aims at increasing project/programme efficiency. It does not delineate power relations or decision-making processes. Therefore, the framework offers little guidance on how to change existing gender inequalities. It tends to result in gender-neutral or gender-specific interventions, rather than those that can transform existing gender relations.
• Tends to oversimplify, based on a somewhat superficial, tick-the-boxes approach to data collection, ignoring complexities in the community; may result in lost opportunities for change
• Is basically a top-down planning tool, excluding women’s and men’s own analysis of their situation
• Ignores other underlying inequalities, such as class, race and ethnicity, encouraging an erroneous view of men and women as homogeneous categories
• Emphasises separation of activities and resources based on sex or age, ignoring connections and co-operative relations across these categories. This can result in projects that may misbehave or cannot tackle women’s strategic gender needs.
• The profiles yield a somewhat static view of the community, without reference to changes over time in gender relations

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