Section 10 - Accountability and ethics
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⧫ Beginner: Entry-level tools and step-by-step guides for investors and financial institutions to get started on their gender mainstreaming journeys.
⧫⧫ Intermediate: Intermediate-level tools, strategies, guidelines, and manuals for investors and financial institutions already working with impact-investing frameworks and with a solid understanding of the concepts of gender, diversity, equity, and inclusion.
⧫⧫⧫ Advanced: Advanced-level intersectional frameworks and analytical gender lenses for investors and financial institutions with established GDE&I practices and a strong conceptual understanding of applying a gender lens across institutional activities.
☆Must read
*** Key resource for diversifying the gender perspective
Does your organization incorporate ethical considerations into the development or analysis of its programs, products, investments or services to mitigate potential risks?
Choose your answer
Incorporating ethical considerations in the development of strategies, products or services is a key step to gender mainstreaming.
This Section 10 will make the business case on why ethics is an important area to consider in any gender mainstreaming project and guide you through various different institutional changes needed to make sure everyone has a way to hold institutions accountable from clients to internal staff.
Select the challenges you identify with and explore the resources
Challenge:
Institutions that engage with inequities are recommended to have procedures in place that safeguard confidentiality and anonymity and avoid conflicts of interest.
Are you familiar with the term "whistleblowing"? Learn more about the importance of having clear, formal, secure and anonymous whistleblowing channels in the CDC ESG Toolkit Business integrity: Whistleblowing, or in the Transparency International’s Whistleblowing Programme.
⧫ Beginner, English, ☆Must read
Women face particular disadvantages at work, from workplace harassment to unequal institutional structure that prevent women advancing in their careers. Want to know what solutions your institution can implement in terms of sexual harassment? The comprehensive "Now What” guide on Top-Down, Industry-Level or Organizational Change at p. 11 and Bottom-Up, Worker-Led Solutions at p.19 can get you started.
⧫⧫ Intermediate, English
Creating screening and scoring models for other institutions in your sector can help move the needle toward more equitable organizational practices.
Interested in advocacy and communication strategies? Look through Section 3 here.
Want to screen out using positive and negative screening tools? Check out Section 6 in this toolkit.
Challenge:
To reach gender equality, it is essential to have internal and external groups that monitor progress and compliance with diversity and inclusion goals. These can be done through setting up equity-based committees or performing gender audits.
Having a gender or ethics third-party committee is key for ensuring that the conversation around gender diversity becomes part of your organization’s key priorities. Check out page 30 of the Gender Lens Incubation and Acceleration Toolkit to learn more about the importance and strategies of having a Gender Committee in your organization.
Need to implement a gender audit?
Go over Section 8.1 and 9.3 of this Toolkit to find more resources on how to create an effective gender audit in your workplace.
Challenge:
Incorporating local and context indicators when designing or developing projects, policies, products and/or services is essential to understand the real needs of the selected population/target. This is the only way to ensure that products/services and/or strategies are optimal. You can learn more about the importance of context indicators in the Gender Monitoring section of the European Institute for Gender Equality, and in the Gender-smart investing for FIs section of the CDC ESG Toolkit.
⧫⧫ Intermediate, English
Challenge:
Do you need guidance on how to design gender equality/DEI training for staff? Check out the Gender Equality Training page for a step-by-step guide on preparing, implementing and evaluating a training (e.g.: designing effective gender equality training).
⧫ Beginner, English
Creating participatory processes where everyone has access to a “seat at the table” requires additional resources. The Respectability Guide can get you started on how to create a working environment that supports, empowers and uplifts all.
⧫⧫ Intermediate, English
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