InterAction is the largest alliance of U.S.-based international development and humanitarian nongovernmental organizations. With more than 160 members operating in every developing country, we work to overcome poverty, exclusion and suffering by advancing social justice and basic dignity for all.

InterAction's CAW was created in 1992 by InterAction's Executive Committee out of the former sub-committee on Women in Development to give enhanced visibility and priority to gender equality within the PVO community, the Commission promotes gender equity in the policy and practice of InterAction members, national, and international development and humanitarian assistance organizations.

The CAW established the online communities for groups working on specific topics/projects to have open, accessible communication with one another.  We currently have two online communities, which are closed to participants of specified topics.  It is our hope that these communities will serve as a useful tool for colleagues to share resources, gather information and to provide support to one another.  Descriptions of the online communities are below:

Gender Audit:

This group includes former participants from three separate Gender Audit Facilitator’s Training Courses that have taken place in DC, Ghana and San Francisco.  The course prepares participants to conduct a Gender Audit within their own organizations.

InterAction’s Gender Audit is an organizational self-assessment tool and action planning process for mainstreaming gender equality.  The Gender Audit is designed to build the capacity of international development and humanitarian assistance organizations to systematically integrate gender equality throughout their field programs and in organizational structures and processes.  The Gender Audit is based on a Gender Integration Framework© developed by InterAction’s Commission on the Advancement of Women (CAW) in its work with member agencies over the past five years.  The framework includes four components for an effective gender mainstreaming strategy: political will, technical capacity, accountability, and organizational culture.  The Gender Audit process takes all of these components into account to ensure that organizations can create their own viable and sustainable strategies for gender mainstreaming.

During the development of the Gender Audit, the CAW consulted with leading development organizations also utilizing similar gender audit approaches, including Oxfam UK and the Gender and Development Training Institute in the Netherlands.  In June 2002, the CAW convened a panel at InterAction’s annual Forum titled Institutional Gender Audits as a Resource for Change.  The panel included representatives of the ILO, Gender and Development Training Institute, and InterAction members who had undergone gender audits and highlighted the efficacy and lessons learned of this new approach to gender mainstreaming.

The CAW has been sought out by major development organizations for expert advice on conducting an institutional gender audit.  Two USAID Missions, Haiti and Rwanda, expressed interest in InterAction’s Gender Audit and the Rwanda Mission conducted its own audit relying heavily on the CAW’s method.  In early 2002, the CAW was invited by the World Bank to present its Gender Audit process and outcomes at a bank conference on gender mainstreaming.  Likewise, the UN Commission on the Status of Women included the CAW on a panel on gender mainstreaming at its March 2002 meeting, and UNICEF consulted with the CAW on the development of its own gender audit process.

The CAW’s Gender Audit fosters successful gender mainstreaming and ultimately more equitable and effective development programs because: 

a. The approach is participatory and builds strong organizational

    ownership; 

b. The outcome of the audit is an institution-specific gender action

    plan;

c. The process includes the involvement of senior management;

d. The audit results in a systematic plan for achieving gender

    integration

The audit has the effect of catalyzing an on-going change process within an organization. When organizations identify, embrace, have the energy for, and implement a particular course of change themselves, it appears that a “pin-ball effect” occurs that stimulates a chain reaction of continuing change.

Asian Innovative Practices (AIP):

InterAction's Commission on the Advancement of Women (CAW), in partnership with the International Institute for Rural Reconstruction (IIRR), are developing a publication highlighting effective gender mainstreaming strategies in Asia.  Asian Innovative Practices for Gender Mainstreaming will capture effective strategies developed and implemented by pioneering field practitioners in Asia, and is a companion volume to the CAW and Gender Development Institute's publication, Stories of Equitable Development: Innovative Practices from Africa (2001).

The best practices come primarily from mainstream development organizations tackling these issues in the Asia region.  The focus of the publication is on institutional interventions that have had a significant impact on the realization of gender equality through the use of innovative and cutting edge strategies, approaches and techniques.  Organizations to be featured in the publication include:

- Asian Development Bank (Bangladesh & Nepal)

- CARE (Bangladesh)

- CEDPA (India)

- Center for Asia Pacific Women in Politics (Philippines)

- FemLINKPacific (Fiji Islands)

- Heifer Project (Nepal)

- Himalayan Action Research Centre (India)

- International Center for Research on Women (India)

- International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (Nepal)

- International Development Research Centre 

  (Nepal/India/Vietnam/Mongolia/China)

- Lutheran World Relief (Philippines)

- Pact (Indonesia)

- Plan International (Vietnam)

- The Hunger Project (Bangladesh)

- Wan Smolbag Theatre (Vanuatu)

- Winrock International (Nepal)

- World Vision (Vietnam)