#BeBoldForChange

THET needs to become more conscious about how, if at all, our work is advancing gender equality. 2017 is the year we will achieve this.

Our approach is centred on the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) we have developed for THET this year. Alongside the necessary data we gather to track the performance of our programme, grants-making and policy work, we will ask ourselves one overarching impact question: how is our work accelerating gender equality? 

We will use this question to drive individual and organisational learning across our six offices, commissioning external evaluations, gathering case studies and data and, by the end of the year, publishing our findings publicly. This will be an honest and critical assessment of how well we are faring, and how we can become still more systematic going forward. Collaborating with our partners across the health partnership community will be critical in achieving this.

We already have a certain awareness of how gender influences who delivers health services and who benefits from them. In a recent staff meeting on this theme examples were plentiful and various: from an obstetrician who ran clinical training on reproductive and maternal and neonatal health, to women who needed consent from their male relatives to undergo surgical procedures. 
But this focus is perhaps made even more urgent in 2017 given the position being taken by the US under the leadership of President Trump, and especially his gagging order concerning funding for abortion or post-abortion care. Never has the phrase ‘one step forward, two steps back’ seemed so applicable.

It is also an area highlighted for greater consideration in the recent DFID-commissioned evaluation of the Health Partnerships Scheme and of course, we cannot talk about the Sustainable Development Goals without thinking about gender equality, the phrase ‘No one gets left behind’, alongside health.
This process is being championed across THET by one of our Trustees, Professor Irene Leigh. A Gender Equality Working Group has been established to steer our progress. Written guidance to help us consider gender equality in programme planning and monitoring is being developed by our Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Team and we have  commissioned two studies into how partnerships’ approach gender equality and an analysis of the populations who use the health services and facilities partnerships work to strengthen. 

This is an exciting and vital area of consideration for THET. If you would like to stay in touch or contribute to this process, please get in touch: info@thet.org

Ben Simms
CEO,
THET