NO ONE LEFT BEHIND

generation for rights holders—“Leaving no one behind”
requires agencies and governments to be fit for
purpose, with efforts needed to build demand from
the bottom up with rights holders, especially those left
behind. Paradigms that are drawn on the lines of capitalism
and patriarchy cannot drive gender equality, let
alone measure it.
3. What is the potential for innovative approaches to
evaluation to capture the perspectives and voices
of women and marginalized groups in a more
inclusive evaluation process?
A human-rights based approach to evaluation—
although not innovative—is crucial to ensuring the
voices and perspectives of women and marginalized
groups in the evaluation process. New approaches,
such as big data, should be used with caution and
localized and contextualized for the following
reasons:
••
We do not know how representative or inclusive they
are, particularly of the most marginalized
••
Is big data really not leaving anybody behind (who is
really using Twitter in Uganda, for example)?
There must be a focus on participatory evaluation
methods. Vulnerable and marginalized groups must be
part of the evaluation process from the onset.
4. What have proven to be some of the most effective
methods for gender-responsive and equity-focused
evaluations?
Critical principles and approaches to ensure
gender-responsive and equity-focused
evaluations include: inclusion of women’s voices,
human-rights based learning approach, gender and
age disaggregation of data, transparency and culturally
relevant language. Effective methods to hear
women’s voices in different cultural contexts include
participatory methods that can lift women’s voices up
(e.g., story-telling and drama). Indicators can then be
created from this data, that is, from the ground up.
National survey data is important, but contextualization
and analysis is needed.
5. What are the limitations of current data collection
methods and their implications with regard to
developing gender-responsive and equity-focused
evaluations of the SDGs?
Key concepts and analytical categories (such as equality,
equity, gender and empowerment) should be clearly
developed and defined for the evaluation and applied
throughout all phases, including data collection. Data
collected for evaluation should include: intra-household
data (from surveys, interviews, focus groups, etc.)
and data from other members of households (i.e., not
just the head of the household). As data is often not
collected on children and youth for ethical principles,
children and youth may be “left out”. Limitations to
quantitative data collection methods include: low
levels of disaggregation, small sample sizes, and an
inability to capture issues of power, access, participation,
etc. Evaluation protocols must be adapted to
particular contexts (i.e., disasters, internally displaced
people camps, informal housing settlements). There
are currently low levels of capacity to ensure that data
collection methods themselves are gender-responsive
and equity focused.
6. How can developments in data offer new opportunities
for evaluating the SDGs from a genderresponsive
lens? What is the potential for new
sources of data to capture the perspectives and
voices of women and marginalized groups?
Social media as a new source of data should complement
traditional sources (official statistics). Even if
new sources of data exist, disaggregation is often
not granular enough to capture variation within
groups and among marginalized people. Availability
of shadow data and raw data sets could offer new
opportunities for evaluating the SDGs from a
gender-responsive lens. Cross-tabulation of multiple
data sets can offer new opportunities for evaluating
the SDGs from a gender-responsive lens. Data generated
from unstructured methods—such as a
“walk and talk” approach and storytelling—can
capture the perspectives and voices of women and
marginalized groups.
Evaluating the Sustainable Development Goals with
an Equity-focused and Gender-responsive Lens 17