Gender Representation

This indicator measures the representation of women among the members of an intervention’s target group – for example, the percentage of female sales agents (however, where relevant, it can also focus on the representation of men).

To determine the indicator’s value, sum up the total number of women present in the target group (e.g. sales agents, service providers, users of certain products, etc.) and divide this by the total number of women and men present in the target group. Multiply the result by 100 to convert it to a percentage.

What activities should the indicator be used for?

This indicator should be used in projects that either promote female empowerment at the household level and/or market level; e.g. SME support and development of female headed enterprises.

1) If there is a risk of women being only ‘formally’ among the target group members, consider rephrasing the indicator to, for example, “% of active individuals within [specify the target group] who are female”. Such an amendment might give you more meaningful data as you will measure the representation of women (or men) only among those target group members that are actually active. However, with this addition, it is important to define what is meant by ‘active’ and to keep strictly to this definition.

2) If you deal with a context where the objective is to increase the representation of men, rephrase the indicator to "% of [specify the target group] who are female" and revise the methodology accordingly.