Indicator H3 concerns the second strategic objective of area H. It provides information on the government’s commitment to and the status of gender mainstreaming
it is calculated using the following sub-indicators:
- A: status of the governmental commitment to gender mainstreaming in public administration
- B: existence of structures and methods for use in gender mainstreaming including consultation
- C: commitment to and use of methods and tools for gender mainstreaming.
The maximum value Indicator 3 can reach is 16 and is computed as the sum of Sub-indicator A, Sub-indicator B and Sub-indicator C:
- Sub-indicator A has a value of 2 if there is a legal obligation; 1.5 if there is a de-facto binding decision; 1 if there is a recommendation and 0.5 if there is some other kind of commitment.
- Sub-indicator B, depends on: presence of a gender mainstreaming structure (2 if there is inter-ministerial coordination structure and a contact person; 1 if there is a contact person or an external or inter-ministerial structure; 0 if there is no gender mainstreaming structure); regularity of consultations of the governmental body for gender equality by other departments or ministries for new policy plans (1 if it is consulted for almost all policies; 0.5 if it is consulted for some policies; 0 if it is never consulted); and regularity of consultations of the governmental body for gender equality by other departments or ministries to evaluate policies (1 if it is consulted for almost all policies; 0.5 if it is consulted for some policies; 0 if it is never consulted).
- Sub-indicator C depends on whether: there is a legal obligation to undertake a gender impact assessment in drafting laws and/or policies (1 point); there is a legal obligation to undertake a gender budgeting of ministerial budgets (1 point); governmental employees are involved in gender equality training on a regular (1 point) or an ad-hoc basis (0.5 points); gender impact assessments in the evaluation of legislation policy programmes, action plans and/or projects are widely used (2 points), used by some ministries (1 point), still in its initial stages (1 point) and never used (0 point); gender budgeting in ministerial budgets is widely used in most ministries (2 points), still in its initial stages (1 point), and never used (1 point); monitoring and ex-post evaluations of gender and/or gender mainstreaming in any policy domain have been undertaken in the past three years (2 points), or one of the two kind of evaluations (1 point); at least one report is available from these evaluations (1 point).
The data collection process started in 2005 with the Finnish Presidency (with the exception of staff training); it was repeated in 2013 (with reference period 31 December 2012), and in 2019 (with reference date 31 December 2018). The data collection can be repeated in subsequent years, based on the methodology provided in the EIGE 2019 report, Annex I.
The results for 2012 and 2018 are comparable to a limited degree over time. This is because the methodology to collect data has changed slightly over time, putting more weight on assessment by independent experts rather than self-assessment by the government where possible. The values should be interpreted with caution, as they present the situation at different points in time, and the specific reasons for changes between these years are not reviewed in detail.