8. Gender-based analysis - Secrétariat à la condition féminine

characterizing their respective situations. In other words, GBA is a tool for
introducing into public policy the relevant elements distinguishing the situation of women from that of men.
8. GENDER-BASED
ANALYSIS
Gender-based analysis is the expression used in Québec to describe the
process designed to integrate an approach which takes into account differential consequences based on gender in
the sphere of public policy. The expression used in the rest of Canada is also
gender-based analysis. The Council of
Europe prefers the integrated approach
to equality concept, whereas the
French-speaking world, or Francophonie, has adopted the gender approach.
The context – The decision to introduce genderbased analysis (GBA) into
Québec
government
practices is a direct consequence of the United
Nations Fourth World
Conference on Women
held in Beijing.
An interministerial committee, under the
joint leadership of the Ministère du Conseil exécutif, the Secrétariat à la condition féminine and the Secrétariat du
Conseil du trésor, has brought together
four departments and one agency: the
Ministère des Finances, the Ministère
des Relations avec les citoyens et de
l’Immigration, the Ministère de la Santé
et des Services sociaux, the Ministère
de la Solidarité sociale and the Institut
de la statistique du Québec. In accordance with a Cabinet
decision, the interministerial committee must
Through the exreport to the Conseil du
trésor at each critical
pression
of
a
stage of its work.
strong political will
to integrate gender-based analysis
into
government
policy, consensus
and a culture of
gender
equality
will
emerge
in
Québec society.
In the Action Plan For
Women Throughout Québec 1997-2000, the Québec government follows
up on the commitments it
made in Beijing with a
mobilization project, so
designated because it
involves concerted action
on the part of a number of departments
and agencies and raises issues of
capital importance as concerns the attaining of gender equality.
GBA is defined as a process whose
objective is to discern, for preventive
purposes, in the course of designing
and developing a policy, program or any
other measure, the distinct effects that
the government’s adopting the initiative
may have on women and men given the
different
socioeconomic
conditions
The mandate consists
in testing two pilot projects, developing the
necessary instrumentation for the widespread introduction of
GBA, and proposing a
strategic approach to
instituting the process
in all departments and
agencies.
A steering committee, made up of deputy ministers, ensures the participation
of authorities in the work process, in
making decisions concerning proposed
scenarios and in disseminating the policy directions chosen.
Structuring actions – Since 1997, the
members of the interministerial committee have been reviewing the literature on the subject and studying GBA
experiments conducted in Oceania,
Europe and North America.
The committee has examined the formal
and informal processes used in drawing
up policies, programs or other measures
within both sectoral departments and
agencies and central government agencies in order to develop a method of
analysis which is well adapted to these
processes.
Since gender-disaggregated data constitutes the raw material of GBA, it was
important to be apprised of the current
situation in departments and agencies
as well as at the Institut de la statistique
du Québec. The lesson derived from
this exercise was that the mechanisms
for gathering and disseminating such
statistics had to be reinforced.
Three consultation meetings were organized in 1998 in order to sound out both
specialists in the area of gender-based
social relations and representatives of
the women’s movement. The meetings
served to confirm the necessity of
maintaining this sort of relationship in
the course of the process.
Two pilot projects were chosen for a first
GBA experiment:
the integration of
GBA into the Lignes directrices pour les
personnes âgées en perte d’autonomie
(guidelines for the elderly with reduced
autonomy) at the Ministère de la Santé
et des Services sociaux and the development of an Outil statistique permettant d’analyser les incidences des
diverses politiques fiscales sur les
femmes et sur les hommes (statistical
tool for analyzing the consequences of
various fiscal policies on women and
men) at the Ministère des Finances.
A report on the first stage of the work,
including seven major recommendations, was adopted by the governmental
authorities affected by this project.
These recommendations are to serve as
a guide for the planned second stage of
the work.
Given that GBA initially requires the
availability of reliable statistics, the Web
site of the Institut de la statistique du
Québec presents a section entitled
Gender-Based Analysis. This section
will be revised and improved as the
work progresses.
Findings – The political will of government ministers and authorities is one of
the determining strategic elements as
concerns integrating gender equality
into the development of public policy.
The incorporation of GBA into government management procedures must be
based on the development and testing
of the relevant instrumentation, an undertaking with which policy analysts
must be associated.
Future prospects – The Québec government is firmly committed to introducing gender-based analysis into its public
policies and will continue to act in such
a way as to ensure that an approach
reflecting a concern with gender equality
is consistently applied.
May 5, 2000