Guidance Materials for Mainstreaming Gender Perspectives into Model-based Policy Analysis

The document outlines strategies for mainstreaming gender into technical modelling, identifying key barriers such as data gaps and lack of awareness, and offering practical frameworks for inclusive project design and data collection.

• A survey of the WEAP and LEAP user communities revealed a significant gap between the perceived importance of gender and social equity (GSE) and its actual application: 88% of respondents agreed these aspects should be included in modelling, yet only 7% were currently doing so.
• The document identifies five primary challenges to integrating gender and social equity in model-based analyses: a lack of quantitative data, a lack of recognition of GSE issues, a lack of convincing scientific evidence, a lack of analytical tools, and low prioritization of these questions.
• Gender-blindness in energy planning often leads to an inequitable distribution of energy supply, neglecting household needs and subsistence agriculture, which disproportionately affects women who perform the majority of unpaid domestic labour and biomass collection.
• In water modelling (WEAP), gender integration can be achieved by disaggregating water use per capita by gender and livelihood type, as women's use is often concentrated in domestic supply, which may compete with industrial and agricultural uses.
• To improve social inclusion, the guide recommends that project teams set quantitative targets for female participation (e.g., 50% in workshops) and ensure the presence of female trainers, as women tend to participate more actively when workshops are led by women or mixed-gender teams.
• The document suggests addressing gender data gaps by using proxies, such as overall data on indoor air pollution or access to drinking water, and by employing mobile devices to collect gender-disaggregated data on water fetching time and distance.
• The guide proposes a 'bottom-up' energy planning approach, as demonstrated in projects in Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan, India, to better account for the needs of poor and rural households and to prevent shortages in installed capacity.

APA

Escobar, M., Forni, L., Ghosh, E., & Davis, M. (2017). Guidance Materials for Mainstreaming Gender Perspectives into Model-based Policy Analysis. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-2017-Gender-guidance-for-modelling-studies.pdf

Chicago

Escobar, Marisa, Laura Forni, Emily Ghosh, and Marion Davis. Guidance Materials for Mainstreaming Gender Perspectives into Model-based Policy Analysis. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2017. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-2017-Gender-guidance-for-modelling-studies.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Escobar |first1=Marisa |last2=Forni |first2=Laura |last3=Ghosh |first3=Emily |last4=Davis |first4=Marion |title=Guidance Materials for Mainstreaming Gender Perspectives into Model-based Policy Analysis |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=April 2017 |url=https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-2017-Gender-guidance-for-modelling-studies.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{escobar2017guidance, author = {Escobar, Marisa and Forni, Laura and Ghosh, Emily and Davis, Marion}, title = {{Guidance Materials for Mainstreaming Gender Perspectives into Model-based Policy Analysis}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2017}, month = apr, url = {https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-2017-Gender-guidance-for-modelling-studies.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }