KEY LESSONS FROM THE EVALUATION OF THE 2008 GEPOS

Recommendations from the evaluation conducted in 2018 point to areas in which the Bank can advance both the internal capacity to grow its gender responsiveness, as well as maximise opportunities in the external environment to reinforce the impact of its efforts. Among the findings and conclusions, the report addresses are:

• the need for conceptual clarity to change misperceptions about gender equality, which might trigger resistance and a lack of understanding in BMCs and within the Bank

• a stronger partnership with the national gender machineries

• a more consistent approach along the policy cycle

• maximising linkages between and among different types of programming

• greater leverage of policy-based loans to support policy reforms, capacity-building through public sector training programmes20

• linking gender equality more clearly to the other development goals of the Bank • partnering with regional institutions, such as CARICOM or UWI, and international development partners to leverage impact

• continuous production of evidence and knowledge products, such as the Country Gender Assessment publications

• the need to improve accountability and learning systems with attention to gender equality in work planning and performance reviews to hold individual staff members accountable

• tracking gender change at outputs and outcomes levels

• analysing data to demonstrate the effectiveness of gender mainstreaming and gendertargeted projects; and applying lessons learned to improve the way gender is mainstreamed in the Bank.

It is further proposed that a new gender equality action plan be developed to guide the implementation of the revised GEPOS.