What is a Gender Equality Marker (GEM)? It is a tool to track trends and investments made by organizations in gender equality empowerment actions.
Why are GEMs important?
- Accountability
- Communication
- Empowerment
GEMs require the investment of human and financial resources.
- Investments in gender equality are difficult to report on.
- Tracking financial allocations is key to accountability
- The solution is to mark or count the entire budget of initiatives that made gender equality or women's empowerment its primary objective and projects where gender was a significant goal between many more.
- Change from "How much of the budget...? to Does this initiative support gender equality?"
With GEMs organisations are able to track:
- The share of their investments
- The sectors supported
- The geographic spread
- The percentage of their marked budget
The United Nations (UN) System-wide Action Plan (SWAP) is an accountability program to accelerate the Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women (GEEW) inside the organization. In its framework there are 2 key indicators:
- Financial Resource Tracking
- Financial Resource Allocation.
UN use a 4-point scale:
- 0 - Gender neutral
- 1 - Limited contribution
- 2 - Significan objective
- 3 - Principal objective
