Engendering Policies and Programmes through Feminist Evaluation: Opportunities and Insights

This article examines how feminist theory and practice is influencing the framing, methods and conduct of evaluation in India. It examines several sets of evaluation efforts and experiences and explores how feminist grounding and theory plays out in evaluation practice. Documenting and analysing experiences, perspectives and ideas from practice, the article aims at connecting them to emerging developments in evaluation and feminist theory. The article argues that in a broader context of development evaluation that privileges certain methods and approaches—feminist evaluators need stronger language for demonstrating and speaking to the strengths, rigour, validity (and limitations) of the approaches they are using. The argument is that in the context of persistent gender inequities, feminist evaluation must play a stronger role in understanding how societies change and what policies and programmes show promise in shifting norms and inequities.