KWDI Korean Women’s Development Institute

The objective of this study is to make a systematic exploration on activation strategies for Gender Mainstreaming(GM) focusing on Gender Impact Assessment(GIA), which was introduced firstly among the gender mainstreaming measures in Korea. GIA, an essential tool of GM, has been implemented since 2005 in Korea with dramatic increase in quantity. But it has been led by the government in cooperation with experts, which resulted in failure of participation of diverse groups based on governance. And the present GIA manual for government officers is mostly for making GIA reports, not for referring to implement GIA. Therefore, it is necessary to produce a manual of systematic support for authorities which may want to implement GIA in all the phrases including selecting target programs for GIA, making reports, and improving relevant policies based on the outcomes of GIA as well. It will be helpful for agencies in charge to conduct GIA systematically and stably. In addition, it is needed to make a measure to connect GIA with Gender Budgeting(GB), which will be expanded to local governments in 2012.

This study consists of three topics; stimulating participation of parliament in order to strengthen GM system; exploring a systematized manual to support implementation of GIA covering all the phases in the perspective of GM; connecting GIA with GB in order to spread GM to local governments. These may look separate but have commonality in their objectives to improve adaptability of GM to relevant policies by searching for measures to make a connection among the authorities in charge, analytic tools and GM system which are related to activation of GIA, the first one to be introduced among GM measures. The methodologies were reviewing relevant materials, conducting survey on parliament members, having interviews with government officers and experts, doing studies in cooperation with local institutions, collecting various voices from different parties by holding workshops with experts and a symposium on GM.

Based on the findings from three topics which are some of most current issues on GM, this study is suggesting as conclusions; the first topic is searching for the roles of parliament and stimulating measures of its participation in strengthening GM system and suggests to make the legislation process gender-sensitive in parliament, to introduce a legal base on GM in Parliament Act and to form a body in charge of GM, to increase the number of female members at higher position of parliament, to strengthen collaboration of female members, to boost gender equality education for parliament members, to find stories of good examples, and to conduct monitoring and evaluation on GM-related activities by the members; the second topic is exploring a systematized manual of GIA covering all the phases for GM, and concludes to extend support for qualitative implementation of GIA, to set the target for gender equality improvement by authorities in charge, to develop a manual to include the procedure of GIA, to suggest measures to set up a mechanism to conduct GIA, to produce a guideline to promote with responsibility and to encourage the participation of various stakeholders; the third topic, studying to connect GIA with GB in order to spread GM to local governments, recommends to form a guideline to connect GIA with GB projects in consideration of connected index, to clarify the roles played by each authority and to set up a timeline for this connection, to exercise gender governance to spread GM at local level.