Gender Assessment of “Taking successful innovation to scale pathway for disability inclusive graduation out of poverty” Project

Funded by: DFID

Project Summary:

Handicap International has been supporting people with disabilities in their respective project areas. This gender assessment's main purpose was to assess the status of gender inequality among HI beneficiaries and their families, identify barriers to gender mainstreaming. And finally, suggesting a more comprehensive gender mainstreaming approach for women’s economic empowerment within the project (Taking successful innovation to scale pathways for disability-inclusive graduation out of poverty project).

This project had applied an explorative approach and mixed methods to collect the required data. It has also applied an analytical framework which has been developed by ODI (2016). A structured questionnaire survey was conducted with sampled HI beneficiaries from 3 working areas such as SitaKunda (Chottogram), Kurigram Sadar & Ulipur Upazila (Kurigram District). The qualitative methods include- IDI, FGD, KII, and Document Review.

The assessment findings clustered into four areas such as understanding gender, gender inequality in the domestic sphere, Gender inequality in society, and Women’s economic empowerment. The study found that disability issues are adequately addressed and people with disabilities are properly supported. However, the study revealed that it was commonly perceived that working dedicatedly for people with disabilities did not require a separate approach or attention to address gender issues. In fact, women (and girls) with disability confronts a different kind of challenges, risks, and preferences too. These issues needed to be considered while developing any development intervention.