Facilitating an NHRI Gender Audit 1.1 Forming an audit team The senior leadership in your NHRI is responsible for initiating a Gender Audit by appointing a Gender Audit Team (GAT). It is this team that will make the audit happen. What is the purpose of a Gender Audit Team? The purpose of the audit team is to: • Drive and clarify the audit purpose, outputs and outcomes • Plan and design the audit (including timeframes) • Determine the focus and level of the audit and who should participate • Facilitate the audit • Analyse the information gathered • Communicate the audit outcomes (internally and externally), including recommendations for a gender mainstreaming strategy The audit team should schedule regular meetings to plan for and achieve the above. Who should make up the Gender Audit team? Your Gender Audit team should be made up of personnel who can deliver the above responsibilities. Apart from a team lead/coordinator, it is useful to have human resources staff and representatives from divisions across your NHRI as well as staff with expertise in gender equality. This will ensure wide uptake and include various perspectives. The team can also include a Commissioner or senior staff member who will ensure ownership at the leadership level. Further senior staff members can be appointed as the ‘sponsors’ or ‘champions’ of the audit and receive regular reports from the team. You may also decide to include external members with specific gender or audit methodology expertise, particularly if there are internal gaps. Sources of external expertise can include UN Women or the International Labour Organisation (ILO). What are the roles and responsibilities of a Gender Audit team? Tool 1 suggests roles and responsibilities against which you can assign specific names from your NHRI. While there is no correct size for an audit team, aim for around eight members. It is important that at least half of the team are women and, if possible, include diverse representation from other groups such as gender diverse, disability, ethnicity, age etc. 11