Facilitating an NHRI Gender Audit 2.1 Undertaking a document review A document review involves gathering information that will help you understand the extent to which gender equality is built into the systems and processes of your NHRI. It is the first step in carrying out the Gender Audit as it provides a basis from which you can refine and further develop your audit methods and questions. The purpose of your document review is to: • Assess the extent to which gender issues are reported in the documents • Assess the extent to which gender equality considerations have been included in the major programme planning strategies and activities • Identify progress achieved in relation to gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls as shown in findings of reviews, evaluations and annual reports • Assess the gender sensitivity of documents7 What documents should you review? You should include any significant documents that relate to each of the five areas you have selected for review. Some examples of useful documents for each of the five selected audit areas: • NHRI’s structure and decision-making: strategic plans, business plans, budgets and annual reports • NHRI’s culture and practice: documents relating to organisation structure, funding and resourcing, evaluations, organisation culture and practice, and monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning (MEAL) • Policies, procedures and practices: human resources documents such as recruitment, job descriptions, induction programmes, code of conduct, performance assessments, professional development, staff support systems, leave allocations (including family and parental leave), complaints processes, remuneration levels, promotion and retention • Internal gender expertise, competency and capacity: documents used for human resources polices and external work • Mainstreaming of gender equality in external project/programmes and activities: plans and reports related to your NHRI’s external work, communications, website profile It is impractical to review all documents from your NHRI, so discuss as an audit team what documents to include and how many will give you a big enough sample to produce credible responses to the questions you have listed in Tool 4. The documents will take time to review so it is a good strategy to share the review amongst members of the audit team. You can ensure consistency among document reviewers by: • having an agreed review framework (such as Tool 7 below) • meeting regularly to compare findings, and • choosing several documents for peer review and discussing any differences that may have occurred.  7 ILO (2012), Manual for Gender Audit Facilitators. The ILO Participatory Gender Audit Methodology 2nd edition, www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---gender/documents/publication/wcms_187411.pdf (p35) 35