5. Present and Future of Gender in Impact Assessment: a Standpoint—a Paradigm Shift?

Abstract

It is said that “theories are to serve a purpose of change, or none.”1 Accordingly, the overall paradigm of my study is feminist: I propose that an implementation of gender equality tools for policy IA will eventually contribute to better equality policy and programming outcomes. Mainstreaming GIA/GBA practices in public policy and programme analysis is indispensable both to fulfilling constitutional and international commitments to legal equality as well as to exercising democratic stewardship. In the first part of this last chapter, I synthesise my empirical findings, providing comparative conclusions from the Canadian and European approaches to gender analysis. In the second part, I then contextualize these empirical results in relation to feminist, post-positivist, standpoint and critical governance theories. In the third and concluding part, I present a vision for the future of IA and the role of gender analysis could play in it.2