Prospective Impact Assessment

The prospective IA at the time of merely proposing legislation is for

• determining the necessity for the piece of legislation,
• developing the provisions of the legislation and
• assessing its impacts comparatively and as an evaluation and
• at the end of the day, finding the optimum way of creating the piece of legislation.

It can be carried out even before a White Paper has been drafted. The recommended method is mostly to carry out tests and planning games. The prospective IA has three principle phases:

Firstly, in the conception phase, an analysis of the field of the legislation is carried out, for instance in the form of a problem analysis, a goals analysis or a system analysis. When provisions are being developed, it is recommended that scenarios of the field of the legislation should be created in order to be able to anticipate the framework conditions within which the future legislation is to take effect. Here, it is important from the perspective of gender equality that the various life situations of women and of men in all their diversity should be taken into account as well as the possible impact of the legislation with regard to gender equality. Attention should be paid to avoiding gender bias, e.g. by including the findings of Women’s Studies and Gender Studies.

In the review phase, experts and addressees are involved. Attention should be paid when selecting these people to having addressees who are directly affected by the legislation. And, in order to ensure target group differentiation, various features such as origin, age, level of education, etc. should also be taken into consideration when selecting the affected women and men. The experts should not only be independent and come from various different academic specialisms and fields such as science, industry and administration, etc., but should also ideally reflect the diversity of women and of men in these areas. Their involvement can for instance take the form of workshops in which the provisions of the legislation can be reviewed with regard to technical correctness, conclusiveness and completeness. The people involved should furthermore discuss and assess the provisions of the legislation in view of probable impacts. The review criteria here could include the costs of implementation, the cost to industry and – of course – the gender impact.

In the evaluation phase, the results of the review phase are systematically collated and documented. Among other things, the purpose of this is to provide recommendations for optimal legislative provisions and to draft the contours of a piece of legislation in legal form. The job of the political decision-making level is then to select the alternative form of the legislation on the basis of the prospective IA which can then be implemented in legal form.


Please click here if you are interested in retrospective IA.

Working aid "Gender Mainstreaming bei der Vorbereitung von Rechtsvorschriften"

The German government has issued a Working Aid on Gender Mainstreaming in the preparation of legislation (gender impact assessment) German] as a GM tool in the area of prospective IA. This Working Aid provides questions related to individual stages of the process to support the responsible people, e.g. advisers in Cabinet advisory offices, in working out a good draft piece of legislation which is oriented to gender equality. The Working Aid is divided into four parts:

1. (brief) test of relevance
2. (in-depth) main review
3. notes on procedure
4. appendix

The purpose of the test of relevance is to determine the gender relevance of proposed legislation. This is done by means of enquiring into the extent to which women and men are directly or indirectly affected [direct and indirect discrimination – link not yet installed]. What is important when investigating impacts on the sexes is to think of all areas of life such as employment, leisure time, mobility, family responsibilities, etc. The four gender dimensions have also proved helpful here. They are

• presence and representation in political life and society (e.g. participating in decision-making, public and private division of labor between the sexes)
• living conditions (e.g. affluence, poverty, being affected by violence and exclusion)
• distribution of resources (e.g. time, money, mobility or information) and
• norms and values (e.g. stereotypes, role allocation, images or language).
  

If it has been established that women and men are directly or indirectly affected, although just the possibility of this is sufficient, the question is then raised as to whether the sexes are moreover affected to a different extent. Should this be the case, then the question of gender relevance is answered in the affirmative and the main review has to be undertaken. If there is no gender relevance, the examination is thus over. The basis and findings of the examination should be set out in the statement of reasons for the legislation.

The main review is for the purpose of identifying the impact on gender equality of proposed legislation and countering unintentional consequences. On this point, the Working Aid raises among others the questions

• Exactly which impacts occur in which areas of life? How is the situation of women and of men changed by this legislation (transparency in relation to improvements and worsening)? (...)
• How should the impact (direct and indirect) of the legislation on women and on men be evaluated in terms of the aims of gender equality policy?

The finding from these review questions should be recorded in a suitable form. It could be that the findings of the main review include that alternative provisions should be drawn up or flanking measures should be developed and recommended.

The existing data and statistics are of paramount importance in a gender impact assessment. Assessments should be based on facts as far as possible. So it is necessary that the existing data material distinguishes between women and men and also if possible takes other features such as age, origin, religion and level of education into account. Here you can find more information on dealing with data and statistics in a gender equality-oriented way.

Even though this Working Aid has been developed for the preparation of legislation, it can also be referred to for replying to Questions or for committee decisions.

The German government is currently developing a Working Aid on impact assessment, which is intended to support all departments in IA, as part of its program to modernize the administration. It is in line with the “mainstreaming” idea of GM to integrate the existing Working Aid on impact assessment in the preparation of legislation into the new working aid.