Methods

Methodology for the Gender and Health 50/50 Nepal Report

This is the first assessment of the gender-related policies and gender composition in the leadership of national and global organizations working in health and gender in Nepal. Global Health 50/50 has designed a rigorous methodology that is consistent with established systematic research methods. This method was adapted and used to monitor the gender-related policies and practices of organizations working in Nepal. We sampled 77 organizations in Nepal (30 national and 47 global) for inclusion in the study. In addition, we included two ministries and three government departments to assess the gender of the leadership in the past five years and gender parity in the senior-level management.

These organizations were selected from the following two broad categories using pre-defined eligibility criteria: 

1. National NGOs: From the roster of 50,222 national non-governmental organizations (NGOs) maintained by the Social Welfare Council, we selected 30 NGOs that have been registered at least since 2015, headquartered in Kathmandu valley, have ongoing programs related to gender or health and maintain an official webpage.

2. Global organizations: 47 global organizations were included in the sample. Global organizations included for review are drawn from a wide range of sectors, including international NGOs, faith-based organizations, the UN System, bilateral, regional and multilateral organizations, and the private sector. These included:

1. Global Health 50/50 (GH5050) study sample (N=34): The first category of organizations is a subset of samples from the global study which consisted of 201 organizations. Of them, 34 organizations were identified as meeting the inclusion criteria of being registered, implementing health or gender programs and having a physical presence in Nepal.
2. Other global health and gender organizations (N=13): The second category of the sample are the international organizations actively working in Nepal but not included in the GH5050 sample. These included organizations working in health in Nepal, with at least 15 employees, with a moderate level of influence in health and/or gender policy and programming, and working in more than 10 districts during 2020-21.

The data for this study mainly comes from publicly available sources and primarily the organization’s website. We also contacted the organizations at least three times during data collection to request internal workplace policies for review as well as to validate preliminary findings. Data collection was done by two reviewers independently and a subset of the sample was reviewed by a third reviewer. The discrepancies between the reviewers were discussed and a consensus was reached. 

Throughout the process of data collection, the organizations were encouraged to contact the study team members to discuss queries about the process and the variables. Inputs from organizations were reviewed and scores were revised accordingly. These scores were once again shared with organizations providing them a final opportunity to give feedback before publication.

Half (15/30) of the national NGOs engaged in the research: three shared at least one policy; four validated their data, and; eight shared both policies and validated their data. Twenty-five of the 47 global organizations engaged in the research: 11 shared policies only; five validated their data, and; nine shared both policies and validated their data.