Glossary of Key Terms

Term Definition
Accountability Downward The practice of sharing findings and reports with communities and participants before or alongside reporting to donors.
Decolonization Challenging the assumption that knowledge and methods from Western institutions are automatically superior or “correct.”
Extractive An evaluation pattern where communities provide data but never see the findings or benefit from the knowledge generated.
Feminist Evaluation (FE) An approach that examines power relations and generates knowledge to advance equality, social justice, and human rights.
Feminist Foreign Policy When a government’s international aid and diplomacy decisions prioritize gender equality as a lens for every decision.
FMEAL Feminist Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning; a framework that examines power throughout a program’s entire cycle.
Intersectionality The understanding that barriers are shaped by compounded factors including gender, disability, poverty, and ethnicity.
Localization Shifting leadership, funding, and decision-making from international organizations toward local and national organizations.
SEGs Structurally Excluded Groups; women and girls who face compounded barriers to participation beyond gender alone.
Socially Constructed The idea that standards, forms, and indicators were built by people in a specific context and can therefore be rebuilt or changed.
Structural Inequality Inequality built into the rules, institutions, or physical realities that people navigate.
Systemic Inequality Inequality built into the way a system operates, rather than the result of individual failure.