Tool 4: Guiding questions for needs assessment / preliminary market consultations

This tool can be used by contracting authorities, policymakers and practitioners working towards gender equality and gender mainstreaming to develop a needs assessment or a preliminary market consultation.

  1. Are there differences in the way women and men will use/benefit from the outcome of the contract?
    If so, have you consulted users in a way that represents these differences? For example, in a contract to support cycling or other mobility services, women and men may have different patterns of commuting, which influence their needs.
  2. Does the procurement team have adequate knowledge/expertise of gender issues and how they affect the contract?
    If not, have they consulted organisations that or individuals who have such expertise (e.g. gender equality bodies, gender experts, NGOs, social enterprises)?
  3. Does the market have the ability to take into account the gender aspects identified?
    How can the capacity to deliver these aspects be improved (e.g. preliminary consultations, seeking feedback on specifications, encouraging consortiums/partnerships)?
  4. Can greater participation of women-led businesses be encouraged in the tender?
    If so, how will this be done without creating an unfair advantage or disadvantage (e.g. making the same information available to everyone, openly advertising the preliminary market consultation)?

Download the questions