Resources
This paper by FIME awardee, Taieba Hosne Ishrat, introduces the Gender Social Return on Investment (G-SROI) Framework, a feminist-economic evaluation methodology designed to measure gender-transformative social value per unit of investment.
This resource was created as one of six innovative projects developed by Feminist Innovation in Monitoring and Evaluation (FIME) awardees. Read more about the FIME award and project outputs here.
What are the key features of the resource?
Standard impact evaluation frameworks were not designed to capture the outcomes that matter most in gender-transformative programming. By anchoring social value to market-priced outcomes and linear causal chains, they render invisible the shifts in agency, safety, care distribution, relational wellbeing, and norm change that determine whether programmes create lasting gender equality.
The G-SROI project develops an evaluation methodology that makes these outcomes measurable and communicable to funders, policymakers, and impact investors without sacrificing the epistemological rigour that feminist evaluation demands.
The paper presents:
- a theoretical foundation integrating feminist evaluation theory, intersectionality, feminist economics, and decolonial methodology
- five structured indices — the Household Economic Decision-Making Index (HEDMI), Perceived Safety Index (PSI), Care Burden Index (CBI), Business Autonomy Score, and Community Agency Score — each with explicit scoring scales, formulas, and field parameters
- a Narrative Valuation Scale (NVS) that converts qualitative change intensity into quantifiable value using a five-level multiplier system calibrated through story circles
- a translation pathway specifying how each index score converts to a Monetised Value (MV) via locally sourced proxy rates
- an additionality adjustment framework accounting for deadweight, attribution, displacement, and drop-off
- an ethical and participatory validation procedures aligned with decolonial and feminist principles.
What contribution does the resource make to the Feminist Evaluation?
G-SROI closes a persistent gap between feminist evaluation’s conceptual rigour and its practical traction with funders. Feminist frameworks have rarely produced ratio-based or monetised outputs, limiting their influence in resource allocation decisions. G-SROI operationalises feminist evaluation principles — power analysis, reflexivity, participation, and epistemic justice — within a formula-based system that retains SROI’s communicability while fundamentally expanding what counts as return. It also introduces the first structured method for valuing outcomes that resist monetisation (through NV standalone calculation) and embeds intersectional stratification and community data ownership as non-negotiable methodological steps.
How can other people use this resource?
Evaluators can apply G-SROI as a summative evaluation tool for gender-responsive or gender-transformative programmes, alongside existing logframe-based monitoring. Impact investors and gender-lens investors can use the G-SROI ratio as a comparable, communicable measure of gender-transformative return. Programme designers can use the six-dimension conceptual framework to inform outcome mapping and indicator selection from the design stage. Researchers and methodologists can use the framework as a basis for cross-context piloting, NVS calibration studies, and comparative analysis against traditional SROI.