Why Most GEDSI MEL Systems Cannot Answer the Question That Matters Most

Every GEDSI MEL system I have reviewed in the past six years has one thing in common. It was built to demonstrate that gender, equity, disability, and social inclusion were considered. Not to understand whether the programme is genuinely working for the people it is supposed to serve.

That distinction sounds subtle. In practice it shapes everything: what gets measured, how evidence is analysed, what findings are reported, and what decisions get made as a result. And it explains why so many organisations with a genuine commitment to inclusion end up with a MEL system that cannot tell them what they most need to know.

The compliance trap

The starting point for most GEDSI MEL systems is a requirement. A donor condition, a reporting template, an organisational policy. GEDSI indicators are added to an existing log frame. A GEDSI section is written into the evaluation report. A gender advisor reviews the data collection tools before fieldwork begins.

None of this is wrong. All of it is insufficient.

When GEDSI is added to a MEL system that already exists, it functions as a layer rather than a lens. It generates data that can demonstrate compliance without generating evidence that can inform decisions. The system tells you how many women attended a training session. It cannot tell you whether their attendance changed their access to resources, their role in household decision-making, or their relationship to the power structures that constrained them before the programme began.

The most common tell is this: the targets are about representation rather than change. Counting women in a room is not the same as understanding whether a programme is shifting the dynamics that excluded them in the first place.

What genuine integration looks like

A GEDSI MEL system that is genuinely integrated rather than added on looks different from the design stage. It starts with a set of questions that the programme team actually wants to answer: Who is this programme for, specifically? What would need to change in their lives, their relationships, or their access to resources for this programme to have worked? What are the power dynamics that shape whether those changes are possible? And what evidence would tell us whether those dynamics are shifting?

Those questions shape the indicators. They shape the data collection approach. They shape the analysis framework and the learning processes built into the programme cycle. GEDSI is not a section that gets written at the end. It is a set of analytical commitments that run through the whole system.

In practice this means disaggregation is a starting point, not an endpoint. Disaggregated data tells you that women and men are participating at different rates. Genuine GEDSI analysis asks why, and what that difference means for whether the programme is achieving its inclusion objectives. It means qualitative evidence sits alongside quantitative indicators, because the questions that matter most about power and experience rarely have numerical answers. It means the learning processes built into the programme cycle include specific moments where GEDSI evidence is discussed, challenged, and connected to decisions about delivery.

The four dimensions where gaps most commonly appear

In reviewing GEDSI MEL systems across development, climate, and circular economy portfolios, I consistently find gaps clustering in four areas.

The first is design intent: whether GEDSI shaped the MEL system from the outset or was added to an existing framework. Systems designed with GEDSI at the centre look fundamentally different from those where it was retrofitted.

The second is evidence quality: whether the data being collected is capable of answering the inclusion questions the programme is asking. Disaggregated headcounts and participation rates rarely are.

The third is analysis depth: whether GEDSI evidence is being analysed to understand power and experience, or simply reported to demonstrate reach. Most systems do the latter.

The fourth is learning and use: whether GEDSI findings are connected to decisions about programme delivery, or whether they appear in the report and go no further. The most sophisticated GEDSI evidence is worthless if nobody acts on it.

A starting point

If any of this sounds familiar, the first useful step is an honest assessment of where your current system sits across these four dimensions. Not to produce a critique, but to identify the specific points where a targeted change would make the most difference to the quality of evidence you are generating.

I have built a free diagnostic tool for exactly this purpose. It takes about 15 minutes, covers all four dimensions, and gives you a practical picture of where your system sits and what it would take to close the gaps.