The GAM is a tool that aims to help determine the different impact development interventions have on women and men, by providing a community-based technique for identifying and analyzing gender differences. The GAM is intended to be a transformative tool used to initiate a process of analysis by community members themselves. The GAM has been adapted by a variety of organizations to agriculture, health, and other project contexts. GAM Tools include:
Analysis at four 'levels' of society: Analyses the impact of development interventions at four levels: women, men, households, and community. Other levels (depending on the project goals and the community in question) such as age group, class, ethnic group, and so on, can be added.
Analysis of four kinds of impact: Explores impact in four areas: labor, time, resources (considering both access and control), and socio-cultural factors.
Once the GAM is completed, the group discusses the findings by asking the following questions: Are the effects listed on the GAM desirable? Are they consistent with the program's goals? How is the intervention affecting those who do not participate? Which results are unexpected?
The GAM is intended for use with groups of community members with equal representation of women and men, facilitated by a development worker. Over time, it is hoped that community members themselves will facilitate the process, but in the early stages, an experienced facilitator is needed. The analysis is always done by the group. It is intended that the analysis in the GAM should be reviewed and revised once a month for the first three months, and once every three months thereafter.
• Accessible, flexible, and designed to accommodate changes over time, including those which are unexpected.
• Filling in a GAM can be a relatively quick way of gathering complex and rich data.
• Designed to initiate a learning process. The use of the GAM means that transformative work takes place simultaneously to the acquisition of practical skills.
Process of analysis fully involves the people who are the subjects of the analysis, drawing on, and valuing, the group's diverse strengths and perspectives, rather than relying on the individual expertise.
• Use of both the categories of household and community, as well as of women and men, helps move development workers away from a tendency to see men and women as separate, homogeneous groups, which can be considered in isolation from each other.
• Includes tangible resources, such as highlighting time and sociopolitical issues.
• Can be used to capture changes over time.
• Participatory process which the GAM insists on enables all concerned, from funding agencies to the community, to anticipate the resistance that the project or program might meet from participants and non-participants.
• Includes men as gendered beings as part of the analysis.
• A good facilitator is required, who takes care to remember and to remind everyone in the group that each category of analysis incorporates many aspects, not just the most obvious ones, otherwise the exercise's ability to be critical is undermined.
• The matrix requires repetition of the analysis over time. Once begun, the process must be continued to ensure that negative perceptions and stereotypes about gender roles are challenged.
• Although the GAM can be expanded to consider specific inequalities which cross-cut gender divisions, such as ethnicity, it does not explicitly differentiate which men, and which women, are most likely to experience negative or positive impacts.
• Does not consider the opportunities or constraints that may be presented by the implementing agencies or external forces beyond the community.
• It may be difficult to define who is actually participating in the project, or who should be deemed "the community."
• Risk of misleading outcomes, because community members may resist discussing all issues freely.
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