Gender-Sensitive Scrutiny: A Guide to More Effective Law-Making and Oversight is the new guide produced by INTER PARES | Parliaments in Partnership— EU Global Project to Strengthen the Capacity of Parliaments, which aims to contribute to making democracies stronger. It is the first project of a global nature funded by the European Union and implemented by International IDEA, contributing towards strengthening the capacity of Parliaments in partner countries, by enhancing their legislative, oversight, representative, budgetary and administrative functions. Through demand-driven peer-to-peer partnerships between partner parliaments and EU Member State parliaments, the project aims to make parliaments more effective, transparent, accountable, representative and approachable.

Gender is a key area of focus for the INTER PARES programme and is mainstreamed across all its pillars. For the European Union, the ‘Gender Action Plan III’ (European Commission and High Representative, 2020b) is the blueprint for building a gender-equal world. A key pillar is making EU engagement on gender equality more effective as a cross-cutting priority of EU external action in its policy and programming work.

This guide aims to be a tool that can be used in a concrete way by parliamentary staff and is inspired by the experience of working with partner parliaments of the INTER PARES project.