During 2023 CES worked in partnership with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to to conduct an independent evaluation of the processes used by government to implement three national equality strategies:
Since 2017, the Migrant Integration Strategy (MIS) has aimed to promote the inclusion of migrants in Irish society, with 76 actions targeting social inclusion and improved access to public services for migrants. The Strategy also aims to tackle racism and xenophobia
The National Strategy for Women and Girls 2017-2020 (NSWG) is a whole-of-government framework adopted in May 2017 to advance women's empowerment. It contains six high-level objectives to promote equality for women and girls, advanced through 139 actions relating to 85 intended outcomes.
The Government published the National Traveller and Roma Inclusion Strategy (NTRIS) in June 2017. The Strategy represents a whole-of-government approach to bringing about meaningful change and progress for the Traveller and Roma communities in Ireland. The NTRIS contains 149 actions, grouped under ten themes, that aim to improve the lives of the Traveller and Roma Communities.
To evaluate the processes employed to implement the MIS, NSWG and NTRIS, a multi-stage, multi-stakeholder evaluation was designed. The evaluation consisted of four main phases:
A review of the relevant policy and academic literatures was conducted in order to identify what represents good practice when implementing national equality or human rights strategies or policies. The reviewed literature emphasised the value of using an implementation framework when evaluating implementation efforts. Given that no single framework was identified that could be used for the specific purpose of our evaluation a bespoke framework was created, drawing on the most relevant elements of existing high-quality frameworks and toolkits. The draft framework compiled for the evaluation consisted of 12 high-level implementation approaches and a series of 42 associated activities that the literature suggests are important for implementing whole-of-government strategies in the area of human rights and policy.
To understand how the MIS, NSWG, and NTRIS were implemented, a review of all available documentation relating to each strategy was undertaken. For each strategy, the review process started with the strategy text itself and followed with a review of other relevant documents, including public consultation calls, progress reviews, annual reports and traffic light progress reports and committee meeting documentation. A timeline of actions/events was developed for the MIS, NSWG and NTRIS, which provided a summary of the implementation journey of each strategy. Where gaps existed in the information on implementation processes that could be inferred from the desk review of documentation, the evaluation team sought to fill these with data collected from interviews and surveys with stakeholders.
The aim of the expert consultation was to seek expert consensus on the implementation approaches and activities that represent good practice when implementing government equality or human rights policy. Twelve experts in implementation science, policy implementation, and/or human rights or equality policy participated in the process. The finalised framework we created consists both of approaches and activities complied from the literature and additional activities suggested by experts to help focus the framework more specifically on the implementation of Irish government equality strategies.
The stakeholder consultation had two goals: to deepen understanding of the implementation processes of MIS, NSWG, and NTRIS and to gather stakeholder opinions on the effectiveness of these processes, areas of good practice, and areas for potential improvement.
Stakeholders included staff from DCEDIY or the (then) Department of Justice and Equality who were responsible for planning and coordinating the strategy; representatives of other government departments and state agencies who were involved in the implementation and monitoring of strategy actions; and representatives of civil society organisations on the strategies’ committees
CES produced a comprehensive evaluation report with a number of recommendations. The evaluation concluded that stakeholder consultations for the previous strategies were felt to be thorough and to capture a broad cross-section of views. It was recommended that consultation for future national equality strategies should seek to build on these successes. Other recommendations focus on enhancing collaboration with stakeholders, adopting appropriate structures for steering, striving for focused and dynamic strategies, addressing capacity issues, developing indicators of progress and promoting effective use of monitoring information, and planning and paying ongoing attention to implementation.
At the launch of the report in June 2023, Roderic O’Gorman, the then Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth said:
“I welcome the publication of this study and its recommendations. These form a valuable resource to policy makers in the public service and to the stakeholders who contribute to developing and giving effect to equality policy. In particular, the study will inform the processes of consultation and development of successors to the National Traveller and Roma Inclusion Strategy, the Migrant Integration and the National Strategy for Women and Girls, which are currently underway.”
CES aims to provide evidence and promote evidence to improve public services and policies to, by extension, improve outcomes for individuals, families and communities on the island of Ireland.
We hope the framework of good and promising practices for implementing national equality strategies that we have developed over the course of this evaluation will be useful in supporting and strengthening the implementation of future national equality strategies.
