Basque Country's Mandatory Gender Impact Assessment — Law 4/2005 Template, Equality Units and Emakunde Oversight

Since the 2005 Act on Equal Opportunities between Women and Men, Basque public authorities must carry out a preliminary gender impact assessment of draft administrative acts. The Basque Government uses a three-step template with 12 questions: describing the draft, assessing its expected gender impact, and proposing measures to eliminate inequalities.
Civil servants drafting the policy do the assessment, gender equality units in each department give technical support, and the central equality body Emakunde verifies compliance and issues prescriptive reports. Guidelines, training courses and sector manuals for 14 fields (including agriculture, health, employment and education) support the work.
EIGE reports more than 500 assessments completed since 2007 and a significant increase in legislation containing gender equality measures after seven years. Emakunde's own review notes the equality budget rose from EUR 3.26 million in 2004 to EUR 8.30 million in 2020 and that equality units grew across all levels of administration.
Caveat: EIGE flags the risk that assessments become a purely administrative obligation; no outcome evaluation of effects on women's lives was found.

Read the full analysis: https://www.emakunde.euskadi.eus/contenidos/informacion/politicas_marco/en_ley_igua/adjuntos/achievements_challenges.pdf