Banyan Global is implementing the Gender Integration Technical Assistance (GITA) II task order, which provides on-demand, rapid-response, short-term technical assistance (STTA) to United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Missions and Bureaus across multiple sectors and in crisis and non-crisis settings. This task order applies expertise in gender research and practice to the process of designing, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating USAID strategies, projects, and activities to reduce the gender and women’s empowerment gaps that impede development outcomes.

USAID Missions or Bureaus may buy into GITA II to obtain technical support to address gender equality and women’s empowerment for any of the following tasks:

• Institutional gender assessment to bolster mission-level processes to enhance gender equality and women’s empowerment
• Gender analyses for Country Development Cooperation Strategies (CDCSs), Regional Development Cooperation Strategies (RDCSs), or project development document technical assistance
• Gender integration technical assistance for monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MELS) plans for project-level activities (developing gender-sensitive indicators, developing scopes of work, engendering results frameworks, etc.)
• Activity-level gender analysis to inform requests for proposals/applications (RFPs/RFAs)
• Technical assistance to develop mission-level gender-based violence or other gender equality-themed roadmaps
• White papers, background papers, or discrete periodic briefs on emerging, time-sensitive issues affecting gender equality (sudden-onset refugee crisis, fragile states, pandemics, etc.)

All USAID Washington and overseas operating units can access technical services through GITA II.

Under GITA II, Banyan Global is carrying out the following work:

• USAID/Burundi Gender Analysis
• USAID/Ghana Gender Analysis and Assessment
• USAID/Guinea Gender Analysis
• USAID/Haiti Gender Analysis
• USAID/Haiti Economic Growth & Agriculture Development (EGAD) Sector Gender Analysis
• USAID/Kenya Gender Analysis
• USAID/Laos Gender Analysis
• USAID/Madagascar Gender Analyses
• USAID/Serbia Gender Analysis
• USAID Women’s Economic Empowerment Community of Practice
• Technical Support on Gender-Based Violence to USAID’s Office of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment

Under GITA II, Banyan Global has also developed guidance documents for USAID to analyze the gendered impacts of COVID-19 and strategies to undertake gender-sensitive programming to design and implement COVID-19-responsive activities. Furthermore, Banyan Global has curated a database of resources, by sector, on key issues and strategies to mitigate gender inequalities in the prevention and response to COVID-19.

• USAID’s Gender and COVID-19 Guidance
• Issues and Recommendations on Gender-Based Violence Prevention and Response in COVID-19 Programming

Banyan Global has also developed a Job Aid Tool for USAID Activities: Carrying Out a COVID-Specific Gender Analysis to support USAID missions to carry out COVID-specific gender analyses of activities focused on COVID-19 risk mitigation and response. The tool provides an overview of USAID’s gender-analysis requirements, sector-related considerations, and illustrative questions, and programming recommendations.  Missions can use this tool to gain insights on different gendered effects of COVID-19 (advances, constraints, and opportunities) that will help form recommendations for the activity. It also addresses gender-based violence risk mitigation and sexual exploitation and abuse as key priorities.

Banyan Global used this tool to carry out 10 COVID-specific gender analyses for USAID activities in the following countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia:

• Burkina Faso
• Central Asia
• Democratic Republic of Congo
• Dominican Republic
• The Gambia
• India
• Mali
• Niger
• Peru
• Vietnam