The strengths, gender, and place framework: a new tool for assessing community engagement

This paper introduces the Strengths, Gender, and Place (SGP) framework, a novel evaluative tool designed to assess community engagement in development programmes. Developed in response to calls for decolonized and locally-led development in the Pacific and beyond, the SGP framework comprises fifteen indicators across three dimensions. These dimensions evaluate the extent to which programmes leverage local strengths, address gender inequities, and implement place-based approaches that respect local knowledge and practices. The framework was applied to thirty project reports from four major development organisations in Papua New Guinea's Western Province. The study also incorporated insights from twenty semi-structured interviews with key informants, which further enriched the findings. The results revealed significant shortcomings in current community engagement practices in the region, with a heavy reliance on external resources and expertise, failure to achieve gender equity targets, and a lack of meaningful co-design with communities. The SGP framework offers a practical tool for donor agencies and practitioners, providing a robust measure to evaluate and improve community engagement in line with contemporary demands for strengths-based, gender-sensitive, and place-based approaches to development.