At times, evaluators may wish to measure progress towards supportive policies. In this case, they can construct separate indicators for each stage of development (e.g., in draft, submitted for approval, approved), or can devise an ordinal rating scale to track progress from draft to final approval.

If targeting and/or linking to inequity, evaluators will also want to see evidence that the policies focus resources or other attention on poor and/or other underserved areas or groups.

A content analysis of the documents should include level (e.g., national, provincial), topic area addressed (e.g., access, quality, FP, HIV/AIDS), and, where applicable, crosscutting issues (e.g., gender, human rights, youth).

• Are the contents and language of the plans in line with major international agreements, such as ICPD, that focus on sexual and reproductive rights, not on demographic targets?
• Is the language gender sensitive (e.g., using “women” and “men” rather than “couple,” which is gender insensitive; couples may or may not have common FP/RH goals or the barriers a “couple” faces may depend on whether the male member or the female member of the couple is seeking care)?
• Do the implementation strategies explicitly account for gender-specific ways for women and men to access the care they need?
• Do the strategies exclude all elements of coercion or any such elements that act to disempower individual men or women (e.g., policies that give husbands control over the RH of women)?

Does the policy/strategy address the society’s gender norms that may be harmful or inequitable (e.g., allowing life-saving blood transfusions for women suffering from post-partum hemorrhage without requiring the husband or woman’s father’s consent; allowing women the autonomy to obtain an FP method)?