More information about the tool

Impact assessments: An overview

Impact assessment is a key aspect of the mainstreaming process. It consists of a systematic evaluation that highlights a specific activity's potential positive and negative effects, e.g., a project, programme, event or policy document. An impact assessment identifies blind spots, overlooked potential and unintended negative consequences of a given activity, and ensures that you have a firm grasp on all relevant considerations and potential outcomes.

An impact assessment aims to provide new insights that will form the basis for improvements to the activity in question. These insights are used to refine, adapt, implement and evaluate activities and then to make tangible improvements to decision-making processes.

An activity consists of any type of defined task or process within your organisation – for example, networks, surveys, projects, work plans, tenders or conferences.

By using the assessment and results as a tool, you lay the foundation for activities that, as a minimum, have a neutral effect on sustainable development, equality and a children’s and young people’s perspective –activities that do not lead to an unequal allocation or waste of resources. By integrating the results and insights into further work, the assessment can also pave the way for activities that have positive social effects in addition to their primary objectives. Successful mainstreaming also helps you to realise your primary objectives more effectively.

About the Impact Assesment Tool

The Nordic Council of Ministers commissioned this tailor-made impact assessment tool. It is primarily a learning tool designed to encourage reflection and dialogue. In other words, it is not about ticking boxes or showcasing your documentation skills.

It is important to be able to reflect on and answer questions about the horizontal perspectives. As such, everybody must be able to use the tool. The tool and the process work best when approached collaboratively, so the answers are based on dialogue. It can be used by two colleagues working together or by a team – i.e. sharing the document with multiple colleagues.

An impact assessment is an iterative and cyclical process. In principle, that means you always have the option of extrapolating, refining, clarifying and adjusting along the way. Each time you use the tool, you will become better at conducting impact assessments that generate outputs you will find useful in your work.

There are many types of impact assessments. Norion Consult developed this tool for the Nordic Council of Ministers in 2024. In doing so, it took inspiration from the platform for rights-based analysis related to children and young people (pub.norden.org/nord2023-020/), various Nordic and European models and approaches, and a kick-off workshop on participation, with subsequent feedback from staff from various sectors at the Nordic Council of Ministers’ Secretariat.

To make the overall mainstreaming strategy more manageable, the tool focuses on three horizontal perspectives:

The environment and climate
Equality and accessibility
Children and young people

Who is the tool for?

The tool is designed for managers, advisors, senior advisors, project managers/staff, communicators, coordinators/administrators and consultants. In principle, the person responsible for the activity, case, task, decision or project is also responsible for the impact assessment. However, depending on the scope and relevance of the different perspectives, you may wish to seek help from colleagues or consultants. We recommend you fill in the forms along with a colleague or as part of a team.

When should the tool be used?

The tool can be used to conduct impact assessments of many different processes and on various levels, e.g. when planning activities, making decisions, drafting policy documents, setting goals, budgeting, running projects, tendering and commissioning work. First and foremost, it is suitable for use during the development and planning phases, but it is also useful during implementation and evaluation. However, we recommend conducting an impact assessment before the activity goes live, so you can use the results as the basis for further work. Impact assessments can also be used to adapt and fine-tune activities and decisions continuously.

How are the results used?

You conclude the impact assessment by summarising the key insights in an appendix. This appendix can include firm conclusions, key points, concerns, gaps in the data and to-do items. Use the yellow box in the appendix to define the activity’s priorities and next steps. In general, keep the text in the appendix brief (max. 1–2 pages). The appendix can be used in political decision-making processes, case presentations and meetings. The assessment and appendix provide a solid foundation for integrating the horizontal perspectives into work in defined areas, as well as tangible suggestions for next steps.

When advocating that the results of an impact assessment should be integrated into Nordic co-operation, you may wish to refer to the national objectives for the relevant horizontal perspectives and specify how Nordic co-operation helps to realise these national objectives. Doing this creates a robust argument and firm foundation for mainstreaming future initiatives and decision-making processes.

Effective use of the results of an impact assessment also requires a well-organised approach to step four of the mainstreaming work (cf. the Nordic Council of Ministers’ model for mainstreaming), which is about setting goals, planning and implementation. In this context, the following guidance may be helpful:

Discuss with your team how to set overall and specific goals based on the results of the impact assessment.
Define responsibilities and choose indicators to measure progress. Consider the budget and time for the task.
Implement the planned initiative and allocate time and money for it.
Make sure follow-up procedures are in place, use indicators to assess the impact, and adjust the plan as needed.

About the structure of the tool

The impact assessment is conducted by filling out a form, which consists of a series of questions. There are six versions of the form, depending on the theme of the activity. On the tool’s homepage, you are invited to answer questions about the nature and relevance of the activity for children and/or young people, after which you are steered towards the version of the form best suited to the activity in question. The initial questions focus heavily on the children’s and young people’s perspectives because questions related to this particular target group are included or excluded depending on relevance. In other words, the form only contains questions aimed at mainstreaming child rights and youth perspectives if the activity is relevant to children and/or young people. The point of this filtering process is that certain activities are not directly relevant to children and young people under 25, but most activities have some relevance to the other two perspectives – equality and the climate and environment. As a result, all the forms include the latter two perspectives, but they are introduced differently depending on whether the activity is highly technical or more people-oriented.

Initial filtering

Is the activity highly technical in nature?

Yes, the activity focuses primarily on technology, systems or industrial conditions.
No, the primary focus is on people, living conditions or on development aimed at a group of humans.

The point of this question is to distinguish between those who want to assess the impact of more technical activities and those who have a clear focus on people in a specific context. This filtering is necessary because it can be difficult to understand the relevance of analysing the equality implications of a predominantly technical activity, e.g. aimed at waste systems for batteries, salmon farming or forestry. Activities like these may call for a slightly different approach to assessing social consequences, including who the stakeholders are and who will be directly affected by the activity. After answering this question, you will be steered towards the version of the form most relevant to you and the activity in question.

Is the activity relevant to children and/or young people (0–25)?

The next filter is whether the activity is relevant to children and/or young people, and it determines whether you need to answer questions about them.

Are children and/or young people involved?

The final filter determines whether the form will include an “involvement supplement”. If you plan to involve children and/or young people and answer “yes”, the form will consist of a number of more specific questions. If you indicate that the activity is relevant to children and/or young people but then answer “no” to whether they will be involved, you will be asked why this target group is not involved.

Versions of the form

There are six different versions of the impact assessment form (KA) – KA1, KA2, KA3, etc. These consist of elements that are put together differently depending on the initial filtering/relevance screening. There are eight elements or “building blocks”, as listed below. The elements marked in bold appear in all versions of the form and should always be answered by users.

Introduction
Technical_Equality_Accessibility or
People_Equality_Accessibility
Climate_Environment
Children_Young people
- Participation encouragement
- Participation appendix
Results

The decision tree below illustrates how you will be steered towards the most relevant version of the impact assessment form.

It can be difficult to understand the relevance of analysing the consequences for equality of an activity that deals with, for example, salmon farming, forestry or waste systems for batteries. Activities like these may call for a slightly different approach to assessing social consequences, including who the stakeholders are and who will be directly affected by the activity. After answering this question, you will be steered towards the version of the form most relevant to you and the activity in question.

Is the activity highly technical in nature?

Answer NO if the primary focus is on people, living conditions or on development that targets a group of humans. Answer YES if the primary focus is on technology, systems or industrial conditions.

↙

↘

YES

Is the activity relevant to children and/or young people (0–25)?

YES

Are children and/or young people involved?

KA4: Introduction + Climate_Environment + People_Equality_Accessibility + Results

Are children and/or young people involved

KA1: Introduction+ Climate_Environment+ People_Equality_Accessibility+ Results

YES

KA6: Introduction+ Climate_Environment+ People_Equality_Accessibility+ Results

KA5: Introduction + Climate_Environment + Technical_Equality_Accessibility + Children_Youth + Participation encouragement + Results

KA3: Introduction + Climate_Environment + People_Equality_Accessibility + Children_Youth + Participation appendix + Results

KA2: Introduction + Climate_Environment + People_Equality_Accessibility + Children_Youth + Participation encouragement + Results

Download Impact assessment Supplement – Involving children and/or young people as a word-document