Privacy Policy

Review the GenderLinks privacy policy to understand how we handle privacy.

Thank you for visiting https://genderlinks.org. This is a contractor-operated website funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). This website was developed for interactive public use, it is not an official U.S. Government website, and therefore, does not necessarily state or reflect the views or opinions of the U.S. Government or USAID. 

This site is managed by the Designing Effective eVidence-based Engagement and Learning for Organizational Performance (DEVELOP) project, through a mechanism managed by EnCompass, in partnership with its subcontractors Bixal and Knowledge Partners

Individuals seeking USAID information should visit the agency's official government website at www.usaid.gov

Privacy Policy and Data Protection Notice

One of your rights under EU law is that you must be informed when your personal information is processed (collected, used, stored) by any organization. You also have the right to know the details and purpose of that processing.

Here we give you a general overview of some of the ways this website processes your personal data including the use of cookies and social media.

Information Automatically Collected 

When you visit GenderLinks, we may collect some or all of the following via the Google Analytics API:

  • The date and time of your visit
  • The URL of the website from which you navigated to our site 
  • The name of the file or words you searched for 
  • The pages you visited on our site 
  • The items clicked on a page and resources downloaded from the page 
  • The browser and device type (desktop or mobile) used to visit the site 

We do not collect or track any personal information through these processes. We use this information, in the aggregate, to make our website more useful to visitors. For example, to learn about the number of visitors to our site, to understand the types of technology used, to detect operational problems, and to improve the website's overall security. 

Information Voluntarily Collected

You do not have to provide any personal information to view this website, and DEVELOP will not collect or store personally identifiable information about you when you visit the site unless you choose to provide such information to them. 

If you choose to provide information about yourself—by sending an email to the address on the Contact Us page, completing the content submission form, or by signing up for email updates—this information is collected and stored through external tools managed by USAID's office of Gender Development (GenDev).

If you identify yourself by in one of these ways, you have voluntarily provided GenDev with potentially personally identifiable information. GenDev may use that personally identifiable information to respond to your comment, suggestion, or question. GenDev may forward this information to staff working with DEVELOP. DEVELOP will not disclose the information to other parties and will only use the information for the purpose for which it was provided. In aggregate, the information may be used to count the number of people corresponding with us via the contact page or email. 

For site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, this system employs software programs to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage. 

If monitoring reveals evidence of possible criminal activity, such evidence may be provided to law enforcement personnel. 

Cookies

Cookies are short text files stored on a user’s device (such as a computer, tablet or phone) by a website, and they are used to recognize your device in the future.

GenderLinks uses single-session and multi-session cookies to serve technical purposes, like providing seamless navigation through our site. These cookies do not collect personally identifiable information (PII), do not permanently record data, and are not stored on your computer's hard drive.

Cookies-Tier 1 (single session) and Tier 2 (multi-session without PII) are used on GenderLinks in compliance with OMB Memorandum 10-22, Guidance for Online Use of Web Measurement and Customization Technologies (PDF). GenderLinks does not use Tier 3 (multi-session with PII) cookies.

GenderLinks uses single-session cookies to serve technical purposes, like providing seamless navigation through our site. These cookies do not permanently record data, and they are not stored on your computer's hard drive. GenderLink's session cookies are only available during an active browser session. When you close your browser, the session cookies disappear.

Multi-session cookies help us understand how people use the site and how we can make it better. Traffic statistics are collected anonymously and aggregated, and no information is traceable to any specific individual. 

Cookies may be set by the following third-party providers on GenderLinks:

  • Google Analytics: A tier 2 cookie sets when the page is loaded. This information is used to gather aggregated and anonymous statistics with a view to improving our services and your user experience.
  • YouTube: A tier 2 cookie sets when the video is played. This is used to maintain the integrity of video statistics.

Usage of a cookie is in no way linked to any personally identifiable information. You can remove or block cookies by changing the settings of your browser. For opt-out instructions relating to cookies, please visit http://www.usa.gov/optout_instructions.shtml.

Opting out

By default, the browsing experience of website visitors is tracked by Google Analytics to produce anonymized statistics.

You can prevent Google’s collection and use of data (cookies and IP address) by downloading and installing the browser plug-in available under https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en. Please note that on this website, Google Analytics code is supplemented by “gat._anonymizeIp();” to ensure an anonymized collection of IP addresses (so called IP-masking). You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser. However, if you do this, you may not be able to use the full functionality of this website.

Do not track preferences

Do not track is a function that allows visitors to opt out from being tracked by websites for any purpose including the use of analytics services, advertising networks and social platforms. Do not track options are available in several browsers including:

If you enable do not track in your web browser, Google Analytics will respect your choice. You will not be tracked. This is in addition to you opting-out of the aggregation and analysis of data for our website statistics;

If you have disabled all cookies from your browser, we will still collect some general data about your browsing (e.g. a record of a visitor to our website) but they will be less accurate and your visit will not be tracked.

General Disclaimer

Information presented on this website is considered public information and may be distributed or copied freely unless identified as being subject to copyright protection. In return, it is requested that the USAID GenderLinks website be cited as the source of any information, photos, and images copied from this site and that any photo credits or bylines be similarly credited to the photographer or author. 

This website does not state or reflect the views or opinions of the U.S. Government or USAID. If you require official USAID information, please obtain it directly from www.usaid.gov and not through other sources that may change the information in some way to exclude material crucial to the understanding of that information. 

Disclaimer of Endorsement 

The information posted on this website may contain hypertext links or pointers to information created and maintained by other public and private organizations. These links and pointers are provided for visitors' convenience. DEVELOP does not control or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of any linked information. Further, the inclusion of links or pointers to other websites is not intended to assign importance to those sites and the information contained therein, nor is it intended to endorse, recommend, or favor any views expressed, or commercial products or services offered on these outside sites, or the organizations sponsoring the sites, by trade name, trademark, manufacture, or otherwise. 

Reference in this website to any specific commercial products, processes, or services, or the use of any trade, firm, or corporation name is for the information and convenience of the site's visitors, and does not constitute endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the U.S. Government or USAID. 

The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not state or reflect those of the U.S. Government or USAID and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes. 

Disclaimer of Liability 

Every effort is made to provide accurate and complete information. However, with the thousands of documents available, often uploaded within short deadlines, DEVELOP cannot guarantee that there will be no errors. DEVELOP makes no claims, promises, or guarantees about the accuracy, completeness, or adequacy of the contents of this website and expressly disclaims liability for errors and omissions in the contents of this website. 

With respect to the content of this site, neither the United States Government, nor their employees and contractors make any warranty, expressed or implied or statutory, including but not limited to the warranties of non-infringement of third party rights, title, and the warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose with respect to content available from this website or other Internet resources linked from it. 

Neither the U.S. Government nor USAID assume any legal liability for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, product, or process disclosed herein, nor freedom from computer virus, and do not represent that use of such information, product, or process would not infringe on privately owned rights. 

Links to this Website or Its Contents 

You may freely link to this website or any of its content. We ask only that you use the full URL and identify that the link is to a public Internet resource. 

Links to Other Sites 

Our website has links to other U.S. Government agencies and to private organizations. Once you link to another site, you are subject to the disclaimers and security and privacy policies of the new site. 

Copyright Notice 

Unless a copyright is indicated, information on this website is in the public domain and may be reproduced, published, or otherwise used without permission. DEVELOP requests only that the USAID GenderLinks website be cited as the source of the information and that any photo credits or bylines be similarly credited to the photographer or author as appropriate. 

If a copyright is indicated on a photo, graphic, or any other material, permission to copy these materials must be obtained from the original source. 

This copyright notice does not pertain to information on websites other than this website. 

Site Management 

DEVELOP manages the overall information content, design, and organization of this website. If you have any questions or comments about the information presented here, please contact us at gendevcomms@usaid.gov