Gender equality

in context:
challenges and
opportunities
Gender equality 2
in context: Challenges
and opportunities

This booklet sets the scene for addressing gender inequality in program-
ming by looking first at the main achievements so far and at discrimi-
nation remaining. The booklet then summarises five lessons learnt in
gender programming, lists key challenges to be addressed, and presents
current aid modalities as opportunities for future gender programming.
On the last pages of this booklet a number of supplementary gender
equality resources are listed for easy reference.

What has been achieved?

For several decades, governments, civil society and development
­institutions have worked to address inequalities between men and
women. Progress can be summarised in the six points below.

1. Increased public awareness of gender inequality.

2. Increased awareness of the multiplier effect of gender equality to
development efforts.
3. Girls’ enrolment in primary and secondary education has increased,
female illiteracy has declined, and women’s participation in higher
education is growing.
4. The number of women in public office has increased with a near
doubling of the average proportion of women in National Assemblies
between 1995 and 2004.
5. Most governments have established institutions, such as women’s
­affairs ministries, to address gender equality concerns.
6. Legal and policy reforms promoting gender equality are now being
undertaken in countries across the globe.

3
However, recent assessments of donor agencies, the UN and the World
Bank1 conclude that progress towards more equality between women and
men is insufficient.
Discrimination against women and girls remains pervasive and severe:
• Of the world’s one billion poorest people, three-fifths are women and
girls.
• Of the 960 million illiterate adults in the world, two-thirds are women.
• 70 per cent of the 130 million children who are out of school are girls.
• Women everywhere typically earn less than men, both because they
are concentrated in low-paying jobs and because they earn less for
the same work.
• Although women spend about 70 per cent of their unpaid time caring
for family members, that contribution to the global economy remains
invisible.
• Almost half of all adult women have experienced violence at the
hands of their intimate partners.
• Systematic sexual violence against women has characterised almost
all recent armed conflicts and is used as a tool of terror and “ethnic
cleansing”
• In sub-Saharan Africa, 57 per cent of those living with HIV are women.
Young women aged 15-24 are at least three times more likely to be
infected than men of the same age.
• Each year, half a million women die, and every minute 35 women
suffer chronic disability from preventable complications of pregnancy
and childbirth.
Understanding gender equality - lessons learnt
A lot of experience has been gained from efforts to mainstream gender
equality and from special interventions directed at women and girls over
the past decades. Only few interventions have been directed specifically
at men. Past experience points to the importance of using clear defini-
tions when referring to mainstreaming gender equality and women’s
­empowerment. But even more so, the lessons learnt emphasise that
gender equality issues differ from one social context to the other.
4 5
• Gender equality mainstreaming is a process, not an end in itself. It
involves considering both men’s and women’s needs and experience
in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies.
The aim of gender mainstreaming is equality between men and
women, the realisation of women’s rights and women’s empowerment.
• Need for gender analyses. A prerequisite for mainstreaming gender
equality is to understand how and why gender inequalities are relevant
to the work at hand, and where to find culturally appropriate oppor-
tunities that support greater equality between women and men.
• Sex-disaggregated data are critical. A necessity for the promotion of
gender equality is the availability of sex-disaggregated data for every
statistic, which involves counts of people. This is critical to detect and
quantify inequalities between men and women. Such data also give
an understanding of the playing field to be levelled and the basis for
measuring outcome and impact of change processes.
• Need for conceptual clarity. Clear use of language is crucial for
effective programming. It is easy to lose one’s way in the swamp of
gender jargon. The Glossary of this toolbox along with the conceptual
­definitions offered in the booklets can serve as points of reference.
• Benefits in using multi-track strategies. Promoting gender equal-
ity will often require pursuing several efforts at once: developing an
understanding of the nature of the inequalities, building alliances,
earning leadership support, piloting initiatives. In order to achieve
tangible results, efforts can focus on mainstreaming gender equality in
specific policy areas or on special interventions for women or men.
A lesson on men’s roles and identities
There is growing recognition that understanding men’s roles and identi-
ties is critical to gender equality. Understanding men’s roles and identities
can broaden the perspective and help make interventions more effective.
Relations between men and women and how a society sees men’s roles are
at the heart of core development challenges such as the AIDS pandemic.
Likewise, efforts to promote peace in war-torn regions require knowledge
of how young boys and men become combatants, and incentives to make

Men - the other half of gender
In development jargon, “gender” has been incorrectly used to
mean “women”. Promoting gender equality has for the most part
consisted of efforts focusing on empowering women economically
and/or politically. However, because gender concerns the relation-
ships between men and women more often than not, women’s
well-being cannot improve without including men.
Failing to understand the social structures that govern the way
men and women behave and interact, can undermine ­actions
directed at women or render them ineffective
Source: The Other Half of Gender. Men’s issues in Development. Edited by Ban-
non, Ian and Correia, Maria C.. World Bank 2006.
them put their weapons down. Gender equality issues need to involve
men much more than has been the case so far. Consequently, gender
analysis needs to integrate both women’s and men’s perspectives.
Challenges
Experience shows that obstacles to working with gender equality issues
prevail and need to be continuously identified and addressed:
6 7
• Opposition and backlash. Promoting gender equality is not easy.
There is opposition, backlash and numerous obstacles. Where progress
has been made, it is often incremental. A long-term perspective is
needed and small advances need to be documented and celebrated.
• Gender equality is seen as an externally imposed agenda. However,
most countries have international, regional and national commitments
to gender equality. To ensure that gender issues are prioritised on a
country’s political agenda, it is crucial for development partners to
link up with national allies, such as civil society organizations capable
of promoting change. Collaboration with like-minded development
partners, pooling of resources and dialogue with decision-makers are a
way forward.
• Internal and external criticism. Bashing gender mainstreaming
Men’s issues in human and social development
It is important to consider men’s issues in human and social
development as part of a gender and development agenda. The
development community needs to adopt a broader view of gender
issues. An approach is recommended that takes explicit account
of how men and women contribute to, participate in, and perpetu-
ate gender relations. The following suggested actions are essen-
tial:
1. Foster additional data collection and disaggregation.
2. Sponsor research and fund initiatives in areas potentially
relevant to male issues: These include masculinity, domestic
violence, health issues, family planning, parenting, substance
abuse and peace and security issues.
3. Continue to incorporate men into gender planning initiatives.
4. Modify existing programs to reduce negative and amplify posi-
tive effects for men.
5. Support “alliance politics” through joint interventions.
Source: Joyce P Jacobsen: Men’s Issues in Development in The Other Half of Gender.
Men’s issues in Development. Edited by Bannon, Ian and Correia,
Maria C.. World Bank 2006.
 s­ trategies is a popular pastime. Criticism comes from a host of
groups - international experts, academics, women’s organisations and
traditionalists. The challenge includes being aware of the different
viewpoints and agendas of the critics as well as forming alliances with
like-minded partners.
• Low priority and institutional support. Policy commitments to
gender equality are not always backed by serious efforts in practice.
Accountability systems to measure performance, resources to finance
changes in gender equality, capacity development and incentives to
work with gender issues are not always in place. At the institutional
level, there is a need for senior leadership to back up gender main-
streaming.

Opportunities
The new development assistance modalities provide many opportunities
to promote equality between men and women. Some opportunities
­concern context and policies, others analysis and tools, Booklet 3 on
Gender Equality in the Aid Effectiveness Framework goes into more
detail with a number of aspects, including:

• Millennium Development Goals: Seven ways to make progress,

­supported by the 2005 Millennium Summit Declaration are listed
in the box below. However, to realise the 8 MDGs, governments
and their partners must seriously and systematically address gender
­equality issues in relation to each of the goals.
• The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness endorsed by developed and
developing countries at the High-Level Forum (HLF) in March 2005,
represents joint commitments to make aid more effective to accelerate
the achievement of the MDGs.
• Growing focus on accountability: When monitoring and evaluation
does not take gender into consideration, even the most successful
gender equality components in a programme loose traction. There is
awareness in the development community that to mainstream gender
equality perspectives successfully, accountability systems need to be
put in place within organisations.

8 9
• Gender sensitive budgeting is a relatively new way to address gender
inequalities. In the past, national and local budgets were regarded
as “gender neutral”. It is now realised that the way a government
collects and spends money can often entrench inequalities. As budget
support becomes an increasingly important aid modality, prospects of
­improving gender sensitive budgeting increase.
• Abundance of programming resources – the following pages provide an
overview with examples of some of the numerous resources available
to gender equality programmers today. More documentation and
manuals can be found on the internet sites quoted in this booklet
and help development partners build future programming on the
consolidated experience of the past.
Nothing, arguably, is as important today in the political economy
of development as an adequate recognition of political, economic
and social participation and leadership of women.”
Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom
10
5
7 ways to make headway for women and improve gender equality
The UN Millennium Project has identified seven strategic priorities
that will significantly level the playing field for women and girls.
1. Strengthen opportunities for post-primary education for girls
while simultaneously meeting commitments to universal
­primary education.
2. Guarantee sexual and reproductive health and rights.
3. Invest in infrastructure to reduce women’s and girls’ time
­burdens.
4. Guarantee women’s and girls’ property and inheritance rights.
5. Eliminate gender inequality in employment by decreasing
women’s reliance on informal employment, closing gender
gaps in earnings, and reducing occupational segregation.
6. Increase women’s share of seats in national parliaments and
local governmental bodies.
7. Combat violence against women.
Investments in these seven areas could be made as gender main-
streaming efforts or as special interventions focussing on women
and girls, depending on the specific context. At the same time,
progress in these areas is also vital for poverty reduction.
Source: Taking Action: Achieving Gender Equality and Empowering Women. UN
Millennium Project 2005.
11
What Denmark does to promote gender equality in development
cooperation is clearly stated in the strategy “Gender Equality in
Danish Development Cooperation”
Denmark is furthermore committed to:
• Promote gender equality and women’ s empowerment and
rights as a goal and a means by which to achieve other
­development goals such as the MDGs,
• To make the Paris Declaration Partnership Principles work
to promote gender equality and vice versa.
• Promote women’ s economic empowerment.
• Promote aspects of Security Council Resolution 1325 on
Women, Peace and Security whenever relevant internationally
and at country level.
• Strengthen the integration of interventions to promote
women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights and
HIV/AIDS interventions.
• Strengthen the obligations on gender mainstreaming
and ­special interventions and policy dialogue in its Aid
­Management Guidelines.
• Strengthen accountability for financial allocations for gender
equality and women’ s empowerment
• Strengthen management and staff capacity to work with gender
issues by initiating an e-learning course on gender equality.
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A list of additional
­resources
The additional resources listed below suggest how readers of the tool
box can access supplementary types of resources. The reader is briefly
introduced to each type of resource.
Tipsheets
Tipsheets show how and why gender equality issues (inequalities, stereo-
types, gender division of labour, unpaid work, rights, etc.) are relevant
in a specific area. Many tipsheets are compiled in the OECD-DAC
collection. For example, a tipsheet on gender equality issues in initiatives
designed to strengthen police forces looks at how the police (primarily
a male occupation) interact with women and men (highlighting issues
relating to gender-based violence), provides information on international
best practices and notes issues on how to increase the number of women
in the police force. [www.oecd.org]
Checklists
Checklists outline questions to ask or issues to cover in a specific
­situation (conducting an analysis, planning an intervention, designing
an evaluation, etc.).
For example, a checklist relating to “gender aware disarmament, demo-
bilization, and reintegration” may ask: Has the opportunity been used
to inform women of benefits available to them and how to obtain them?
Are women trained in their rights, for example the right to own land? Is
the threat of sexualized violence within the camp recognized and dealt
with? Are men and women offered equal (but if necessary, separate)
­access to education about HIV/AIDS? [www.networklearning.org]
Manuals and handbooks
Manuals and handbooks tend to be long documents, often combining
checklists, narrative text, good examples, where to go for additional
13
 s­ upport, etc. One example is the joint UNDP/Energia guide on
“Gender and Energy for Sustainable Development: A Toolkit and
­Resource Guide”. [http://www.undp.org]

Good practice documents

Good practice documents are made on the assumption that good practice
examples will inspire staff and partners to follow these examples.
For example, the UNDP’s Taking Gender Mainstreaming Seriously:
[http://www.undp.org]., the UNIFEM webpage: www.unifem.org, and
the World Bank’s webpage on “promising approaches to engendering
development”: [web.worldbank.org]

Gender analysis frameworks

Gender analysis frameworks are particularly useful in relation to projects.
The influential “A Guide to Gender-Analysis Frameworks”2 contains
‘generic’ gender analysis frameworks which try to establish:
• The gender division of labour (gender roles and responsibilities).
• Women’s and men’s access to and control over resources at all levels –
from household to state.
• Women’s and men’s gender related needs.

‘How to do’ tools

‘How to do’ tools provide specific guidance or instructions on how to
carry out specific tasks.
For example, “Documenting Women’s Rights Violations by Non-state
Actors” (by Rights and Democracy and Women Living under Muslim
Laws) provides advice to human rights advocates looking to document
violence against women by non-state actors. [www.dd-rd.ca ]

Staff guidelines
Staff guidelines are generally more technical in nature. In some areas
(such as health), specific advice can be technical guidelines aimed at
medical practitioners working in specific circumstances.
For example, the WHO’s Clinical management of survivors of rape.
­Developing protocols for use with refugees and internally displaced persons or

14 15
WHO (2003) Guidelines for medico-legal care for victims of sexual violence:
[www.who.int]

Statistical and informational databases

Databases are important resources to draw on. One starting point for
information is the World Bank’s gender equality statistics page:
[genderstats.worldbank.org] and the UNDP Human Development
­Report gender statistics:
[http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/indices/gdi_gem/]

Gender sensitive indicators

Gender sensitive indicators often have to be constructed for particular
programmes. Indicators may be quantitative (numeric) or qualitative
(perceptions and experience) relating to changes in gender relations.

To help its staff, Danida has produced a guide on “Gender-Sensitive

Monitoring and Indicators on Gender”3. The guide illustrates gender
sensitive impact indicators and breaks down outcome indicators accord-
ing to the three focus areas: Rights, Resources, and Influence. Selected
programme illustrations are for: Good Governance Sector Programme
Support (SPS), Agricultural SPS and Education SPS.

Scorecards and policy markers on gender equality

These scoring and rating tools concern accountability within an aid
­agency. If systematically used by the staff they help to keep track of
whether policies and agreed procedures to promote gender equality
are followed.

Notes
1. See for instance recent Gender Evaluations of DFID, Sida, Norad, EC, ILO, World Bank,
UNDP, and OECD/DAC.
2. March, Candida, Ines Smyth and Maitrayee Mukhopadhyay (1999):
A Guide to Gender-Analysis Frameworks. Oxfam.
3. Danida (2006). Gender-Sensitive Monitoring and Indicators. Technical Note.

16
18
Glossary of gender terms
This section offers a brief glossary
of some of the frequently used
gender terms in the booklets.
­Definitions are primarily drawn
from the World Health Organisation
and the European Commission.
Affirmative action
Measures targeted at a particular
group and intended to eliminate
and prevent discrimination, or to
ameliorate existing disadvantages.
Focal points
Gender focal points are individuals
given a particular responsibility for
gender equality in an organisation.
Given the right circumstances,
networks of gender focal points
can be a useful method to promote
gender equality in a large-scale
programme.
Gender
Social (as opposed to biological)
differences between women and
men. These differences have been
acquired; they are changeable over
time and have wide variations both
within and between cultures.
Gender analysis
The study of differences in condi-
tions, needs, participation rates,
access to resources, control of as-
sets, decision-making powers, etc.
- between women and men in their
assigned gender roles. Booklet 4
gives an introduction to gender
analysis at country level, whereas
details on gender analysis can be
found in Booklet 5 with examples
of gender analysis in agriculture,
education, health, private sector
and good governance initiatives.
Gender audit
The analysis and evaluation of
policies, programmes and insti­
tutions in terms of how well they
apply gender-related criteria.
Gender budgeting
Gender-based assessment of
budgets, incorporating a gender
perspective at all levels of the
Main sources: European Commission, World Health Organisation.
budgetary process and restructu­
ring revenues in order to promote
gender equality.
Gender equality
Gender equality means that all
human beings are free to develop
their personal abilities and make
choices without the limitations set
by strict gender roles. Different
­behaviour, aspirations, and needs
of women and men are considered,
valued and favoured equally.
Gender equity
Gender equity means fairness
and justice in the distribution
of b
­ ene­fits and responsibilities
between women and men. It
often requires women-specific
programmes and policies to end
existing inequalities.
Gender mainstreaming
Incorporation of a gender equality
perspective in all development
policies, strategies, and interven-
tions at all levels and at all stages
by the actors normally involved
therein. Considering both men’s
and women’s wishes, needs, and
experience in design, implemen­
tation, monitoring and evaluation
of policies and efforts.
Gender relations
The relationship and power distri-
bution between women and men
in a given socio-cultural context.
Masculinity
The quality or condition of being
male in a given social context.
Some cross-cultural elements,
such as aggression, strength, and
assertiveness have traditionally
been considered male characte­
ristics. However, the socially and
historically constructed male
characteristics need to be seen in
their specific historical, cultural,
and social context.
Reproductive rights
Reproductive rights rest on the
recognition of the basic right of
all couples and individuals freely
and responsibly to decide on the
number, spacing, and timing of
their children. The right includes
the information and means to
decide freely and access to the
highest standard of sexual and
reproductive health.
Sex-disaggregated statistics
The collection and separation of
data and statistical information
by sex to enable comparative
analysis; sometimes referred to as
gender-disaggregated statistics.
Special interventions
Special interventions are efforts
aimed at creating fundamental
structural changes in institutions,
policies, legislation, and allocation
of resources to promote gender
equality between men and women,
based on the specific needs in the
individual country, policy area or
organisation. Special interventions
can be stand-alone projects or pro-
grammes identified to complement
mainstreamed sector programmes
in a country programme.
Women’s empowerment
The empowerment of women
concerns women gaining power
and control over their own lives.
It constitutes an important part of
the efforts to bring about equal
opportunities for men and women
and involves awareness raising,
building self-confidence, expan-
sion of choices, increased access
to and control over resources and
actions to transform the structures
and institutions which reinforce
and perpetuate gender discrimina-
tion and inequality.
Women’s rights
The rights of women and the girl
child are an inalienable, integral,
and indivisible part of universal
human rights.
 Glossary
of gender
terms

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark – Danida 2008

Photo: Danida, Adam Rogers / UN Capital Development Fund, COWI A/S, Stig Stasig
2008

Udenrigsministeriet
Asiatisk Plads 2
DK-1448 København K
Denmark
Tel: + 4533 92 00 00
Fax: +45 32 54 05 33
E-mail: um@um.dk
www.um.dk