Gender Mainstreaming

The GMWG is aimed for those with responsibility for gender mainstreaming within their organisations, or programme staff  wanting to build their knowledge in areas not already covered by  other working groups of the GADN. The GMWG aims to:

1) Build knowledge by collecting a body of evidence of good practice on gender programming (including in policy work)

2) Increase  learning and solidarity by sharing members’ experiences of mainstreaming both within programmes and institutionally – challenges, effective strategies -  and  useful contacts and resources

Co-chairs – Kanwal Ahluwalia (Plan UK) Kanwal.Ahluwalia@plan-international.org and

                       Nadja Dolata (Save the Children UK) N.Dolata@savethechildren.org.uk   

News November 2011

Beyond Gender Mainstreaming

GADN is running a major Learning Project on Beyond Gender Mainstreaming, in partnership with the Gender and Development journal. It runs from November 2011 to November 2012, and involves a conceptual discussion about experience and successes of different approaches to integrating gender and women’s rights into development and humanitarian work. We aim to distil best practice and innovation, and answer some hard questions!  

The term 'gender mainstreaming' (GM) spread like wildfire in the wake of the 1995 UN Conference on Women at Beijing, and has been embraced by development institutions, governments and NGOs of all political hues. What has happened to GM since? This Learning Project will chart the different ways in which GM has been attempted, identify the barriers and challenges, and celebrate the successes. GM has a poor image among many in the international women’s movement. Is this deserved? Many argue that the ideals of gender equality and women’s rights have been distorted in the process of integration of gender issues into the pre-existing mandates, ideologies and procedures of development organisations. Is transformatory gender mainstreaming possible? Does it exist already, and if so, what are the factors which have led to success?

The Learning Project began with a 48-hour Discussion on 16-17 November 2011 involving 50 invited participants ‘meeting’ on Eldis Communities. We’re now throwing the doors open to all, via the Eldis website, to read the debates and post comments of their own. The discussion will feed into and inform later stages of our Learning Project, which will ultimately result in a Special Issue of Gender & Development to be published in November 2012.