Gender Transformative Approaches

Anyone who has spent a minute in the gender and global development sector has heard the term ‘gender transformative’ at least once. Put simply, a gender transformative project puts gender at the heart of its interventions. Project must take a holistic approach which assesses the key barriers to equality in the specific area of action and actively contribute to minimizing those barriers.

In our review of literature, we recognized Oxfam as an organization which has taken strong measures to produce a gender transformative approach to programming. Key to their strategy is an analysis of gender power structures contextualized to the area of intervention, a clear theory of change produced in partnership with community members, research-driven solutions to affect the proposed change and a comprehensive set of monitoring and evaluation tactics throughout the life of the project.

A participatory approach to the planning phase of the project is integral to ensuring that international development organizations hosted in the Global North are not imposing gender ideals on other cultures whilst still supporting systemically marginalized groups in their efforts towards equality.

EXPLORE THE FOLLOWING SOLUTIONS:

• Program assessments
• Changing staff attitudes and behaviors