Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Brouwers, H.M.
Author-Name-Last: Brouwers
Author-Name-First: Ria
Title: Revisiting gender mainstreaming in international development : Goodbye to an illusionary strategy
Abstract: In contrast to the concrete problems women face worldwide, of discrimination in family and society, of violence and disrespect, of poverty and lack of rights, the policy of international development organisations to defeat these impediments has been abstract. Wrapped in the mystifying language of ‘gender mainstreaming’, development agencies pursue a strategy which itself has consumed all attention at the cost of tangible action to solve real problems. By going back to the time that the policy became solidly rooted, the mid 1990s, I document and compare evaluation studies and reviews of bilateral and multilateral donors, in particular those conducted since the turn of the century. Not one study reports positively about the gender mainstreaming policy. The essentials of the discourse of gender and development are not reflected in
 practice, the policy has not moved beyond the stage of a theory. Evaluation studies have been pre-occupied with the strategy of mainstreaming itself, failing to address the results thereof for women and gender equality. This paper aims to support the discretely emerging voices to move away from the illusion of gender mainstreaming and to develop a policy that is oriented towards concrete issues and contains direct efforts to make gender equality happen.
Creation-Date: 2013-04-08
File-URL: https://repub.eur.nl/pub/39504/wp556.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
Series: RePEc:ems:euriss
Number: 556
Keywords: evaluation, gender, gender equality, gender mainstreaming, international development, policy review, women in development
Handle: RePEc:ems:euriss:39504