Gender as a cross-cutting theme

Gender equality has long featured in EU development policy. The first Gender Action Plan (2010-15) aimed to put this commitment into practice. Yet, its success was limited, highlighting the gap between the EU’s level of commitment to gender equality and its internal institutional capacities to implement it. The second Gender Action Plan (GAP 2) for the period 2016-2020 aims at improving implementation at country and HQ level. Its implementation is monitored and EU institutions and member states report on this on an annual basis⁵³.

53 The 2018 annual implementation report of GAP 2 found that the EU strategically used all the tools at its disposal at the bilateral, regional and multilateral levels. It furthermore stated that the overall use of gender analysis to inform project design and formulation and the use of sex-disaggregated data has improved. Political and policy dialogues that considered gender equality were held in most countries and the engagement with national gender equality mechanisms, women’s civil society organisations and academic institutions, informing policy, political dialogue and action formulation, has also improved. However, it also pointed out that challenges for gender mainstreaming remain in particularly difficult areas such as trade, infrastructure related investments, private sector investments, security-related initiatives and climate change-security-related actions.

Relevance

Although gender is an important cross-cutting issue in EU development policy, only one dedicated evaluation on the EU Support to Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment was conducted (7), partly covering activities carried out during the period under review. Another 24 other evaluations provided only patchy observations on gender in EU development cooperation with Sub-Saharan Africa.

As emphasised in the Review of Strategic Evaluations managed by DEVCO to assess the European Consensus on Development (48), there was a “mismatch between the EU’s strong policy commitments [on gender equality] and the organisational capacity to deliver on them”. There was also a mismatch between the inclusion of gender in the design of the project and its implementation. Although many programming documents included gender issues in their project design (9, 12, 22, 23, 54), there was no evidence of gender being systematically addressed in the implementation of the projects and activities (47). Gender seemed to be included as a “formality” (9) (i.e. box-ticking) and there was strong evidence that gender issues were not mainstreamed (23, 33, 48, 51, 53, 54). The Evaluation of EU Support to Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment in Partner Countries stated that there was some indication that gender was more frequently addressed than it used to be in the past (7). These indications of progress notwithstanding, the EU failed to approach the topic in a sufficiently frequent, systematic and effective way and in the majority of cases decisions on what to support were not based on a systematic situation analysis. The main obstacle is the lack of expertise and capacity of EUD staff to “effectively and convincingly undertake policy and political dialogue that integrates gender” (7).

A few reports provided positive assessments of the inclusion of gender in EU development cooperation with Sub-Saharan Africa. Gender equality and the rights of women and children were for example stated to be a clear priority of the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) (54). Gender was also considered in the design of most DEVCO and ECHO projects (16) and gender mainstreaming was particularly well considered in the West Africa Private Sector Competitiveness Support Programme (12).

Furthermore, gender was considered as a cross-cutting issue in most country strategy papers and national resilience strategies (16) and in the programmes of the IcSP (33) but was not a central issue in regional peace, security and stability programmes (35).

Some evaluations explicitly assessed the relevance of the EU’s interventions for gender equality as poor (42, 48), thus underlining the ‘box-ticking’ tendency observed elsewhere (9). Others stressed that greater importance should have been given to gender (10, 54).

Box 9. A positive example of gender mainstreaming in Zambia

Consistent attention was given to gender across the different programmes and activities, including through: e.g. attention to women traders in the agriculture sector, a focus on gender in governance, and the integration of gender issues in the policy dialogue (32). Factors contributing to gender mainstreaming in Zambia were:

● Strong policy and good guidelines by the Commission

● A strong focus by selected EU member states on gender

● Gender champions at different levels in the EU Delegation and the Zambian Government

● The existence of an internal Quality Support Group in the EU Delegation which met regularly and facilitated dialogue on gender across different sectors

● Technical support to gender through a dedicated focal person who also provided M&E support.

Effectiveness

While gender equality has often been declared as a priority in EU policies, it has only been sporadically effectively implemented through specific measures (48). Although several programmes included gender in

The difficulty in tracking the impact of support to gender equality stems from limited gender analysis and the absence of relevant gender indicators that could be used in the Commission’s results-oriented monitoring systems (10, 11, 12, 47, 48). Reports on the activities (for example trainings or workshops) did either not provide gender-aggregated information or, when they did, mentioned that they targeted women, but without presenting results (9, 10, 12). The EIB, for example, did not include gender issues in its contractual reporting requirements, meaning that the EIB does not require borrowers to report on gender (14). Due to the absence of gender-sensitive indicators, it is difficult to assess whether any progress has been made.

The only evaluation that specifically addresses gender as a central objective (7) was rather critical. It reported that the Gender Action Plan was “not fit for purpose” when it came to translating the EU’s global commitment on gender equality and women’s empowerment into action because it lacked the organisational capacity (insufficient human resources, technical guidelines and resources) to deliver expected outcomes.

Nonetheless, some evaluations indicated that some important results were achieved on gender equality, particularly in the education, health and agriculture sectors. One report pointed out that better results were achieved when gender issues were specifically addressed at the sectoral level in Angola, Botswana, Ethiopia and Malawi (48). The following results can be highlighted from the limited information available:

Table 17. Examples of results achieved on gender equality at the sectoral level

Examples of results

Education EU support has contributed to better access for women and girls to education and to reducing the gender gap in education (7, 21, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28). Best results were achieved by the EU’s budget support contributions to the education sector. In Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Mozambique, the expansion of primary and secondary school infrastructure increased school enrolment of girls (21, 27, 23, 25).

By contributing to the funding of school feeding, budget support in Burundi enhanced the enrolment of girls in primary and secondary schools (24).

Social Protection⁵⁴

Social assistance support is gender sensitive in and of itself, because beneficiaries are disproportionately women. Consequently, women have disproportionately benefited from the EU’s focus on marginalised and vulnerable populations in its support (32, 47).

EU-backed cash transfer programmes for mothers and children helped to relieve gender inequality in some countries (47). The provision of childcare facilities at public work sites and the involvement of women in local works decisions have improved in Ethiopia. At the same time, the Productive Safety Net Programme III in Ethiopia provided direct support grants to pregnant and lactating mothers with insufficient means (47).

Health EU support gave women and girls better access to health services and helped to reduce the gender gap in health (7, 21, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28) though achievement of gender equality in the health sector was weak in Uganda (23).

Better medical assistance and facilitated access to healthcare were beneficial for pregnant and lactating women (4, 45, 48) and EU efforts were successful in improving maternal health (although gaps remain between rural and urban areas) (21, 31). On the other hand, apart from maternal health programmes, there were no specific actions (prevention, training) that would translate gender policies in the health area in Burkina Faso (22).

54 Social protection in EU external support, is conventionally divided into two spheres, social insurance, usually based contributions associated with formal employment, and social assistance, non-contributory schemes available to all Social assistance ensures that every person will have a basic minimum income and will have access to basic health care and basic social services (47).

Rural

Development

In the field of rural development and natural resources management, interventions were gender-sensitive and contributed to positive developments (e.g. women’s representation in local institutions and in sector management positions, their involvement in the control of resources or their insertion in the sectors, targeting the improvement of women’s livelihoods, awareness raising etc.) (22, 28, 34, 35). On a more critical note, gender issues in the water and sanitation sector were approached in a superficial way in Burkina Faso and Uganda (22, 23) while gender mainstreaming and policies in the water sector in Uganda did not promote concrete improvements of the role and activities of women (23).

However, it is important to bear in mind that these results were achieved by default rather than by design. One report for example stated that “though no particular strategy has been applied, the percentage of women managers in the attended enterprises (46%) is much higher than the national average (16%)” (9).

The evaluation on EU Support to Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment in Partner Countries (2010-2015) further noted that gender equality was not addressed systematically in EU instruments and modalities to support gender equality and women’s empowerment outcomes (7). A reason put forward was the lack of clear strategic and programming guidelines or technical support documentation to explain how EU Delegations could leverage complementary use of instruments to best achieve such outcomes (7).

According to the same source, the improvements that were achieved were primarily attributable to committed individuals, rather than to the EU itself (7). The observed increase in the number of gender coordination groups at country level, with EUDs and MS taking on lead roles, is usually not due to the EU’s efforts but rather the result of country context and proactive leadership of stakeholders at country level, who sought to enhance coordination on activities through “coordinated programming, joint vulnerability assessments, and common policy and political dialogue messages” (7).

Only three reports elaborated on how gender issues were discussed in this political dialogue (7, 11, 48).

The Review of Strategic Evaluations managed by DEVCO to assess the European Consensus on Development for example stated that dialogue on gender with line ministries during the formulation of the Country Strategy Paper did take place. Likewise, there were also consultations with national gender bodies, including civil society organisations (48).

Efficiency

Since gender rarely constitutes a primary objective, there is little evidence on the efficiency of EU development aid for achieving gender-related objectives (35).

Box 10. Key takeaways from the evaluations on gender equality

● While the EU carries out an annual reporting exercise on the implementation of the Gender Action Plan, there are not many evaluations focusing on gender.

● Important results were achieved with regards to gender equality in the education, social protection, health and agriculture sectors. Although gender issues were included in many programming documents, there was no evidence of gender being systematically mainstreamed in the implementation of the projects and activities, resulting in the impression that results were achieved by default rather than intentionally.

● Information on achieved results was limited due to absence of relevant gender indicators that could be used in the Commission’s results-oriented monitoring systems.