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Paper short abstract:

Gender mainstreaming is a contested concept with no agreed measures to assess its transformative potential. The paper suggests a field-oriented approach to assessing gender mainstreaming in development highlighting donors’ role in institutionalizing mechanisms to interact with local gender network.

Paper long abstract:

Gender and development has come a long way both as a field of research and practice. One of the best-known examples of knowledge production in the field is gender mainstreaming. Despite its global presence and visibility in policy areas, gender mainstreaming remains a contested concept with lack of agreed measures to assess its transformative potential. Donor countries refer to OECD gender equality policy marker to measure their commitment to support gender equality and women’s empowerment in a partner country in the Global South. However, the marker is based on the initial design of a project from the perspective of Global North. In fact, how gender perspective has been mainstreamed in the field has no weight in the criteria. This paper builds on the gender and development literature that the local context and actors need to be highlighted when assessing the successful implementation of gender mainstreaming. The study suggests a field-oriented approach to assessing gender mainstreaming in development which focuses on donors’ crucial role in institutionalizing mechanisms to interact with local gender network, comprising women’s policy agency, civil society organization and gender consultant. In addition, the substantive effort of donors must be combined with the connectivity among gender experts at the local level for a society-wide impact. The cases reviewed are selected development projects in Vietnam and Cambodia, which are countries with increasing ownership over aid received but not necessarily with a matching ownership over gender agenda at the state level. Methodology includes interviews with government officials, CSOs and gender consultants.