What are we learning about how to achieve gender equality, at scale?

Introduction

There are many ways to fight for gender equality. At Co-Impact, we think about pathways to change systems so that they are more just and equitable, to deliver better outcomes for all people, at scale. We have just announced our new Gender Fund, which will bring together Global South rooted, women-led organizations and values aligned philanthropists to advance systems change and women’s leadership for gender equality.

In preparation for this Fund, we consulted with more than 50 gender experts, researchers and activists who have been championing this work for years to understand the strategies, experiences, victories, and setbacks over the decades (see report here). We have also been reading up on the evidence to understand what we already know works and doesn’t work, and where the evidence is just too thin to say. For this purpose, we commissioned a series of papers on key areas of interest in the Gender Fund: what works to achieve gender-equitable outcomes at scale, in the Global South, in health, education, and economic opportunity; as well as what works to promote women’s leadership in law and economics.

Given our focus on systems and institutions, we felt these papers are a relevant starting point. At the same time, we know that this compilation of evidence reflects only a slice of knowledge and experiences on gender equality. We are complementing these reviews with a wider scope of readings and evidence, and we look forward to continuous learning from a range of disciplines and approaches.

The primary aim of these reviews is to enhance our understanding and we hope you will find them of interest. We hope they will be useful also to our program partners advancing gender equality. We think they might be of interest to other funders, who care to better understand “what works”. In this blog, we offer a few observations that stand out to us and shape our thinking.

1. What do we know about how women and girls benefit from the basic sectors of education, health, and economic opportunity?

Most of the persuasive evidence on how to improve education outcomes in the Global South comes from initiatives that reach all students, though many studies disaggregate effects for girls and boys. From this evidence, we know that school feeding programs, abolition of fees, improving access and transport, and improving the quality of teaching have all shown to be very effective in improving education outcomes overall, and have resulted in significant gains specifically for girls. However, girls often face very different barriers to attending school and learning compared to boys, and this nuanced understanding is critical in selecting the most relevant intervention. Moreover, social and cultural norms regarding adolescent behavior – especially that of adolescent girls – significantly shape the girls’ access to and experience of education systems. Initiatives such as life skills training, safe spaces for girls, and safe transport for girls are important complements to education-focused initiatives. While there is considerably less (scaled) research connecting initiatives which address gender-specific barriers to learning achievement, the evidence that exists is generally positive.

The vast literature on health indicates gender biases in biomedical and public health research, lack of routine sex-disaggregated data, and lack of attention to gender issues in most areas of health. As a result, much of the relevant evidence on scaled initiatives with gender outcomes draw from the field of sexual and reproductive health. Our literature review examined selected scaled initiatives to improve maternal mortality, family planning, and safe abortion. Evidence is clear that certain scaled initiatives have contributed to significantly better outcomes: for instance, conditional cash transfers and vouchers have improved maternal mortality at scale; community and mobile outreach-based services have significantly increased the uptake of modern family planning methods. Nevertheless, the evidence suggests that most health initiatives have focused on demand-side efforts, and have largely been directed at changing women, families and communities, rather than attempting fundamental reforms toward more gender equitable health care delivery systems. As we advance, initiatives need to address accessibility, affordability and especially quality through both health systems and community-based efforts, recognizing the interconnectedness of these drivers.

When it comes to achieving gender-equitable economic outcomes at scale, microfinance and entrepreneurship training get considerable research attention, but the reality is that the majority of poor women in the Global South work in agriculture, the informal sector, or through public works programs. On the positive side, there is now strong evidence on a set of characteristics that make these initiatives effective across a range of contexts. For instance, paramount among them is ensuring women have access to assets and direct control over finances. Another condition, particularly relevant to public works programs, is the provision of affordable childcare. There is also persuasive evidence that multi-component initiatives which seek to empower women and girls are more effective than singular ones across a range of outcomes; for example, the Graduation approach for ultra-poor households or multiple-skilling initiatives for adolescent girls.

Critically, our collective thinking about gender-equitable outcomes has evolved from looking only at discrete outcomes in income, health, education, etc., to a more inclusive notion of women’s agency. Agency, defined as the ability to make decisions for oneself and to carry out those decisions, is a critical condition for women to make use of and benefit from economic opportunities (e.g., work outside of the home, and have control over the income earned), health initiatives (e.g., decisions over fertility), and even civic rights (e.g., ability to participate fully in community and local government).

2. What drives women’s leadership in law and economics?

The Gender Fund will focus on increasing women’s representation and substantive leadership specifically in law and economics, because these two domains have an inordinate amount of influence over high-level decision making, including the setting of policy priorities and budgets. Women are severely under-represented at high leadership levels in these domains. Evidence tells us that when decision-making bodies are more representative, the results tend to benefit everyone. So we know it matters whether women enter and succeed in the fields of law and economics, but how do we support them in doing so? It’s helpful to think of law and economics as “pipelines” with blockages and leakages that prevent women from entering, and once in, from reaching high levels. We know something about the shape of the problems, but there is a real dearth of research on what initiatives are effective, particularly in the global south. The evidence we do have suggests that it’s critical to look at policies, institutional norms, and practices, as well as effective mechanisms to support women leaders. For example, gender parity policies and institutionalized gender-equitable workplace practices (such as childcare provisions) effectively ensure women have access to high-level decision-making positions. Once in these positions, initiatives like training, mentoring and supportive networks are important in enabling women’s professional success and enabling them to become role models for other women.

3. The role of women’s movements

While looking at evidence across key sectors and domains, the critical role women’s activism and women’s movements have played in achieving institutional and systemic outcomes for gender equality becomes clear. For example, the research demonstrates that globally, organized and active women’s movements were the most important driving factor in whether a country adopted progressive policies and laws that protected women against gender-based violence and provided for related response and care. We also learned that organized and effective women’s movements tend to arise in contexts that place less restriction on women’s mobility and in which women can work outside of the home. These two are critical factors in women’s ability to come together and form associations and movements, which can then advocate – and agitate – for common causes. Nonetheless, despite this evidence, data shows that women’s movements are chronically under-funded.

4. Looking across and forward

A striking observation is that despite significant investment in research, disadvantaged women and girls are routinely not visible in the data. Put simply, it is still not common for studies or influential datasets to report outcomes disaggregated by gender and other markers of inequality. For instance, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) target 3.3 on “AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and neglected tropical and other communicable diseases” specifies sex disaggregation measuring only the prevention of new HIV infections. Global targets like these send powerful signals as to what is important to measure. On the other hand, there is also good news. For example, the economic inclusion field is shifting from measuring income at the aggregated household level, which in the past obscured intra-household dynamics and experiences of women, to also looking at intra-household dynamics, and specifically whether women have agency to decide how to use income and assets.

Gender related barriers exist across different contexts and influence a range of outcomes. For example, restrictive norms on the mobility of girls and women, or lack of safety for girls and women in public places, have a detrimental effect on everything from going to school, accessing health clinics, and the ability to be employed outside the household. Another barrier felt the world over is the unequal burden of care that falls on girls’ and women’s shoulders. The similarity of barriers and experiences allows us to think, connect and learn across contexts. At the same time, all the reviews emphasized that the question of “what works” cannot be separated from addressing “for whom” and “in which context”. In other words, effective solutions will always depend on how a particular problem manifests and interacts with a given social, political, institutional and economic context.

It is somewhat ironic, then, that there is comparatively little high-quality evidence on implementation and practice, especially scaled initiatives. Instead, research has tended to focus on describing the problems or evaluating relatively small, contained initiatives. We heard from our evidence reviewers and consultations that what is sorely needed is high quality practice-oriented research designed to help evolve and improve gender-equitable programs and policies, particularly at scale.

The evidence reviewed so far helps us see patterns across contexts and connect across experts, activists, practitioners, and researchers. It also reminds us that effective action is deeply grounded and contextual, and that it is locally rooted practitioners who are the most important audiences for this research, because they have significant experience working on these issues, understand the context and political economy, and have the necessary relationships and legitimacy to take on deep systemic change. We are excited to work with a range of program and research partners through our new Gender Fund, to support their practice and learning, and through this lens, contribute also to global evidence of what works to achieve gender equality at scale.

By: Varja Lipovsek, Director – Learning, Measurement and Evaluation

^[1] We call out these three references because we found them particularly relevant as complementary readings to our evidence reviews; we continue to engage with a range of additional evidence and experiences to further enhance our learning.