Paper Titles & Abstracts

The aim of this article is to examine the transformative potential of the policy and practice of gender mainstreaming in EU development aid. I engage first, in a quantitative and qualitative analysis of policy programming documents. Second, I delve into two case studies - EU aid towards Liberia and Rwanda - by means of field work conducted in Monrovia and Kigali. The research results show that gender is formally mainstreamed in the programming phase of EU aid as it is integrated in both analytical and strategic parts of development plans and gender performance indicators are being increasingly used. Substantially, gender is mostly mainstreamed in education and maternal health, and is often framed instrumentally to achieve other goals such as poverty reduction or economic growth. Gender is thus only partly mainstreamed in a transformative way. In addition, the data from the case studies show that gender sensitive planning does not translate into the integration of gender equality in development practice. Most of the planned gender aspects of development policies disappear in the implementation phase due to a lack of expertise, commitment or resources at the EU delegation level. The inclusion of civil society in the drafting of policies is proposed as a solution. A more participatory approach - that involves the expertise of civil society organisations working on gender equality - could temper policy evaporation and regain the transformative potential of gender mainstreaming.