Lesson 2. What gender mainstreaming is
Back to: Introduction to Gender Mainstreaming
What gender mainstreaming is
This lesson includes interactive steps marked with a star. Complete each one to finish the lesson.
Finding your way through the course. Work through the lessons in order. Within each lesson, some steps are marked with a star and must be completed before you can move on. These include the short questions, the tabs and the cards, so open each one and have a go. Once the starred steps are done, the Next button at the foot of the lesson becomes active, and takes you to the next lesson. You can go back to any lesson you have finished from the course page at any time.
In this lesson
In Lesson 1 you saw why gender mainstreaming exists, where it came from, and what it requires: integrated action across all policies, programmes and procedures, plus targeted action where dedicated effort is needed.
This lesson goes into how gender mainstreaming has been formally defined. You will look at four definitions: one from the UN, one from the EU, and two from regional intergovernmental organisations. You will then identify what these definitions have in common, and how each common element connects back to what you learned in Lesson 1.
Three sections follow:
- the internationally accepted UN definition
- the EU and regional definitions
- the common elements that run across all four
The ECOSOC definition
Two years after the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) issued the definition of gender mainstreaming that is still in use across the UN system today. It comes from the Agreed Conclusions of 1997 and is the reference point for the rest of this lesson.
Mainstreaming a gender perspective is the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies or programmes, in all areas and at all levels. It is a strategy for making women’s as well as men’s concerns and experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres so that women and men benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated. The ultimate goal is to achieve gender equality. United Nations Economic and Social Council, Agreed Conclusions 1997/2, paragraph A.
The definition is dense. Read it once to get an overall sense, then read it again. The phrases below are the key ones, and the next sections unpack each one in turn, with an example of what it looks like in practice.
- Assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action.
- In all areas and at all levels.
- An integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes.
Reading the ECOSOC definition, which of the following best describes what gender mainstreaming requires an institution to do?
Assessing the implications
Assessing the implications
The first part of the ECOSOC definition says gender mainstreaming is the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action.
This commits an institution to a specific question before it acts: what will this policy, programme or piece of legislation mean for women and men respectively, and for the relations between them? The question is asked before the decision is taken, not after it has been implemented.
The method for asking and answering this question is gender analysis.
What is gender analysis?
Gender analysis is the systematic examination of the differences between women and men in their roles, responsibilities, access to resources, decision-making power, and the constraints they face. It draws on sex-disaggregated data and qualitative information about the relations between women and men in a given context.
A gender analysis asks questions such as:
- ✓ Who does what, and who has access to and control over what resources?
- ✓ Whose priorities shape the agenda?
- ✓ What different effects will the proposed action have on women and men?
- ✓ What gender inequalities exist, and how does the proposed action affect them?
The output of a gender analysis informs decisions about whether and how to proceed, what to change in the design, and what targeted action may also be needed.
Source: UN Women, 2022, Handbook on Gender Mainstreaming for Gender Equality Results.
What does this look like in practice?
A ministry of agriculture is designing a new programme to support smallholder farmers. Without gender analysis, the programme defaults to a generic farmer who is assumed male, because the available data on land ownership, credit and extension services records men as the formal farmers. Women’s substantial role in food production, often on land they do not own, is invisible.
A gender analysis makes this visible. It looks at who is actually doing the farming, who owns the land, who has access to credit and inputs, who attends extension training, and what constraints women farmers face that men do not. The programme design changes as a result: eligibility criteria are widened, extension services are scheduled at times women can attend, and access to inputs is restructured.
The implications were assessed before the programme was approved. That is what the first part of the ECOSOC definition asks for.
Source: example drawn from FAO and IFAD work on gender in agriculture.
In all areas and at all levels
In all areas and at all levels
The second part of the ECOSOC definition says gender mainstreaming applies in all areas and at all levels.
This directly challenges the idea that gender equality is the business of a specialist unit, a women’s ministry, or a single gender focal point. The definition commits an institution to integrating gender across every area of its work and at every level of decision-making, from the most technical operational detail to the highest strategic choices.
What does “all areas and all levels” cover in practice?
The phrase reaches further than learners often expect. It covers:
- All policy areas. Not only the areas already framed as social or gender-related (health, education, social protection), but also areas often treated as gender-neutral: trade, infrastructure, transport, climate, defence, fiscal and monetary policy.
- All stages of the policy cycle. Design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.
- All levels of decision-making. From the technical staff drafting a policy brief, to the senior managers approving it, to the political leadership setting the strategic direction.
- All instruments. Including the ones that look most technical and least gendered: budgets, procurement, regulatory frameworks, data systems.
The last point is the one most often missed in practice. Budgets, in particular, are where stated commitments to gender equality either translate into resources or do not.
What does this look like in practice?
Gender-responsive budgeting.
Gender-responsive budgeting is the application of gender mainstreaming to the budget process. It does not mean a separate budget for women. It means analysing the existing budget and the proposed budget through a gender lens, and adjusting allocations and revenue measures so that they advance gender equality rather than reinforce existing inequalities.
In practice this includes:
- ✓ Examining how planned expenditure is likely to affect women and men differently.
- ✓ Tracking how much of the budget is allocated to gender equality objectives, both through targeted programmes and through mainstreamed expenditure.
- ✓ Examining the revenue side: who pays which taxes, and what the gender effects of tax changes are.
- ✓ Adjusting allocations and tax design where the analysis shows current arrangements reinforce inequality.
A country may have a stated commitment to gender equality in its national development plan. Whether that commitment is real or rhetorical is visible in the budget. Gender-responsive budgeting brings the budget into the scope of gender mainstreaming, which is what the ECOSOC definition’s reference to “all areas and at all levels” requires.
Sources: UN Women work on gender-responsive budgeting; Council of Europe definition of gender budgeting.
A finance ministry has a stated commitment to gender equality. It runs a small gender unit that publishes an annual report on women in the economy. The national budget itself is prepared without gender analysis, and allocations are not examined for their effects on women and men.
Which part of the ECOSOC definition does this approach most clearly fall short of?
An integral dimension
An integral dimension
The third part of the ECOSOC definition says gender mainstreaming makes women’s and men’s concerns and experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes.
The word integral is significant. It distinguishes gender mainstreaming from approaches that treat gender as a separate workstream alongside the main work of an institution.
In practice, many institutions set up a dedicated gender unit, run a small portfolio of standalone gender programmes, and publish an annual report on gender equality. Where this happens in parallel to mainstream work that remains gender ignorant, the ECOSOC definition is not met. Gender work running in parallel to mainstream work is not the same as gender being integral to it.
Integral versus parallel: how to tell the difference
A useful test. Look at the main strategic document of an institution: its country strategy, its corporate plan, its sector programme. Then ask:
- Does gender equality appear only in a dedicated section or chapter, with the rest of the document silent on it?
- Or is gender equality visible in the objectives, indicators, activities and budget of every chapter, with a dedicated section adding the targeted action where needed?
The first pattern is parallel. The second is integral.
The integral approach asks every team to take responsibility for the gender dimensions of its own area of work, rather than defer the question to the gender unit. The gender unit’s role changes accordingly, from delivering the gender work, to supporting other teams to do gender-competent work themselves.
Connection to Lesson 1.
The twin-track requirement from Lesson 1 connects here.
Integrated action is the main track, where gender is an integral dimension across all areas and levels, as the ECOSOC definition sets out.
Targeted action is the second track, made up of dedicated programmes, policies and resources for the specific gender equality constraints that integrated action alone cannot address.
Both tracks are required. Targeted action on its own is parallel work; integrated action on its own leaves the hardest constraints unaddressed.
What does this look like in practice?
The difference in a country strategy.
Two versions of the same country strategy for a UN agency.
In the parallel version, gender equality appears as Chapter 7. It sets out a small portfolio of targeted programmes on women’s economic empowerment and ending violence against women. The other chapters (governance, climate, jobs, health) do not mention gender. The agency reports separately on Chapter 7 each year.
In the integral version, every chapter contains gender objectives and indicators. The governance chapter includes objectives on women’s political participation and on gender-responsive public institutions. The climate chapter analyses the different effects of climate change on women and men and adjusts the response accordingly. The jobs chapter examines occupational segregation and the gender pay gap. The health chapter looks beyond maternal health to the full range of health inequalities. A shorter dedicated section on targeted action sits alongside these, addressing the constraints that integrated work alone cannot reach.
The first version treats gender equality as one of several priorities. The second treats it as an integral dimension of every priority. Only the second meets what the ECOSOC definition asks for.
Example drawn from observed UN country programming. Generic illustration, not attributed to a specific country.
A development agency publishes a five-year country strategy. Chapter 8 is dedicated to gender equality and sets out targeted programmes on women’s economic empowerment. The other seven chapters, covering governance, climate, health, education, agriculture, infrastructure and humanitarian response, do not mention gender.
Is this gender mainstreaming as the ECOSOC definition sets it out?
Gender mainstreaming across regional institutions
The ECOSOC definition is the reference point for the UN system. Other regional intergovernmental systems have adopted gender mainstreaming as a strategy and issued their own definitions. The tabs below show three of them.
The wording differs across institutions. The strategy is the same: integrating a gender perspective across all areas of an institution’s work, at every stage of decision-making, with the goal of advancing gender equality.
Your organisation
You have now read the ECOSOC definition, the three phrases this lesson unpacked, and three regional definitions that adopt the same strategy in different wording.
Take a moment to think about your own organisation, or one you have worked in or with.
- Does your organisation have a definition of gender mainstreaming, in a policy document, a strategy, or a public statement?
- If it does, what does the definition commit the organisation to? Where does it sit between the integrated dimension the ECOSOC definition asks for, and a parallel workstream alongside the main work?
- If it does not, what does that absence say about the organisation’s approach to gender equality?
There is no right answer to these questions. They are here to help you connect what you have read to what you know.
Activity
The box below is for your own notes on this activity (these are not saved). To complete this lesson, take the short quiz at the end, which asks you to reflect on your own organisation.
Further reading and resources
Sources cited
- United Nations Economic and Social Council, 1997, Agreed Conclusions 1997/2. UN, New York.
- UN Women, 2022, Handbook on Gender Mainstreaming for Gender Equality Results. UN Women, New York.
- European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), Gender Mainstreaming Toolkit. EIGE, Vilnius.
- African Union, 2009, Gender Policy. African Union, Addis Ababa.
- Organization of American States, 2000, Inter-American Program on the Promotion of Women’s Human Rights and Gender Equity and Equality, AG/RES. 1732 (XXX-O/00). OAS, Washington DC.
