This year’s movie awards season has brought with it a glut of headlines around inequality – whether it’s the gender pay gap amongst actors, the representation of women in film or their objectification on the red carpet, the message is clear: the sexes are not equal. The UN’s annual International Women’s Day (IWD) – less than ten days after the Oscars ceremony – is a timely reminder that gender equality is a global issue which is prevalent in all spheres of life.

The theme of this year’s IWD – accelerating progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly those around gender – is timely. Few would disagree that sustainable development can be achieved without the input and inclusion of all parts of society. Despite this, it’s sometimes easy to forget that development and gender go hand-in-hand. Indeed, before the end of the 20th century gender was rarely, if ever, considered within development programming.

Turning the tide

The last two decades however have seen a shift. In 1997, the UN adopted the first resolution on ‘gender mainstreaming’ and today few donor-led projects fail to mention the phrase in their terms of reference. However, in practice, this mainstreaming varies greatly between projects and has achieved mixed results. Two years ago the UN recognised that, despite progress, gender mainstreaming has not been effective in all aspects of policy and programming.

In some cases "gender" never makes it beyond the project log frame. It is essentially an afterthought or, at worst, a box-ticking exercise. Even where gender is considered in more detail, a narrow sector focus can mean that projects do not have the impact expected. Our research from Northern Nigeria, for example, showed how many women require their husband’s permission to travel alone to a health facility  – in this case, child health interventions aimed solely at mothers and the assumption that they will attend centres outside the community are likely to be ineffective. 

In other cases, projects with a central gender focus can backfire. The literature on cash transfers for example, provides us with cases where gender mainstreaming considerations have prioritised women as the recipients of hand-outs without accounting for the incumbent power balance within households.  Women may be economically "empowered", but their transformed status can lead to more tension within the home that often manifests itself in violence. 

Where the barriers lie

Perhaps it is time to reframe the gender question and look beyond the concept of mainstreaming to try and understand what the real barrier to equality is. Gender mainstreaming in the context of development programming can sometimes only go so far. Success continues to be limited by "social norms" which are often shared by both sexes.

So what to do? Development programmes are extremely hard to influence from the outside. What’s more, all too often political struggles for women’s rights remain the domain of the privileged few with time and resources – hence the backlash against female Hollywood stars calling for equal pay. "Ordinary" women are often constrained by time poverty; in other words, they have more imminent day-to-day concerns to address.

Future goals

One area to look at is the role development donors play in reaching out to and supporting these women. One useful route is through the amplification of local actions that bring together those advocating for change around particular issues. A recent review from the Overseas Development Institute found that where women (and men) from different social and economic backgrounds have formed coalitions around shared interests – for example service delivery issues – they have been able to contribute to processes of political change and challenge inequality. It is possible that donor money would be best spent on identifying these "coalitions of change" wherever they occur and creating enabling conditions for them to grow and flourish.

There’s no silver bullet, changing social norms and individual attitudes is not going to happen overnight. This perspective does not sit comfortably with many donors who prefer "quick wins" and projects that yield headline-grabbing success stories. But this must not become an excuse to opt for sticking plaster solutions that fail to confront the deep-rooted, entrenched causes of inequality. If we are really serious about gender equality, we need to accept that it is going to be a marathon, not a sprint, and that the groundwork needs to continue to be laid now.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited (EIU) or any other member of The Economist Group. The Economist Group (including the EIU) cannot accept any responsibility or liability for reliance by any person on this article or any of the information, opinions or conclusions set out in the article.