Why Designing and Implementing Development Programs Through a Gender Lens is Critical

Despite an enormous amount of work and activity over the past few decades, progress towards gender equality has been slow. On almost all metrics, gender inequality continues to persist.

In the form of lower rates of employment among women, less pay, less access to the internet, and exposure to gender-based violence, among others, the need for a continued fight for gender equality remains urgent and one of the most effective ways to solve many of the world’s economic, social, and development problems.

Fundamental social issues such as poverty, health, and education impact men and women both differently and disproportionately. Therefore, development programs cannot hope to have their full intended impact without viewing the interventions necessary and the outcomes achieved through a gender lens.

Norms and beliefs that underpin the societal infrastructure that continues to fuel gender inequality need desperate attention if we are to achieve gender equality. Community-based conversations with both men and women need to take place to understand the drivers of the attitudes causing inequality and to determine the best ways to address them.

Havuta works with organisations working to redress the chronic historical imbalances between men and women. Havuta’s technology-driven platform allows development organisations to continue dialogue with their beneficiaries and stakeholders long after an intervention has taken place.

The longitudinal data Havuta allows organisations to capture has proven invaluable in exploring and addressing the norms that drive gender inequality. By establishing longer term connections, through technology, with communities, organisations are able to keep communication channels open that might otherwise be shut too early.

Those conversations are — and need to be — two-way. Only by listening and understanding those key attitudinal drivers of inequality can organisations hope to have an impact on them.

Havuta’s data collection technology also provides sex-disaggregation options so that impact data can be viewed through a gender lens.

In these ways, Havuta hopes to be part of the solution to gender inequality worldwide.

Website | LinkedIn | Twitter | Medium | Telegram | OpenSea | YouTube