Case studies >>Support for DFID Africa Gender Equality Action Plan


First published: 2009-09-28

Gender Equality Action Plan

SDDirect's Lucy Earle worked with independent consultant, Pat Holden, to provide support for the UK Department for International Development's (DFID) Africa Division in the development of its Gender Equality Action Plan (GEAP). DFID's overall institutional GEAP was launched in 2007 (SDDirect also contributed to this earlier process), to set out how DFID would use its partnerships, money and management systems to help developing countries achieve women's empowerment and gender equality. The aim of the Africa GEAP is to get commitment from each DFID office in Africa on five key country-specific outputs related to gender equality and women's empowerment that staff will work towards over the next five years. As well as helping to focus work on activities, high-level commitment from heads of office will also raise awareness of the importance of gender issues. It is hoped that country offices will take real ownership of their five objectives, and that all office staff, from advisers, to administrative staff and even drivers, will know what the office is planning to achieve for women over the coming years.

The consultants worked with the head of the division, and held video conferences with sixteen DFID offices across the continent, to help them begin the planning process. They then engaged in discussions over proposed outcomes, thinking through the practicalities of how positive change could be measured.

The five outcomes from each country were roughly grouped into five key areas:

  1. increased access for women to economic opportunities
  2. increased access to public services
  3. greater political and social empowerment
  4. progress towards the elimination of gender-based violence
  5. stronger capacity for future actions on gender

For example, DFID Rwanda will help women to own land by working to improve tenure security; DFID Tanzania will focus efforts on ensuring more girls start and complete secondary education; DFID Sudan will work with women who have been elected to public office to ensure they have greater capacity to impact on public policy making; DFID Sierra Leone has pledged to facilitate informed public debate on female genital mutilation; and DFID Ghana will pilot gender-budgeting initiatives.

DFID country offices are now each working towards their own set of key outcomes. A communications document outlining their commitments was published in September 2009. Click here to download the brochure. Areas where DFID has already made progress in work on women's empowerment and gender equality in Africa are also highlighted in the document.