Laura Hughston - Blog
Arnoux Mouafo Nopi & Dimitri Tsona Zapzi - Article
Prof. Wangari Mwai and Prof. Catherine Ndungo - BOOK
RAI SENGUPTA - gender-transformative evaluation tools
This synthesis draws on evidence from 17 humanitarian evaluations across diverse crisis settings. It identifies key feminist evaluation innovations across four domains - design, methods, analysis, and ethics - illustrating how feminist principles can be embedded throughout the evaluation process. It also surfaces broader shifts required at policy, institutional, and practice levels to realise the transformative potential of feminist approaches in humanitarian contexts.
The toolkit translates these insights into applied guidance for evaluators and organisations. It provides step-by-step support across the full evaluation cycle, including planning, design, methods, analysis, ethics, and dissemination. Drawing on global feminist evaluation practice, humanitarian guidance, and gender evaluation standards, it includes adaptable tools, participatory and arts-based methods, guiding questions, and templates for field application.
Ritu Dewan & Swat Raju - Article
In Promises & Reality 2026 Citizen’s Review of Year 2 of the NDA-III Government. Coordinated by Wada Na Todo Abhiyan, June 20, 2026. pp 94-100.
UTTHAN - Research Report
Traversing the path with women farmers in their fields and in our reflections/writings, a stark observation was the sheer lack of localized and regional vocabulary and terminology to adequately capture and communicate the understanding of climate change and mitigation strategies, informed by the unique experiences and needs of small and marginal women farmers. This is what propelled our research - to examine how women farmers perceive, express, experience, and respond to climate variability across
Our Research Report centres the lived experiences, generational knowledge, and resilience strategies of small and marginal women farmers from the coastal (Bhavnagar) and hilly (Dahod & Panchmahal) regions i.e two contrasting agro-climatic zones of Gujarat. Through their voices, the study reveals exactly how climate change intersects with gender, land rights, labour burdens, and food security.
At Includovate, we are expanding our Pacific Research & Evaluation Talent Pool and inviting researchers, evaluators, consultants, and development practitioners to join a growing network of professionals committed to creating meaningful social impact.
As a feminist research incubator and certified social enterprise, Includovate works with partners including UNICEF, UNFPA, the ILO, governments, and development organisations across 23+ countries. Our work spans gender equality, social inclusion, health, disability, youth, climate, WASH, market systems, and other development priorities.
We are particularly keen to connect with experts from:
📍 Papua New Guinea
📍 Solomon Islands
📍 Vanuatu
📍 Timor-Leste
📍 Fiji
📍 Samoa
📍 Tonga
📍 Indonesia
📍 Australia
and across the wider Pacific region.
We welcome expertise in:
✓ Research, Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning
✓ Gender Equality & Social Inclusion
✓ Health & SRHR
✓ Disability Inclusion
✓ Youth Development
✓ Climate & Environment
✓ WASH
✓ Market Systems Development
✓ Governance & Community Development
Whether your expertise lies in data collection, research, evaluation, technical advisory, facilitation, or team leadership, we would love to hear from you.
By joining our Talent Pool, you become part of a trusted network of professionals who may be considered for future research, evaluation, advisory, and consulting opportunities across the Pacific region and beyond.
🔗 Register here: https://lnkd.in/eyF66S7H
This action brief argues that contemporary gender-equality programming remains incomplete when it fails to integrate men as active, reflective, and legitimate participants in social transformation. While the historical and political focus on women is justified, the systematic exclusion of men from gender initiatives produces an imbalance that limits transformative impact and leaves gender norms unchallenged. Recognizing men not as obstacles but as gendered actors situated within systems of power and vulnerability is essential for building sustainable and culturally meaningful change.
A large proportion of gender-equality initiatives continues to treat men as peripheral, or even as implicit antagonists in the process of transformation. This tendency reinforces the pervasive perception that gender equality is “for women,” resulting in resistance, resentment, or disengagement among men.
Ethnographic evidence from community dialogues and focus groups reveals that many men interpret gender equality as synonymous with women’s empowerment, a zero-sum project that gives more to women while demanding less from men in terms of reflection and behavioral change. This unilateral interpretation distorts the concept of equality and obscures the deeper social mechanisms that reproduce inequalities across genders.
Furthermore, men who experience violence or emotional distress rarely seek assistance due to fear of ridicule, institutional neglect, or the perception that existing services “are not for men.” These silences, institutional and social, expose critical blind spots in the design and implementation of gender-equality initiatives.
Across diverse settings, research shows that men often remain distant from gender-related programmes for structural reasons:
they are seldom invited, they do not recognize the personal relevance of the issue, or they feel implicated as the problem rather than as potential allies.
This distance reinforces hegemonic masculinities that discourage vulnerability, emotional expression, or self-questioning. As a result, harmful gender norms remain intact even as programmes aim to strengthen women’s rights. Paradoxically, the very norms these programmes seek to change among women continue operating unchallenged among men.
The consequence is predictable: partial change, which has limited potential for reshaping social relations. When transformation reaches only one side of the gender system, the broader structure reconfigures itself rather than dissolving.
Research on masculinities demonstrates that gender norms operate relationally: they bind women and men within systems of expectations, sanctions, and roles. Change that targets only women disrupts the balance but does not alter the system’s foundations.
A transformative approach must therefore acknowledge:
· That men are also shaped and constrained by rigid gender norms;
· That harmful behaviors often emerge from socialization rather than inherent disposition;
· And that effective policy and programming require shared responsibility instead of unilateral empowerment.
Incorporating men as reflective participants broadens the scope of gender work, shifting it from a compensatory agenda to a relational and structural one.
Recommendations: Concrete Pathways for Engaging Men in Gender Equality
· Explicitly include men as target groups, stakeholders, and partners.
· Frame gender equality as a mutually beneficial project, not a redistribution of privilege.
· Develop indicators that capture men’s attitudes, fears, vulnerabilities, and barriers.
· Document men’s silences and resistances as meaningful data rather than obstacles.
· Create structured discussion forums where men can share doubts, fears, and contradictions.
· Use participatory methodologies that foster collective reflection on gender norms.
· Train professionals in recognizing diverse masculinities and responding without stigma.
· Strengthen police, health, and psychosocial services to address male experiences of violence or distress.
· Promote narratives that present gender equality as expanding freedoms for all genders.
· Counter anti-equality discourse with messages grounded in empathy, relationality, and shared responsibility.
A gender-equality agenda that focuses exclusively on women is fundamentally incomplete. Lasting transformation requires recognizing that men, too, are gendered subjects shaped by expectations, constraints, and vulnerabilities.
Gender equality takes root when all participants, women, men, and gender-diverse people are invited to question norms, co-design solutions, and imagine new social possibilities.
Transformative change emerges when men are brought into the room not as adversaries, but as partners capable of critical reflection, emotional openness, and social responsibility.
Only then can gender equality move from a technical intervention toward a cultural, relational, and deeply social shift."
© 2026 Created by Rituu B Nanda.
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