Monthly Corner
IDH Publication, 2026
Gender-Based Violence (GBV) is not just a social issue, it’s a systemic challenge that undermines agricultural value chains.
In rural and isolated areas, GBV threatens women’s safety, limits their economic participation, and weakens food security. When women cannot work safely, entire communities lose resilience, and businesses lose productivity. Climate resilience strategies that overlook gendered risks leave communities exposed and women vulnerable.
Ending GBV is essential for building equitable, sustainable, and climate-resilient agri-food systems; and it’s not only a human rights imperative, but also central to climate adaptation and economic stability.
The good news? Solutions work. Programs like the Women’s Safety Accelerator Fund (WSAF) demonstrate that addressing GBV can enhance productivity and strengthen workforce morale and brand reputation. Safe, inclusive workplaces aren’t just good ethics, they’re smart business.
Gurmeet Kaur Articles
Luc Barriere-Constantin Article
This article draws on the experience gained by The Constellation over the past 20 years. It is also a proposal for a new M&E and Learning framework to be adopted and adapted in future projects of all community-focused organisations.
Devaka K.C. Article
Sudeshna Sengupta Chapter in the book "Dialogues on Development edited by Prof Arash Faizli and Prof Amitabh Kundu."
Events
Vacancies
- We’re Hiring: National Evaluation Consultant – Bangladesh
UN Women is recruiting a National Evaluation Consultant (Bangladesh) to support the interim evaluation of the Joint Regional EmPower Programme (Phase II).
This is a great opportunity to work closely with the Evaluation Team Leader and contribute to generating credible, gender-responsive evidence that informs decision-making and strengthens programme impact.
📍 Location: Dhaka, Bangladesh (home-based with travel to project locations)
📅 Apply by: 24 February 2026, 5:00 PM
🔗 Apply here: https://lnkd.in/gar4ciRr
If you are passionate about feminist evaluation, gender equality, and rigorous evidence that drives change (or know someone who is) please apply or share within your networks.
- Seeking Senior Analyst - IPE Global
About the job
IPE Global Ltd. is a multi-disciplinary development sector consulting firm offering a range of integrated, innovative and high-quality services across several sectors and practices. We offer end-to-end consulting and project implementation services in the areas of Social and Economic Empowerment, Education and Skill Development, Public Health, Nutrition, WASH, Urban and Infrastructure Development, Private Sector Development, among others.
Over the last 26 years, IPE Global has successfully implemented over 1,200 projects in more than 100 countries. The group is headquartered in New Delhi, India with five international offices in United Kingdom, Kenya, Ethiopia, Philippines and Bangladesh. We partner with multilateral, bilateral, governments, corporates and not-for-profit entities in anchoring development agenda for sustained and equitable growth. We strive to create an enabling environment for path-breaking social and policy reforms that contribute to sustainable development.
Role Overview
IPE Global is seeking a motivated Senior Analyst – Low Carbon Pathways to strengthen and grow its Climate Change and Sustainability practice. The role will contribute to business development, program management, research, and technical delivery across climate mitigation, carbon markets, and energy transition. This position provides exceptional exposure to global climate policy, finance, and technology, working with a team of high-performing professionals and in collaboration with donors, foundations, research institutions, and public agencies.
What do great partnerships for gender equality look like?
UN Women are currently mid-way through a global evaluation of their strategic partnerships.
As part of this process, we would love to know more about the views and experiences of the community regarding what characterises effective partnerships for gender equality. The evaluation team will use this information to help compare and contrast our findings about the performance of UN Women. However, by asking four questions that are pertinent to all partnerships, we hope that the discussion will also be useful for your work.
We will post a new question every 3 days. To get started, it would be great to hear your thoughts on our first question:
- What is the best example of a partnership you have seen between two or more organisations to address gender equality, and what made it great?
- What factors enable effective partnerships for gender equality and women’s empowerment?
Many thanks!
Joseph Barnes
(co-team leader)
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Joseph Barnes on
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Over the past week we have run 2 twitter polls on gender equality partnerships, with over 1000 responses between them.
People are telling us that 'feminist values' and 'good communication' are critical characteristics for effective GEWE partnerships. Does this ring true for you?
Our second question is: What factors enable effective partnerships for gender equality and women’s empowerment?
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Permalink Reply by Jude Senyuy Ayenika on -
I think for effective partnership for gender equality and women empowerment can be envisaged through balance education for girl and boy child,increasing early childhood development interventions, increasing women’s labor force participation and strengthening labor policies affecting women, improving women’s access to credit, land especially in Africa where some tribes do refused women access to these facilities, promoting women’s political rights and participation etc
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Permalink Reply by Colette Finn on
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The importance of the empowerment of women through gender balanced leadership is not well understood by most. I have changed from calling myself a feminist to calling myself an equalist. The reason that I have done that is that by using 'feminist' it assumes all women are in favour of equality and by inference that men are not. These assumptions are clearly false but nevertheless are often underpinning the debate around empowering women. I was a founding member of the 5050 group in Ireland. We encountered the difficulties of assuming that women who want equality for themselves necessarily wanted it for others as well. In having the debate about descriptive representation of women it needs to be understood that that doesn't necessarily mean embracing feminist values. Feminist values are not necessarily held by women in power - Sarah Palin and Margaret Thatcher being examples. However unless the number of women is increased then the attainment of feminist values cannot be achieved.
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Thank you Colette for sharing your experience in Ireland, it's very thought provoking. You speak about being intentional about the underlying assumptions and names that we carry. In your experience, does this have implications also for the nature of partnerships between groups or organisations that are working towards common goals (e.g. the way that the 5050 Group works with others)?
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Yes in my experience it is important to understand the ideological differences between women. In the 5050 group we encountered those differences and it proved challenging to hold the group together. We managed to get gender quotas for candidate selection implemented for general elections in Ireland. However the controversy was about naming how politics would be different with more women. It is not possible to predict because it depends on the ideology of the women that get elected. It is true that a gender balanced politics is better than an all male assembly and that is the key point. However if the women elected are ideologically in favour of hierarchies then the outcomes can be less satisfying to those who argue for equality for all. That is my main point.
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Permalink Reply by reetu sogani on
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I am afraid this is a very delayed response. I entirely agree with Colette. I have experienced it quite a few times , working st grassroots level as well as at higher levels, that even if women are aware of gender gap and are trying to reduce it, some of them continue to believe in maintaining other hierarchies based on Class and caste( particularly in India context). Eventually it does depend on their level of awareness, sensitivity and strong intention to bring about a change. Otherwise it dilutes the effort and the outcomes. Nonetheless ,it IS important to have women in good number in decision making processes and forums , representing different castes, class and other groups to be able to voice their opinion , needs and priorities, to begin with.
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Permalink Reply by Marcia Brandon on
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I really like this Collette Finn and hope that I can borrow this from you. Equalist says a lot more. And maybe this word will change again overtime and that's ok but for right now we really do want to ensure that people understand the "no one must be left behind" philosophy. Equality...
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Thank you Jude for your contribution. I would love to build on your comment.
All of the thematic interventions you have noted require joint work between multiple organisations and groups of people – often quite large and diverse groups of stakeholders.
Are there any common features of those partnerships – no matter in which sector – that you have found to be vital to success?
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Permalink Reply by Susanne Lucie BAUER on
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1. A partnership that makes a difference between partnering organizations is one that that makes all partners feel equally respected when integrating gender equality. Such a partnership feels best when differences enrichen this same process even in dissent.
2. Factors of effective partnerships for gender equality and women's empowerment include recurrent and lasting cooperation, one that that does not only occur once. Partnerships can be most effective when listening carefully, and when allowing diversity to become part of the game, not the exception.
Thank You for asking!
Susanne Bauer, independent gender consultant
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Permalink Reply by Gana Pati Ojha on
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One of the examples, I would say, is the Women Empowerment and Gender Equality project implemented by the government of Afghanistan and executed by UNDP with financial support of five donors. The integration of the policy, economic empowerment and justice (social empowerment) as well as engagement of different line ministries and civil societies at different administrative layers made the partnership project great.
Reviewing existing policies from the gender lens and improving them is one the enabling factors. Involving both women and men at different levels in social development, advocacy, capacity development of both right holder women and men and duty bearer women and men, engagement of women and men market economy, use of social media, complementarity in work between women and men and different stakeholders, good governance and campaign for gender justice are some of the factors that promote gender equality and women empowerment. Among them, economic empowerment is the prime factor which leads to social empowerment.
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Thanks Gana for sharing your example. We will take a look at the project you mention!
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Thank you Susanne, your points resonate well with things that we are hearing in our case studies. I wonder if you have come across any examples within your practice that exemplify these characteristics?
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