Walking the talk – Moving towards a gender-equality-focus in Austrian development cooperation

WIDE-Paper on the experiences from Austrian NGOs and partner organisations in the Global South

This paper is the outcome of five „Community of Practice“ (CoP) online meetings between November 2024 and June 2025 that were organised and facilitated by WIDE. The purpose of the CoP was to share experiences with the implementation of projects and programmes with the principal intention of advancing gender equality and/or the empowerment of women and girls, reducing gender discrimination or inequalities, or meeting gender-specific needs. This means projects and programmes which score „Gender Marker 2“ according to the OECD DAC gender marker system.

The Community of Practice consisted of gender experts from Austrian civil society organisations that work in development cooperation and humanitarian aid and their counterparts in local partner offices and organisations in the Global South. The number of participants in the online meetings varied between nine and sixteen, without the facilitators. Representatives from the Global South were present at all meetings; participants came from Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Mozambique. Most of the organisations involved had to change their programming approach and shift from gender mainstreaming to gender-equality-focused programming.

The paper systematically compiles lessons learned from the field and reveals that implementing activities that lead to greater gender equality is not an easy task. It discusses the challenges and solutions at organisational and project/programme levels, and demonstrates the clear commitment of the stakeholders and individuals involved.

Download WIDE-Paper-Experiences-Gender-Equality-Focus-DevCoop-Austria-2025.pdf