Social development and gender equity

Area Social Development and Gender Equity develops and implements approaches that promote the rights, inclusion and participation of marginalized social groups, particularly women, in the development process. These approaches are developed through collaborative action research undertaken with partners in Southern countries.

We provide technical assistance to donors and governmental and non-governmental agencies to integrate equality concerns into their policies and programmes and to build organizational capacity. We  specialize in integrating gender equality into development programmes and gender training.

Currently, our focus is on building inclusive citizenship and participatory governance and on mainstreaming rights-based approaches in development by supporting both rights claimants and duty bearers.

• Gender education and training

  KIT develops and carries out training on gender and development, particularly gender awareness raising, gender analysis and planning, gender mainstreaming and gender-inclusive citizenship.

• Gender-inclusive citizenship and participatory governance

  KIT works with civil society organizations, and within state and administrative processes, to enhance participation and representation of marginalized groups and improve institutional responsiveness to citizens.

• Gender mainstreaming

  Gender mainstreaming involves the integration of gender equality concerns into the analysis and formulation of all policies, programmes and projects. It includes initiatives to enable women and men to formulate and express their views and participate in decision-making.  Moreover, gender mainstreaming requires that development agencies themselves become sensitive to gender issues and strive towards a working environment that not only respects gender equality internally but also produces, externally, engendered programming.  Often the process entails a transformation of an organization's approach, internally and externally, to development overall.

• Rights-based approaches to development

  Rights-based approaches to development begin with the understanding that the purpose of development is the expansion of human freedoms. The key principles of all rights-based approaches are the protection and promotion of rights, accountability of duty bearers, participation and empowerment of rights-holders and non-discrimination and attention to vulnerable groups. In particular, rights-based approaches underscore KIT's work in Gender-Inclusive Citizenship and Participatory Governance.