What we like about USAID’s draft gender policy

Plan International USA welcomes the new draft USAID gender equality and women’s empowerment policy. When combined with the $2.6 billion FY23 commitment to these programs announced at the White House on International Women’s Day, the strategy will lead USAID and its implementing partners to transformative gender equality programs at a broader scale in the years to come. Plan is pleased that our staff and youth advocates were able to inform the draft strategy through USAID’s wide-ranging and consultative process. We especially welcomes the following aspects:

Program priorities

• Positive reference to gender across the life course and the Youth in Development Policy.
• Explicit acknowledgement that gender equality is an important human rights issue.
• The draft recognizes gender diversity with strong and inclusive definitions. This is a key positive improvement upon the 2020 policy, which had drastically narrowed definitions and reinforced exclusionary concepts of the gender binary, equity and diversity.
• References to men and boys recognize the importance of male engagement and acknowledge that boys now trail girls in educational achievement in some nations. At the same time, the text could do more to recognize that predominant gender norms have negative impacts on women and girls.
• First USAID gender strategy to meaningfully recognize online harassment and abuse. As demonstrated by Plan’s 2020 and 2021 State of World’s Girls’ reports, the strategy says, “women, girls, and gender diverse persons disproportionately face online threats and harassment,” and that “in addition to causing harm, technology-facilitated GBV can discourage women, girls, and gender diverse persons from engaging in the digital ecosystem.”
• Prioritizes the need to reduce child, early and forced marriages, both in emergency and non-emergency settings.
• Recognition that period health and education are a key impediment to girls’ education.
• Recognition in the definitions that intersectionality serves as an analytical lens that considers and addresses how a person’s overlapping identities contribute to unique experiences of oppression, privilege and access to services, including development programs.
• Recognition that emergency settings impact girls and young women especially hard. The strategy says “When food is scarce, women and girls bear the brunt of negative coping mechanisms, including child marriage, sex-selective feeding, child labor, and transactional or survival sex, as well as increased risks of trafficking and sexual exploitation and abuse by aid workers…. These forms of GBV consistently and undeniably occur during all emergencies.” Plan’s view is that there is chronic underfunding and low recognition of GBV in emergencies, so this is a welcome acknowledgment.

Improved implementation

• Broader references to engagement of local actors, especially organizations and groups led by women, girls and gender-diverse individuals. Plan believes direct funding to these constituencies is essential and would increase the impact and sustainability of USAID’s investments.
• The inclusion of the Mission Order requirement, including the specificity around how the Mission will implement the Mission Order. We recommend that this also be a requirement rather than a “strongly recommended” action for Washington, regional and pillar bureaus.
• The Gender Advisors section is critically important and it is great to see it in the policy so explicitly. It is also positive that the descriptions of the Gender Advisors are clearly specified (must have gender expertise and dedicate at least 75% LOE). We recommend adding more prescriptive language about staff level and reporting structures to ensure Gender Advisors or POCs have adequate authority and rank to ensure that the work can get done. We also recommend an accelerated timeline for the recruitment and hiring of the needed staff. With the new focus of the gender policy, the mentioned training strategy is vital and should be accelerated and fully staffed and funded.
• The focus on a gender marker that would require a gender analysis and gender-disaggregated data, as well as more accountability for USAID’s investments in this vital sector.

Plan looks forward to the finalization of the strategy later this year, and to its broad and meaningful implementation through resources like the $2.6 billion gender equality attribution, increased gender equality staffing, stronger Mission Orders, and more accountable use of the gender marker and USAID’s reporting systems.