Countering Backlash: Reclaiming Gender Justice.

Project Title: Countering Backlash: Reclaiming Gender Justice.

Funder: Institute of Development Studies, IDS.

Project Site(s): The Global South.

Outcome: Understanding the backlash, addressing the erosion of gender agendas and finding and seizing the new opportunities leading to new types of strategy and forms of alliances.

Building on the principle of inclusivity, the primary beneficiaries of the programme are women’s rights organisations (WROs), activists and active defenders of gender justice at local, national, regional and global levels. This includes gender justice defenders from research, programming and policy-making organisations prioritising resource-poor settings, whilst the latter groups and their peers (who may be currently less engaged on gender justice) are also targeted for influencing in the interests of better support to WROs and gender justice defenders, particularly from poor communities.

• At the local and national levels, local activists and CSOs benefit from new methods and capacity strengthening, whilst local researchers benefit directly from research findings, research collaborations and capacity building, and policy makers benefit from research insights, dialogue with activists and guidance in terms of policy and practice.
• Regional level networks and research communities further benefit through national programme partners’ and our collective engagements and communications in regional networks and fora.
• At the global level, the key beneficiaries are broader research, advocacy and policy making communities concerned with gender justice in international development, including international networks, INGOs and development partners.

Activities and outcomes

• Research activities to inform gender justice activists in effectively mobilising against backlash, as well as development workers and policy makers in strengthening gender-transformative practice and policy.
• Convening debates within and across our thematic strands, in which activists, scholars and policy makers learn about backlash, what is working by way of resistance and how to push back. This is central to our reframing approaches and to advancing debates, whilst maximising the sharing of lessons for influence.
• Capacity and methods development by co-constructing tools and methods for tracking and tackling backlash and reversals in gender policies, together with activists, policymakers and practitioners, built into research and convening. This will be complemented by capacity building for different audiences through: webinars and e-discussions; designing and delivering training workshops and modules, and; learning exchanges.
• Collaborative communications and dialogue: Context-specific knowledge and capacity building results will be shared widely, achieving a broader influence in regional and global practice.