Evolving Approaches: From Women in Development (WID) to Gender and Development (GAD)

For decades, the conversation around development and women’s roles has dramatically evolved-from treating women as passive recipients of aid to recognizing them as active agents of change. This shift reflects a fundamental change in how we understand gender, power, and economic progress. The journey from Women in Development to Gender and Development marks one of the most significant transformations in how development initiatives are designed and implemented worldwide.

Understanding this evolution isn’t just academic; it’s about recognizing how our approaches to development can either reinforce existing inequalities or actively work to dismantle them. Let’s explore how thinking about gender in development has transformed over the past five decades.

The emergence of Women in Development
The achievements and limitations of WID
Shifting to Gender and Development
Core principles of the GAD approach
GAD in action: Real-world implementation
Gender-responsive budgeting
Addressing unpaid care work
Legal reforms and institutional change
Challenges and ongoing evolution
Why this evolution matters

The emergence of Women in Development

The Women in Development approach emerged in the early 1970s as development practitioners began questioning why women weren’t benefiting equally from economic growth. Danish economist Ester Boserup’s groundbreaking 1970 book challenged the assumption that development affected men and women similarly, demonstrating that modernization often displaced women from their traditional economic roles without providing new opportunities.

The WID approach operated on a straightforward premise: integrate women into existing development frameworks to boost economic productivity. Think of it like adding women to a recipe that was already being followed-the basic ingredients and methods stayed the same, but now women were included as participants. WID focused on ensuring that development resources reached women, with programs typically centered on income generation, skills training, and access to credit.

Picture a village where a development project introduces new farming technology. Under WID, the project might establish women’s cooperatives to access this technology or provide microcredit so women could purchase equipment. The goal was practical: increase women’s economic participation and productivity.

The achievements and limitations of WID

WID achieved significant milestones. It brought women’s economic contributions into visibility, influenced policy at major institutions like USAID and the World Bank, and helped establish the UN Decade for Women from 1975 to 1985. Development agencies began collecting data on women’s activities and designing women-specific projects.

However, WID faced substantial criticism. By focusing solely on women without examining why they were marginalized in the first place, WID often reinforced existing gender hierarchies. It treated women as a homogeneous group, overlooking differences in class, race, and culture. Most critically, WID didn’t challenge the power relations between men and women-it simply tried to make women more productive within systems that systematically disadvantaged them.

Imagine trying to fix a leaking roof by constantly mopping the floor. You’re addressing a symptom, but the underlying problem remains. That’s essentially what happened with many WID initiatives-they provided temporary relief without addressing structural inequalities.

Shifting to Gender and Development

By the 1980s, a new paradigm emerged. Gender and Development moved beyond focusing on women alone to examining the relationships and power dynamics between men and women. This wasn’t just a semantic change-it represented a fundamental reconceptualization of the problem.

GAD recognizes that gender is socially constructed, not biologically determined. The roles society assigns to men and women-breadwinner versus caregiver, public versus private sphere-are learned behaviors that can be changed. Unlike WID, which accepted existing structures, GAD questions them. It asks: Why are women systematically assigned inferior roles? How do institutions perpetuate these inequalities? What structural changes are needed?

Core principles of the GAD approach

GAD operates on three fundamental premises. First, gender relations are fundamentally about power-who has it, who doesn’t, and how it’s maintained. Second, gender inequality isn’t natural or inevitable; it’s created and reinforced by social institutions. Third, and perhaps most importantly, these structures can be transformed.

Consider a community where only men inherit land. A WID approach might create income-generating projects for women who lack land. A GAD approach would question the inheritance laws themselves, engage both men and women in dialogue about property rights, and work toward changing the legal framework. It addresses root causes, not just symptoms.

Another key aspect of GAD is gender mainstreaming, a strategy adopted by the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action. This means integrating gender considerations into every policy, program, and budget from the planning stage through evaluation. It’s not about having separate “women’s projects” but ensuring all development work considers gender implications.

GAD in action: Real-world implementation

How does GAD look in practice? Let’s examine some concrete examples that demonstrate the approach’s transformative potential.

Gender-responsive budgeting

One of the most powerful GAD tools is gender-responsive budgeting, which analyzes how government spending affects men and women differently. Morocco provides an excellent case study. Since 2006, Morocco has produced annual gender budget reports examining how each government department’s spending impacts women and men. By 2012, twenty-seven departments representing over eighty percent of the state budget participated in this reporting.

The results have been tangible. Morocco’s Department of Literacy restructured its programs based on recognizing that eighty-five percent of beneficiaries were women, allowing better adaptation to their specific needs. The country even amended its organic law of finance to legally institutionalize gender equality throughout budget processes-a constitutional-level commitment to gender-responsive resource allocation.

Similarly, the Philippines mandates that all government agencies allocate at least five percent of their annual budgets to gender programs and projects. This policy, strengthened by the Magna Carta of Women, ensures concrete resources support gender equality rather than leaving it as an unfunded aspiration.

Addressing unpaid care work

GAD recognizes that women worldwide perform vast amounts of unpaid care and domestic work-valued at approximately $10.8 trillion annually, three times the size of the global technology industry. Development programs using a GAD lens don’t just help women become more “productive” in the market economy; they question why care work is undervalued and seek ways to redistribute these responsibilities.

In some communities, this has meant engaging men in conversations about sharing household responsibilities, establishing community childcare facilities, or ensuring policies like parental leave allow both parents to contribute to caregiving. The goal isn’t just economic participation but transforming the underlying division of labor.

Legal reforms and institutional change

GAD has inspired significant legal reforms worldwide. In India, GAD principles influenced legislation such as the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act and laws addressing workplace harassment. These aren’t just about protecting women; they’re about challenging and changing the power structures that enable violence and discrimination.

Jordan’s experience with gender-responsive budgeting shows how institutional capacity can develop. Through UN Women’s support, Jordan established a national GRB network that brought together government representatives and civil society. This collaborative approach ensured gender considerations were integrated into budget circulars and templates, with government staff eventually becoming trainers themselves-building sustainable capacity rather than dependence on external experts.

Challenges and ongoing evolution

Despite its promise, GAD faces significant implementation challenges. Many organizations adopt GAD language while their practices remain firmly rooted in WID thinking-what some scholars call “slippage,” where gender mainstreaming becomes synonymous with women-only projects rather than transformative change.

Technical challenges also persist. Countries report difficulties with insufficient gender-disaggregated data, lack of clear methodological guidance, and limited coordination between government entities. Political will, while necessary, isn’t sufficient-without technical capacity to conduct gender analysis and translate it into budgets and programs, GAD remains aspirational.

Critics also note that GAD can sometimes overlook cultural contexts and the ways women negotiate power within their specific circumstances. The approach requires sustained commitment, adequate resources, and willingness to confront uncomfortable truths about power and privilege-all of which can be difficult to maintain over time.

Why this evolution matters

The shift from WID to GAD represents more than a change in terminology. It reflects a maturation in our understanding of how inequality operates and what’s required to address it. WID’s focus on efficiency and productivity treated gender inequality primarily as an economic problem with economic solutions. GAD recognizes it as a social, political, and cultural issue requiring systemic transformation.

This matters because development isn’t just about economic growth-it’s about creating societies where everyone can thrive with dignity and opportunity. When we understand gender as a system of power relations rather than biological destiny, we open possibilities for fundamental change. We can question why certain work is valued and other work isn’t, why some voices carry weight in decision-making while others are silenced, why resources flow in particular directions.

The journey from WID to GAD also teaches us that good intentions aren’t enough. We must continually examine whether our approaches reinforce the very inequalities we claim to address. Are we treating symptoms or causes? Are we including people in decisions about their own lives? Are we measuring success by economic metrics alone or by genuine improvements in wellbeing and agency?

What do you think? In your community or organization, have you observed examples where addressing gender inequality has moved beyond simply “including women” to actually transforming power relationships? What barriers prevent more fundamental approaches to gender equality, and how might they be overcome?

References

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Table of Contents

The emergence of Women in Development 🔗

The achievements and limitations of WID 🔗

Shifting to Gender and Development 🔗

Core principles of the GAD approach 🔗

GAD in action: Real-world implementation 🔗

Gender-responsive budgeting 🔗

Addressing unpaid care work 🔗

Legal reforms and institutional change 🔗

Challenges and ongoing evolution 🔗

Why this evolution matters 🔗