Approaches to gender-responsive policy design and implementation processes have largely focused on increasing women’s participation in governance structures and building their political leadership capacity in parliamentary procedure, negotiation, networking and public speaking. Using the Women in Development (WID) approach, gender policy advocates have historically sought to position women as active contributors to development and to draw attention to key issues in policy environments that do not fully embrace gender equality (Razavi & Miller 1995; Baden & Goetz 1998). While these efforts have increased the number of women in governance, it is difficult to discern whether they have resulted in laws and policies that are more responsive to women’s priorities (World Bank 2011; Domingo et al. 2015; Evans & Nambiar 2013). By contrast, more recent approaches to policy design and implementation, illustrated by the examples in this note, emphasise the co-creation of equitable policy environments by engaging both men and women.
This section will provide you with the very basics you need to know about RAS policy. It contains general definitions and approaches to policy, as well as general and overarching background knowledge you need to be familiar with in order to get engaged in policy processes.