GENDER AND SOCIAL INCLUSION

Gender equality and social inclusion are both standalone development objectives and cross-cutting imperatives that shape outcomes across every sector. RMI provides specialist research, evaluation, and advisory services in gender and social inclusion for the full range of development actors, including UN Women, UNFPA, UNICEF, bilateral donors, and regional bodies such as SADC and the African Union.

Across Southern and East Africa, structural gender inequalities — rooted in discriminatory laws, patriarchal norms, unequal distribution of unpaid care work, and gender-based violence — continue to limit the agency, opportunity, and wellbeing of women and girls. Social exclusion on the basis of disability, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and economic status compounds these inequalities. Development programmes that do not explicitly address these structural barriers tend to reproduce and entrench them, even when their nominal objectives are gender-neutral.

RMI provides a comprehensive suite of consulting services to the full range of development actors operating in this sector:

• Gender assessments and gender audits of programmes and organisations
• GBV incidence surveys and safety audits
• Women’s empowerment assessments (using tools like GEWE, WEAI, SWPER)
• Social norm change programme evaluations
• Gender-responsive budgeting analysis
• Disability-inclusive programme evaluations
• Gender equality policy reviews for government ministries
• Intersectionality analysis in programme design and evaluation
• Safe spaces programme assessments
• Gender and social inclusion strategy development for INGOs and NGOs