How we’re putting women at the centre so the world works better for everyone

For society to work, it must work well for everyone. Yet gender equality is still far from being achieved, and in some places, years of progress are being reversed, which is truly appalling. This reality requires urgent action.

Women are central to driving social and economic progress, but in many cases, they are held back from fulfilling their potential. Gender equality is not just about fairness—it is vital for ending poverty, adapting to climate change, and creating a world that works better for everyone. (For more on this, you can read our detailed reasons here.)

At Practical Action, we work hard to ensure that women and men have opportunities to develop and to lead at every level. Currently, the majority of our global, regional and country leaders are women, and we have an African woman chair on our board.

We also ensure this is reflected in our partnerships and the people we work with (read more about this below).

There was a time when I believed we had won the argument, as progress went in the right direction, albeit too slowly.

But today, harassment, sexual violence, and repression are still commonplace, and although they should have no place in any society, we’re now seeing horrifying backwards steps.

According to the UN:

• 1 in 10 women live in extreme poverty
• 1 in 3 women are victims of violence
• The number of women and girls living in conflict-affected areas has doubled since 2017. In conflict areas, women are 7.7 times more likely to live in extreme poverty
• Climate change is set to leave 236 million more women and girls hungry by 2030, compared to 131 million men

This trend is shocking, and these statistics highlight that we still have much to do. Tackling gender inequality must be at the centre of everything—our people, our culture, and our organisational goals.

The challenges are immense, but so are the opportunities for change. Across the globe, Practical Action has been transforming the lives of women, and while there’s progress to celebrate, there’s also much to learn.

Below, I will highlight where we’ve made a difference, examine areas where we’ve fallen short, and explore the reasons behind those struggles.

Finally, I will underline where I feel Practical Action’s gender-focused approach must concentrate in future.

What’s going well?

For decades, we have known that the impact of climate change hits the most vulnerable the hardest. As the statistics above show, women are, on average, more likely to be vulnerable members of society—they are poorer, less likely to be educated, and have fewer opportunities. Consequently, women are hit harder by severe bouts of weather, including dramatic events (such as flooding or wildfires) or prolonged incidents (such as droughts). Women are often vulnerable to acts of violence when they need to take emergency shelter. Climate change also forces many men to seek additional income in urban areas, leaving women behind in vulnerable areas to look after children, the elderly, and their land.

Our years of experience creating resilience to extreme weather events and supporting communities in adapting to climate change mean that we have numerous examples of good practice.

In Nepal, our programmes to support rural women, the mainstay of the farming sector, includes a partnership with local organisations who help women better understand their rights. We help grow confidence in technology, create more opportunities through updated farming techniques and access to markets; and by training in careers such as agrovets, women are able to develop new skills and income opportunities without having to leave the area.

We’re also creating opportunities by improving online skills and introducing digital financial access. Working with both men and women, we’re supporting communities to change traditional dynamics so that women can become decision makers when it comes to family businesses and finances.

In Bangladesh, we’ve been partnering with women to support them to better adapt to changing weather patterns. They showed me how they now grow different crops, to maintain—and even improve–their income in the face of heavier, less predictable, rainfall. I saw how, by being linked to early warning systems, they’re protecting their assets much more effectively when extreme weather hits.

Nearby, women have also been instrumental in voicing their concern at the design of flood shelters, where many had been victims of sexual violence. Working with us, they were playing an instrumental role in adapting designs to make their shelters into a safer haven.

On the other side of the world, in Bolivia, all-women brigades have taken up the mantle of protecting the indigenous Tacana communities from flooding, as well as supporting each other to rebuild after wildfires destroyed farms, crops, and decades of hard work. They continued this work despite male members of the team dropping out. In addition to alerting their community to danger as soon as possible, women also took responsibility for designing shelters to include space to cook and live in.

In the west of Africa, in Burkina Faso, we have teamed up with incredible community-based organisations led by women. With their help, communities designed a programme of work which included community ovens powered by solar, biogas production from kitchen waste and food processing. We worked in markets which were relatively straightforward for women to enter, such as shea butter, vegetable farming, and post-harvest food processing. This, combined with our work linking irrigation powered by renewable energy and climate adaptive agriculture techniques, has transformed the ability of thousands of women in Burkina Faso to earn money and start their own small businesses.

Why good partnerships are essential

Community based organisations are vital partners for organisations like ours, and it is particularly important to have good partners who understand women’s needs and priorities in specific contexts—a skill which is all too rare in many development programmes. Together, we can unlock solutions, deliver effective programmes which are specifically tailored to the community, talk to the right decision makers, and provide the evidence needed to create change at scale.

Unfortunately, examples like our project in Burkina Faso are not always the norm.

We know many women do not find it easy to discuss their issues and learn about potential solutions when talking to men. We cannot transform the lives of vulnerable women without working with women who understand their lives. And at every level, many organisations don’t prioritise this enough.

Community based organisations can reflect existing social norms which don’t recognise women’s needs and issues, don’t think they are important, or if they do find it difficult to recruit women and so remain very male dominated.

What drives this problem and what can we do about it?

When I explore the reasons for this problem, they are often deeply ingrained culturally, interconnected, and complex.

Cultural practices influence women’s expectations. Access to advanced education for girls, gender-based violence, family commitments, and poverty all contribute to further marginalising women, and they are often exacerbated by other factors such as rapid urbanisation, conflict, and land ownership.

It means there are fewer women actively applying for professional and leadership roles, or for development and community-based roles where there are often expectations of significant travel. It takes effort to employ an equal mix of men and women and organisations often don’t prioritise this.

To remodel this situation requires a commitment to doing things differently. Organisations need to be more imaginative in how they recruit and organise work. As well as understanding childcare and other family responsibilities, we need to think about how we organise teams, what type of travel is required and by whom. And we need a willingness to place value in a range of skills, rather than just professional qualifications and what’s actually necessary for the role in question.

However, far too often, I hear explanations of why it is impossible to employ women and work with them.

Too rarely do I hear those who lead these organisations commit to changing the system by proactively challenging the situation and testing out different ways of recruiting and working.

None of this is straightforward, but it is essential.

Priorities for Practical Action: leadership and collaboration are crucial

It is up to organisations like Practical Action to look ahead and create change. We, therefore, must:

• Partner with more women-led community-based organisations, contributing to the access to the finance and training they need to be able to flourish
• Support women so they can grow and develop and take greater leadership roles directly and within partnerships
• Advocate with and support partners at all levels, including community-based organisations and national and international partners, to develop a more equal mix of women and men at every level, including the leadership level and with staff interacting directly with community members
• Hold to account, challenge, and ultimately reject those who refuse to proactively change their approach

At Practical Action we need to continue to review the roles we play in supporting partners, ensuring that our work is community-led, focused on the needs of the most vulnerable people, and delivers for women as well as men. And we must ensure that we assess outcomes throughout and adapt as required.

We must ask ourselves crucial gender-specific questions:

1. Have we created more opportunities for women?
2. Have we enabled women to do more and live safer lives?
3. Is our work shifting practices so that women can earn better incomes, be more productive, and become confident leaders in their own communities and beyond?

The answers to these three questions will guide us forward. Because when women thrive, communities thrive—and that’s a future worth fighting for.