Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women and Girls: The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD’s) Guidance for Development Partners—A Critical Assessment of Its Relevance to Combat Entrenched Gender Bias

The full enjoyment of all women’s and girls’ human rights, gender equality, and empowerment are all universal ideals in and of themselves. They were outlined in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. They are also necessary for economic progress, sustainable development, and leaving no one behind. For members of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) and other development partners working to advance gender equality, Gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls: Guidance for development partners serves as a helpful handbook. This advice was created with the programme cycle in mind, as well as other factors including the policy framework, analysis, design, and execution, as well as learning and assessment. It outlines the problems of how to best set up the internal organisational processes necessary to deliver on gender equality in all development and humanitarian assistance operations, as well as potential for boosting funding for gender equality with and beyond official development assistance (ODA). Effective development cooperation is based on strong leadership commitment and a solid policy framework that recognises the value of gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. Members of the DAC are concentrating on gender-related inequities in light of the international resolve to leave no one behind. The necessity for transformational change is also widely acknowledged. In order to achieve transformative change for gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, this Guidance outlines strategies for development partners to address unequal power relations and damaging structures and norms as well as entranced gender bias. Against the above backdrop, this chapter aims at critically analysing the significance and relevance of this Guidance in the combat against entrenched gender bias. It provides recommendations pertaining to whether this Guidance can be used in a contextualised manner for countries to adapt their legal framework accordingly to ensure that entrenched gender bias is eliminated from societies.