One of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), and which cuts cross all of them, is to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. This stems in part from the (sometimes difficult) lessons learned over decades from developmental programs, which lead to the recognition that sustainable development cannot be achieved without gender equality. Women’s movements, feminist contributions and academic research, have all contributed to a greater awareness and understanding of the role of gender inequalities in keeping individuals and societies impoverished and oppressed.

The ZEF Strategy 2021 – 2030 highlights the importance of identifying and anticipating inequality and dependencies, as well as designing approaches to eliminate social and political exclusion, lack of equitable opportunity and various forms of discrimination, including gender discrimination, in low income and emerging economy countries. ZEF plans to draw on its considerable experience gained over the last 10 to 15 years in innovative research methodologies, and impact orientation in several areas, including gender. This necessitates, among other things, engagement with critical debates on development, postcolonial approaches, and gender and intersectionality concerns.

The ZEF Gender Group (ZEF GG) initiated its activities in early 2020 with the aim to strengthen gender-sensitive research at ZEF and to promote interdisciplinary collaboration on gender issues among ZEF researchers. The Senior and Junior Researchers of the ZEF GG acknowledge that academia has an important role to play in the transformative process of achieving a world where everyone has equal access to rights and resources regardless of gender (gender equality). The ZEF GG believes that more research on the complexities of gender relationships is needed, as well as strong empirical evidences on how to eliminate gender inequalities and change social norms. In this vein, it is important to have a conversation on gender and gender-sensitive research among ZEF researchers, which is why we are organizing this workshop on “Gender in ZEF: sharing concepts and insights in development research”.

Far from evaluating conceptualizations and methodologies on gender-related research within ZEF research projects, this workshop will be a forum for sharing and engaging on what and how we are approaching the gender dimensions of research within the institute. The results of this workshop would be systematized, without specifying project names, but rather as general lessons learned.

The objectives of the workshop

Promote the gender-sensitive research among ZEF staff by exchanging and systematizing experiences, tools and methodological approaches on the integration of gender dimensions in research projects and doctoral theses.

Specific objectives are as follows:

• Identify and map women- and gender-related studies and research at ZEF,
• Identify and share research methodologies and tools on gender-sensitive research applied at ZEF,
• Identify best practices and gaps in gender-sensitive research at ZEF,
• Strengthen the work of the ZEF gender group by increasing the visibility of gender as a relevant research area,
• Collect information towards a systematic summary on ZEF’s gender-sensitive research.

Outcomes.

• A working paper on ZEF’s gender sensitive research, including best practices and gaps (no names or projects will be specified).
• A video systematising the event.

Methodology

The workshop will take place on Thursday and Friday May 27-28, 2021 from 2 pm to 4.30 pm CEST. It is an internal event for ZEF staff; former staff and researchers working with ZEF are also welcome. Each day will initiate with a 15-minute introductory speech, followed by presentations and discussions among ZEF researchers.

We envisage from five to seven presentations during the first day, and 10 to 14 presentations in two parallel sessions during the second day, with 15-min break each day.