The Gender Dimension in Sustainability Policies and Their Evaluation

Dear Colleagues,

To overcome the current challenges caused by climate change and COVID-19, societal as well as economic transformation are necessary. In order to prevent the unintended consequences of policies aiming at transformation, it is necessary to take a comprehensive perspective which pursues several SDGs simultaneously. The World in 2050 report (2018: 5) formulates as one of its key messages that transformations to achieve the sustainable development goals require a holistic perspective. “The 2030 Agenda is holistic with deep and complex interactions across the SDG domains. (…) Focusing on individual or selected SDGs—be this during policy analysis or implementation—comes with the danger of adverse side effects related to other SDG domains or missing out and potential synergies and the resulting multiple co-benefits.”

A main driver for societal change in the recent past can be attributed to women—their increasing participation in education and employment, their claim for an equal share of resources and the equal appreciation of their contribution. Developing just solutions combatting the socio-ecological crisis also requires the inclusion of and contribution to women. At the political level, this is reflected in the formulation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as one of the 17 SDGs focuses on gender equality—mainly on equality between women and men. The other SDGs contain a gender dimension which must not be overlooked (Lee, Pollitzer 2020). Furthermore, a broad consensus is reached in science and innovation policy that engaging diverse social groups has a positive impact on policy making as well as innovation (EC 2020).

Several linkages between SDGs are obvious as well as the related gender dimension: quality education (Goal 4), decent work and economic growth (Goal 8), the prevention of poverty and hunger (Goals 1 and 2) are linked with each other as well as with gender equality (Goal 5) and reduced inequalities (Goal 10). However, we are still far away from the ideal world where the gender dimension is considered a standard in policy making, the development and implementation of concrete measures as well as their evaluation. Ignoring the gender dimension may lead to policies or measures strengthening existing gender imbalances, missing their transformative potential or to biased evaluations.

Following this, adequately considering the gender dimension becomes a fundamental requirement for transformative policies aiming at sustainable development. Hence, not only policy development and implementation, but also its evaluation needs to be gendered.

The scope of this Special Issue is to provide a platform for researchers to share their innovative work, in the form of conceptual and research articles, about the gender dimension in sustainability polices and their evaluation. We strongly encourage papers which consider the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as papers which take a comparative perspective (e.g., between countries, North–South, policy fields). This Special Issue will focus on (but is not limited to) the following topics:

• Conceptual or theoretical discussions linking gender equality and sustainability in specific areas;
• Discussions of gendered sustainability policies from a non-binary or feminist perspective;
• Analysis of the marginalisation of gender issues and limited effects of gender equality in sustainability policies;
• Integration of the gender dimension in evaluations focusing on other SDGs;
• Methodological discussions and good practices regarding gender indicators in the context of sustainability;
• Generalised discussions of gendered sustainability policies considering potential hindrances and success factors;
• Good practice examples of evaluations of policies focusing on SDG5.

References

European Commission (2020), Gendered Innovations 2: How Inclusive Analysis Contributes to Research and Innovation, Report by the H2020 Expert Group to update and expand “Gendered Innovations/ Innovation through Gender”, Brussels [https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/research_and_innovation/strategy_on_research_and_innovation/documents/ki0320108enn_final.pdf]

Lee, Heisook; Pollizter, Elisabeth (eds.) (2020), Applying gender lenses to the interlinkages and synergies between SDGs. Making sure that Agenda 2030 will not leave women behind, Seoul: Center for Gendered Innovations in Science and Technology Research [https://portiaweb.org.uk/assets/docs/Applying_gender_lens_to_the_interlinkages_and_synergies_betweenSDGs.pdf].

TWI2050 – The World in 2050 (2018), Transformations to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Report prepared by the World in 2050 initiative. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria. www.twi2050.org [http://pure.iiasa.ac.at/15347]

UN Women (2020), PROGRESS ON THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALSTHE GENDER SNAPSHOT 2020, New York: United Nations [https://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/library/publications/2020/progress-on-the-sustainable-development-goals-the-gender-snapshot-2020-en.pdf?la=en&vs=127]

Dr. Angela Wroblewski
Univ.-Doz Beate Littig
Dr. Astrid Segert
Guest Editors

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• sustainable development
• gender equality
• SDGs
• socio–ecologic transformation
• evaluation
• comparative approaches
• gender indicators