Growing development needs are facing shrinking budgets. Social impact ecosystem experiences increasing pressure to deliver more with less, while also facing growing sensitivities on gender-related projects. Rather than pulling back, this moment presents an opportunity: systematically integrating a gender lens across development programs offers a powerful but underused lever to enhance impact.
The So What
Women are core to development efforts—not only as members of vulnerable groups, but also as catalysts of progress. When they advance, entire communities move forward. Without this lens, impact falls short of its full potential.
The World Bank estimates that if female employment and entrepreneurship rates were to match those of men, global GDP could increase by more than 20%.
The economic logic is straightforward: women’s economic empowerment (WEE) multiplies impact, benefiting underprivileged groups, communities, and entire economies.
This does not mean shifting focus exclusively to women. Rather, it means systematically ensuring that women are equally included and benefit throughout. This approach is known as gender mainstreaming—the intentional integration of gender considerations across projects, programs, tools, and policies.
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The Backdrop
Women moved to the center of the sustainable development agenda beginning in 1995, when the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action was adopted at the UN’s Fourth World Conference on Women. This catalyzed a wave of targeted initiatives—from microfinance in South Asia to vocational training in East Africa—which demonstrated tangible impact. But while targeted interventions delivered local impact, they were insufficient to dismantle systemic barriers such as restrictive norms and institutional inertia. This led to the start of stronger gender mainstreaming in the 2010s. Since then, funding of projects mainstreaming gender tripled in absolute terms, from $20 billion (2010–2011) to $63 billion (2022–2023), moving from a share of 24% to 42%. (See Exhibit 1.)
Initially driven by donors and women-focused players like UN Women, especially in fragile settings, mainstreaming gained traction in the 2010s as large donor states such as Canada and Sweden adopted more “feminist” foreign policies. Such policies seek to integrate gender equality into all areas of foreign policy, helping to ensure that peace negotiations and development assistance benefit everyone by paying attention to the persistent inequalities faced by women and girls. In the Global South, Mexico became the first country to adopt a feminist foreign policy in 2020, and countries such as Rwanda also integrated gender-sensitive policies into national strategies.
Dive Deeper
Most development actors now reference gender and WEE in their strategies. Still, in many cases, women-related considerations are addressed in targeted projects and included as an afterthought in reporting, without a clear theory of change or institutional accountability. There are success stories―organizations that consistently embed WEE in a structured, system-wide way, with dedicated resources, technical capacity, and focus on measurable results.
Understanding how different organizations approach women’s economic empowerment is critical to advancing more integrated and effective WEE models. (See Exhibit 2.)
- Transactionals do not integrate WEE in their core mission. They may have targeted projects for women when requested by donors and measure impact on women to meet reporting requirements.
- Aspirationals recognize WEE as a strategic priority and integrate a WEE angle at project level, developing pilots or flagship initiatives, showcasing WEE-specific approaches. However, while commitment is genuine, there is still much room to strengthen organizational structures and systems to achieve greater impact.
- Pioneers integrate WEE as key lens guiding how programs are designed, delivered, and evaluated. They stand out by going beyond programs and institutionalizing WEE in their core identity and organization.
Now What
In BCG’s experience of working with international organizations, moving from intention to action demands a deliberate effort across organizational layers, leveraging committed leadership, accountability, capability building, and WEE-specific monitoring. (See Exhibit 3.)
- Committed Leadership. Mainstreaming WEE starts with strong top-level commitment and the conviction that it is core to the organization’s impact—not an add-on. This foundational belief enables end-to-end integration, where gender is embedded from the top and informs decisions across portfolio planning, programming, and resource allocation.
- Accountability. Achieving meaningful integration of WEE requires clear accountability frameworks and aligned incentives across the organization. WEE should be embedded into planning processes, performance evaluations, and goal setting at every level. Progress must be tracked against defined targets, with regular reviews to assess whether gender considerations are being effectively applied.
- Capability Building. Achieving meaningful results requires not only skills but also a clear understanding of how gender inclusion amplifies overall project impact. Organizations should ensure that WEE becomes part of the core mindset and capabilities of project managers and staff. This means building awareness of the strategic value of gender, supported by tailored training, practical tools, and ongoing learning—reaching beyond gender specialists to those delivering on the ground.
- Measurement with a Learning Mindset. Measurement is essential—but too often risks becoming a tick-the-box exercise. Effective monitoring requires capturing deeper dimensions such as agency, decision making, social norms, and learning outcomes through mixed methods. Crucially, measurement should be used as a tool for dialogue: How did we achieve the target? If not, why? What can we improve? This learning-oriented approach ensures that measurement continuously feeds back into research and program design—creating a loop of ongoing improvement and stronger impact.
Mainstreaming WEE is a powerful driver of impact which remains underutilized across much of the development sector. To realize its full potential, it must be embedded across strategies, systems, and operations—not as an add-on, but as a fundamental approach.
