Women Empowered in their Vulnerability : An In-depth Case Study about the Framing of Gender in the EU’s Development Cooperation with Ethiopia

Abstract: The overall aim of this master’s thesis is to increase our understanding about the framing of gender in EU’s development policies. To reflect to this aim, the thesis examines how gender is framed in EU’s development cooperation with Ethiopia in the governance sector. The EU is collectively the biggest donor for international aid in the world, while claiming to be “a global front-runner” in promoting gender equality as a key political objective of its external action. However, previous research has criticized the EU’s gender policies, explaining that gender is not mainstreamed in all the policies and that gender equality is often motivated on instrumentalist arguments. The previous research is however somewhat outdated, lacking the consideration of effects of the SDG’s and the improved gender equality policies by the EU. Previous studies are furthermore mostly concerned with country comparisons and therefore selecting one field of study and one country could shed light to matters that may have been left unnoticed in previous research. Therefore, based on previous research and theories focusing on gender equality and development, WID and GAD, this study analyses how the EU is framing gender. This study is designed as an in-depth case study which uses a frame analysis and interviews as a method to study the research question. The main findings of this study are that both references to WID and GAD framing of gender are actively used in EU’s development policies. Even though these approaches are contradictory in many ways they seem to be overlapping in several cases, presenting women as a vulnerable group that needs to be empowered. Arguments for WID approach include instrumentalist arguments, women seen ass add-ons’ to the development structures, women seen as a vulnerable and homogenized group and the effects of the girl effect. Arguments supporting GAD approach include women’s rights framing, patriarchal system framing, women’s empowerment framing and the social justice framing.