How is gender inequality represented? : A policy study of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

Abstract: Policies are often seen as a response to existing issues, wheras in this study polices are understood as a productive process, that not only addresses a pre-existing problem, but that construct the problem through how it is represented in the policy (Bacchi, Eveline, 2010: 18). Based on this, the study examines how gender inequality is represented in a number of policies and reports from the UN Development Programme, UNDP, published between 2018 and 2021.UNDP is one of the largest entities within the international development world, and its policies has the potential to impact millions of people around the world. By asking what is the problem represented to be? (WPR) it is possible to uncover underlying assumptions on which the understanding that produces the problem of gender inequality, rests. The effects of these assumptions, implicit understandings of a problem, come to determine what is being done about it. Many policies addressing gender inequality attempt to identify how actions can be taken with less negative effect on the targeted group, mainly women, instead of asking how the policies themselves are connected to reproducing the problem (Bacchi et al. 2010: 120).   This study finds that the underlying premises of how gender inequality is represented by UNDP results in proposed actions that risk conflating women and gender, while promoting activities that at large aim to include women into existing structures, rather than being a driver for examining underlying causes of gender inequality.