Giving Compass' Take:

• Devex details the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency's commitment to gender equality, with an emphasis on empowerment and holding governments accountable in this area.

• Two aspects criticized as missing from many donors when it comes to women's rights funding is length and flexibility. SIDA thinks longterm and has more context specific projects.

• For more on why investing in women is so important, read this article.

Within the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, the common refrain is that gender mainstreaming is so integral to the organization that “it’s in the walls,” said Anna Collins-Falk, senior policy specialist for gender equality at SIDA.

Collins-Falk, who recently returned to Sweden after years with the United Nations, noted that it would be easy to assume that the agency has all the answers it needs when it comes to funding gender equality, considering the Scandinavian country’s globally recognized feminist foreign policy under Minister for Foreign Affairs Margot Wallström.

“Everyone is so positive towards it, everyone wants to do it, but it doesn’t always mean you know how,” Collins-Falk said of SIDA’s gender contributions. “There’s a certain complacency in saying well ‘we’re good at this, we’re already doing it.’ Whereas you can never forget you have to keep working at it because there are always new challenges that emerge, whether on gender-based violence, or in conflict settings or protracted humanitarian crises.”

Collins-Falk traces SIDA’s commitment to gender equality in development cooperation to “our own long hard work we’ve been doing in Sweden to change social norms and equality,” she said. “It’s still a challenge at home sometimes as well.”

Read the full article about SIDA's approach to gender equality funding by Kelli Rogers at Devex International Development.