Is the Push for Gender Sensitive Research Advancing the SDG Agenda of Leaving No One Behind?

Abstract

Following decades of advocacy, collecting sex-disaggregated data and conducting gender analyses have become an expected aspect of research in development studies. We strongly support this shift, yet it has focused attention upon one manifestation of inequality. We explore five dimensions of inequality, as expressed in health metrics in Ethiopia, to highlight diverse manifestations of inequalities. We call for a broader approach to understanding inequalities and how the simultaneous experience of multiple, intersecting inequalities, is greater than their sum. This shift is essential to support the ‘leave no one behind’ agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Keywords:

• social inequalities
• social differentiation
• gender
• health
• Ethiopia

Acknowledgements

Field-level insights presented in this paper are drawn from research fieldwork carried out under the Adaptation at Scale in Semi-Arid Regions (ASSAR) project, one of the four research programs under the Collaborative Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia (CARIAA). We are thankful to the UK Government's Department for International Development and the International Development Research Centre, Canada, for this financial support. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors, and do not necessarily represent those of DfID and IDRC.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Logan Cochrane

Logan Cochrane is a Banting Fellow at Carleton University. For the last 12 years, he has worked with non-governmental organizations, including in Afghanistan, Benin, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda.

Nitya Rao

Nitya Rao is Professor of Gender and Development at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. Committed to gender equality, her current research interests include exploring the gendered changes in land and agrarian relations, migration and livelihoods, education, intra-household relations and identities.